vBulletin Forum Size and Pruning

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  • Shaun Lyon
    Member
    • Apr 2004
    • 70
    • 3.0.0 'Gold'

    vBulletin Forum Size and Pruning

    I run a very large vBulletin 3.0.7 board at gallifreyone.com/forum with 10,705 Members, 944,059 Total Messages. The size of the database is currently 1.3 gigs. We don't allow attachments; that's just the message base size.

    I'm on a very powerful server but things slow down a little here and there and I'm wondering... should I start pruning things away? I hate to do it, but that nearly 1 million messages has been posted only in twelve months and we continue to have massive numbers of messages posted each day.

    I'm interested in hearing what you may think... should I prune away about half of that, or is it okay to continue with messages for some time?
  • Dennis Olson
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2002
    • 2789

    #2
    The database is event-driven, so prunig has no effect. As long as no one requests a thread, it lays there in the database. What you need to consider is:

    - Bandwidth usage vs max pipe capacity

    - CPU and RAM installed on the server

    - Splitting into a database server + a web-side server

    (My forum is 1.35 million posts and an 18 Gb database.)

    Comment

    • Shaun Lyon
      Member
      • Apr 2004
      • 70
      • 3.0.0 'Gold'

      #3
      Well, so far we haven't had problems except on very busy days (we have events that are currently happening that bring 800-900 people on board.)

      I don't think we have had any bandwidth problems yet as I have the bandwidth that we need (I don't know what "max pipe capacity" is I'm afraid!) The CPU and Ram seem to be okay for the number of members.

      Obviously you're doing okay with your forum -- I take it the reason for it being 18 GB in size is because of attachments? (Mine is 1.3 GB with a million posts, but I think it's because we don't have attachments.) So, keeping the posts there not being accessed isn't a problem, then?

      Comment

      • Dennis Olson
        Senior Member
        • Oct 2002
        • 2789

        #4
        So, keeping the posts there not being accessed isn't a problem, then?

        Nope. One thing to bear in mind: the SEARCH function is a real resource hog. There have been times when my board is so busy that I've had to temporarily turn it off.

        And swithing to a multi-server setup also took a lot of the pressure off. That's because a server optimized for seb-side is NOT optimized for database, and vice versa. Separating them allows me to handle 1 Mbps I/O rate (95th percentile) with two dual-CPU P4/866's. The database server has 2 Gb RAM, and the web-side server has 1 Gb.

        Comment

        • marcjd
          Senior Member
          • Jan 2003
          • 191
          • 3.8.x

          #5
          My question is with respect to db size and trying to fix a very large db. For some reason it takes hours and hours to try and repair a db...especially the access table. My db is a few gb's with around 400,000 posts. While pruning my not help with cpu usage it has become almost necessary when a db problem arises. Any suggestions on trying to repair a very large db and minimize downtime?

          Thanks.
          Marc

          U.S. Politics Online

          Comment

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