anyone have any idea how big in size forums can get. For example, I am looking to using IkonBoard, with an estimated 2,000 members. Does Ikonboard use space wisely?

Any idea how much space this kind of forum can use?

Thanks.

It's really hard to forecast the size of a database (for a forum). The thing that takes the most space is usually the posts. Depending on your topic, the posts could be very small or extremely large.

The numer of users is not usually a big factor. You store very little information about the users.

It's the number of post * the size of the post that eats up space.

Frank

Generally 10,000 posts eats 10MB of mySQL space.

my forum has 6200 posts but takes 11.6MB already... may be too much pictures or something.

I got 58,000 posts and the size is 50MB (Without the search index,avatar,attachment,admin log and words tables)

Great, thanks. It sorta gives me a sense of what to expect. Really appreciate your help.

So, I guess vBulletin is the best forum software to have, since I see most heavyweight forums using it (WHT, SitePoint, etc)??

ikonboard will plonk out on you when you get too many members... you need a forum that uses a real database ... not flat-file.

Ikonboard eats up CPU resources like a .......err........ CPU resource eating thing :D

With the release of Ikonboard RC1 they have added mySQL support.

Originally posted by Magic
ikonboard will plonk out on you when you get too many members... you need a forum that uses a real database ... not flat-file.

Ikonboard eats up CPU resources like a .......err........ CPU resource eating thing :D

This was true a while ago, but with the release of RC1 and SQL support, the board is very smooth and not a hog like it was at one point. It is much like VB now in terms of resources used.

yeah, Ikonboard may be the best board in CGI with database supported. I've seen many forums with 60 and over concurrent users and still runs at okay speed.

But again, server confirguation can make big different, the top of the line dedicated machine runs UBB still faster than sucky shared-hosting runs vB with the same traffic, members, concurrent users, I believe. And we never know what kind of server they're running their site on.

if you are trying to limit size of your forum you could create a stored procedure or a script that deletes threads older than X amount of days ....

this will keep your database under its limits without having to worry about checking it everyday to see if you are over your limit ...