Hosting Suggestions?

[Hawkmaster]

I currently have a site with just over 5000 members and growing each day by 5 to 20 people. The site has over 15,000 threads and posts: 270,000 odd?

My members upload their pictures and discuss their passion, falconry.

What I would like to know is what would an ideal hosting package be to handle the site as it is but one that is also flexible to be able to grow? I would also like to add a customn skin, blog and photo gallery.

Many thanks
Paul
falconryforum.co.uk

[Hawkmaster]

Does it have to be a dedicated server package?

[RichM]

Hi there,

You should not double post on these forums, it's frowned upon. It's best to edit your previous post.

In response to your question, it would be better if you provided more information, this would enable people to provide better advice.

- How many people are typically online? (Keeping in mind the default 20 min cookie timeout)
- How much bandwidth do you use?

EDIT: I just looked at the forum linked in your sig. If that's the site in question, I would suggest a dedicated server. Not just for running your website, but to handle backups effectively too. You could get away with a good hosting package and a tolerant host, but I would not recommend this for your site.

[Hawkmaster]

My apologies for the double post

The forum has moved on now and we have 200 to 400 members online most the time but our posts have now increased to over a million with over 17 thousand odd members.

I have been told I comfortably can get away with a VPS?

[Homeworld'sa]

Okay and what need was there to go and necro such an old thread?

[z0diac]

Your hosting package would depend on 3 things:

1: # of users online at once - this is what a fast CPU and more RAM is needed for
2: Hard drive space + bandwidth - if there is a lot of large attachment downloads, you'll need both of these.

If you have little knowledge with linux/windows server, I would go with a shared hosting plan. (try 1and1.com)

If you want to keep your costs down at the beginning with room to expand if needed, you'll need a dedicated server so the host can upgrade the hardware as you need it upgraded.

If you have less than say... 1000 users online at once, you should be ok with any mid-range CPU. I've got an old Intel Xeon 3.2 server and it handles 3 vB forums, one which has ~300 users online at once, but has OVER 250,000 ATTACHMENTS, all with thumbnails, which is massively CPU intensive with mySQL queries for all those thumbnails. And it runs fine. If I didn't have all the attachments and users were more busy entering/reading threads, I could probably increase my simultaneous users online 10 fold and still be comfortable.

I would check your usage statistics (my Plesk webstats are GREAT) which will show you how much daily/monthly bandwidth you're using right now. From that you should be able to judge what type of bandwidth plan to get. Remember, bandwidth is a LOT easier (depending on host) to upgrade than your CPU.

But if your forum is mostly people reading and entering messages, with not a lot of attachments, I'd go for more CPU+RAM and less disk space + bandwidth. Text takes zero bandwidth compared to a forum where attachments are popular.

[z0diac]

My apologies for the double post

The forum has moved on now and we have 200 to 400 members online most the time but our posts have now increased to over a million with over 17 thousand odd members.

I have been told I comfortably can get away with a VPS?

A million posts and 17K members isn't much. The # posts is fair but if it's all text posts you won't need much disk space as long as they're not uploading big attachments each post. 17k members is a relatively small member base which won't use much drive space, so don't worry about that.

With only 200-400 online at once, and text-based threads, a lower end dedicated server would be fine for your needs.

And 200-400 online at once can be handled easily by even lower-end CPUs. You'll just need some RAM as each connection requires a bit of memory.

[z0diac]

Okay and what need was there to go and necro such an old thread?

Ouch! I never even saw the thread date of his original post. Hah. (my forum auto-locks threads older than 90 days so reviving a dead thread isn't a problem )

[funmasti]

which server u r using currently ? shared or VPS?