Wow. My first time posting. Kinda scary.:eek:

Anyways, I currently run a site for a mailing list I'm on. I want to vastly improve it, but from what I can tell, the improvements I wish to make will require paid hosting (the site is currently at Angelfire). It's an fan fiction archive site, but it will expand to include fan art, writer resources, and some other little things.

I already know that I'll need quite a bit of server space as the site expands.

I'm curious about calculating bandwidth, from what I can tell, it's mostly members of the list who visit the site. There's about 200 of them. What will most likely eat up my bandwidth is people viewing pictures. Does 2gigs of bandwidth sound reasonable? Too much? Too little?

I eventually plan to have a search function on the site. Is CGI the best way to go about implementing search? If not, what program/software is?

I also plan to go to a database system in the future (my main reason for getting on to paid hosting). I know next to nothing about databases at the moment. What exactly is required? Types of software? Hardware? Etc...

The reason I ask all of this is that I'm trying to narrow my list of hosting providers. I need to know what kind of software and hardware requirements I'll need for the search and database functions so that I can take that into consideration when choosing a host and a plan.

Thanks,
Ryka

2 Gigs of Bandwidth: If your average picture size is 35k, and your average page size is 20k, you need to figure out how many pages that are 55k you can view. With 2 GB, you would be allowed ~36,000 page views per month. As long as the 200 or so members aren't on the website viewing every page every day, you could suffice with 2 GB.

Search Function: You can use whatever language the webhost is capable of running. ASP/PERL-CGI/PHP are all acceptable search engine languages and probably the most popular, unless you are a Java developer.


Database: No "special" hardware is required for database use other than a server capable of a MySQL installation which is the database I recommend if you are shopping for a Linux or Unix or BSD host, which I would recommend you do. If you know nothing about SQL or databases in general, ask your webhost what he/she can do to install PhPMyAdmin for your account. It is a graphical program that allows you to create and manipulate MySQL databases.

hope this helps,
Regards.

I think you should go with a PHP/MySQL solution for your searching and database needs...

PHP is an acronym for Hypertext Preprocessor, and this is a server-side development language like ASP and ColdFusion. PHP is completely open source so almost all hosts nowadays support it... along side PHP is MySQL which is the database solution of choice for working with PHP. MySQL is also open source, so if a host supports PHP, MySQL is almost always supported...

on the other hand, you can go for the usual cgi script search engines and MySQL also... so just look for PHP or CGI-BIN and MySQL :)

bandwidth wise, i dunno... if you don't know what your bandwidth usage will be like... the best thing to do is sign up for a moderate sized hosting account and in the future upgrade ;)

g'luck!

Originally posted by Ryka
[B]Wow. My first time posting. Kinda scary.:eek:

Ryka, WELCOME! You should only be scared if you offer hosting services :D We've got a tough crowd :uzi:

Hi Ryka,

If cost is your issue, then UNIX, PHP, CGI. MySQL are the way to go. Because these are open source, hosts who support these features can offer accounts at a relatively low price. There are also a plethora of free or low-cost "prefab" scripts available.

2 GIGs sounds sufficient for your needs, but like you said, as your site grows you will need more. So, when investigating a host be sure to look into how much bandwidth is over and above your allotment and what there upgrade/downgrade policy.

Thats what I can think of at the moment.

Thanks,
Patrick