I need a host with room to grow, plus other questions about switching/migrating

[Joey Link]

Well guys, to make this short, my site has huge problems. We're fortunate enough to be growing extremely fast (31 new members just today) but there are so many users online all the time that we're getting the dreaded "Too many connections /<edited>/<edited>/html/forum/includes/class_core.php on line 311" error. It's not happening just once or twice, I'm talking the site was down for half the day today due to this.

I've known I was going to have to switch for a while, but I've been extremely scared of screwing something up in the process. Before I continue, here are the forum stats:

Age: 5 months, 7 days
Threads: 2,594
Posts: 22,797
Members: 942

This thing is snowballing faster than I ever thought it would, and I need to get the hosting under control. Right now I'm on a shared hosting plan with aplus.net for $35-$50 per month. They offer 250GB of disk space, 2500GB monthly transfer, and unlimited emails. They've been great to me, but I can't keep bouncing off the CPU limit on a daily basis. Here is what I'm looking for in a host:

- A stable, professional company. I don't want to be dealing with a bunch of 16 year olds running this out of their parents basement.
- Adequate disk space with redundancy in case of a hard drive failure.
- 24/7 Tech Support (live chat preferred)
- Unlimited email addresses.
- Host Managed. As busy as I am promoting the site, I don't have time to admin the server(s).
- Room to grow. Ideally I'd like to get with a host that can provide me with either a low cost dedicated server or VPS for now, but be able to offer multi-server services for when we get really big (30k-40k users? not sure when sites normally go to this type of setup) fairly easily. Basically, I don't want to have to migrate again.
- I'd prefer it be located in the Northwest, since my site is for residents of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
- Value. We don't have a ton of money right now, and I don't think that for our small 1000 user site we should be paying more than $100/mo. for now, but I could be wrong.

What do you guys suggest?

My other questions involve the migration from one host to another. How do you migrate with minimum downtime? It seems like it would be impossible to have no downtime due to the domain name transfer, am I wrong? What's the average downtime for a migration?

Thanks a ton everyone, this means the world to me.

[royo]

In order to migrate quickly you can switch your domain's TTL to a lower 1 hour value or so a day or two before the migration and when you are ready to start moving, just lock the forums table so no new posts can be made and move everything over, then just switch the DNS and on the new server have everything set to allow people to register/post/etc. if they are seeing the new server you are on they will be able to post, and until then they will probably see the old server and can only read it.

I dont know why you need unlimited email addresses, but if you are offering free email services to your members you should use google apps so you can reduce the load of the vps even more.

[gigapros]

Are you currently using CPanel? If yes, migrating to most hosts out there will be easy (we had a recent client, smoothly migrating with 1.5 million posts in vbulletin!)

Do you have access to your current DNS zones in your hosting account? If yes, point it to the new server's IP address and your move will be seamless. Good luck. :)

[URLJet]

As royo mentioned reducing your domains TTL would indeed help mitigate propagation time when switching. A good host that does not oversell their servers should be able to host a forum with several thousand members. The most important factor is the number of concurrent users at any given time. Avoid host that claim ZERO overselling yet offer unlimited domains with their hosting plans.

Good Luck :)

[aaraam]

try raajjehost.com

[schwab2clarkson]

Sign up with a proper web hosting service. That way you can grow your forum and make a cool website as well.

[Joey Link]

Thanks everyone, I got a VPS account with liquidweb.com :)

When migrating, do I need to 'install' vB again or just transfer the files, then follow the other steps of the Moving Servers tutorial?

[Joey Link]

In order to migrate quickly you can switch your domain's TTL to a lower 1 hour value or so a day or two before the migration and when you are ready to start moving, just lock the forums table so no new posts can be made and move everything over, then just switch the DNS and on the new server have everything set to allow people to register/post/etc. if they are seeing the new server you are on they will be able to post, and until then they will probably see the old server and can only read it.

I dont know why you need unlimited email addresses, but if you are offering free email services to your members you should use google apps so you can reduce the load of the vps even more.

Will this also stop them from sending PM's?