If you have approximately 6 clients with forums and at given time there are around 100 users in all sites including spiders/bots (100/6) will it eat a lot of server resources ? How much resources do I need to have ?

Thanks.

Hi.
How much are you currently using? If you are good with server managment and web sites is under your control, I think that VPS will be myuch more better. If you are not going to take care of support issues you'd better go for reseller.
What forum software is using for those forums?

I think, they require quite a good resources to run 6 forums on one server. VPS option as suggested will be best. That way each forum will have it's own processor and memory limit and can work well under high demand by users.
:)

This would mostly depend on how large the databases are, and what kind of hosting service you are using. Its always good to have a seperate database server, and even better to have 10-15k rpm disks with RAID and lots of RAM on it.

Hi.
How much are you currently using? If you are good with server managment and web sites is under your control, I think that VPS will be myuch more better. If you are not going to take care of support issues you'd better go for reseller.
What forum software is using for those forums?

All are using SMF, our current host said that we are using more than 35% of the server (probably CPU time). There are other site in it that doesn't have much visitors.

I am not good with server management and I am currently using a reseller account with 2Gb space and 40Gb bandwidth with end-user support. I currently pay $31.50/month and I need to transfer my sites before the end of the month because the host wanted me to leave when I said I would like to change package to a cheaper one when I saw it on their package list.

Before anybody cast their stone, I am not aware that my account was using more than 35% of the server, I have not been notified, emailed nor adviced regarding this matter. I only found out about this when I said that I would like to transfer to a cheaper package, because I was merely looking at the bandwidth and disk space, which is obviously way bigger and cheaper than my current package. I was interested with the package with roughly 10$ difference but has 10Gb space and 150gb bandwidth. By simply looking at it without considering the CPU usage, who would not grab the cheaper and bigger package. Probably, my mistake I shouldn't had dared to change my package.

Anyway, the reason why I looked at the current packages is because one of the site is near its limit and I end up looking for another host.

Here's the bandwidth usage of the sites last Feb. The active sites are using SMF forum. Figures are displayed on megabytes.

Site BW Usage Limit Percentage
1. 22756.56 30000 75% used
2. 6770.99 10000 67% used
3. 4107.16 10000 41% used
4. 2814.55 20000 14% used
5. 2383.27 5000 47% used
6. 702.6 5000 14% used
-------------
7. 510.6 10000 5% used
8. 429.5 5000 8% used
9. 218.63 1000000 0% used
10. 112.23 10000 1% used
11. 60.54 10000 0% used
12. 18.39 10000 0% used
13. 13.69 10000 0% used
14. 5.89 40000 0% used
15. 3.81 10000 0% used
16. 3.78 10000 0% used
17. 3.71 10000 0% used
18. 2.38 10000 0% used
19. 1.08 5000 0% used
20. 0.78 10000 0% used


Any suggestion is welcome.

This would mostly depend on how large the databases are, and what kind of hosting service you are using. Its always good to have a seperate database server, and even better to have 10-15k rpm disks with RAID and lots of RAM on it.

These are the sizes of the databases in Megabytes:

1 2500 820
2 1000 262
3 1000 251
4 1000 205
5 500 188
6 500 165
7 2000 117
8 1000 100
9 500 61
10 1000 47
11 0 37
12 3000 34
13 1000 28
14 0 28
15 1000 26
16 500 24
17 500 12
18 1000 9
19 1000 7
20 500 6


Thanks.

right now I am thinking of giving up the website that eats up a lot of bandwidth and space and maintain the smaller ones.

Kenchix,

You may want to consider going with a provider with better hardware. Someone with high end Clovertown's or Harpertown's won't feel a dent in their system resources. Or, you can consider going with a fully managed VPS which should cost you considerably less than a managed dedicated server.

All are using SMF, our current host said that we are using more than 35% of the server (probably CPU time). There are other site in it that doesn't have much visitors.

I am not good with server management and I am currently using a reseller account with 2Gb space and 40Gb bandwidth with end-user support. I currently pay $31.50/month and I need to transfer my sites before the end of the month because the host wanted me to leave when I said I would like to change package to a cheaper one when I saw it on their package list.

SMF use much less resources than vbulletin.
If your hosting provider say that you're using 35% server resource, ask them to provide a screenshot or clarify how they come up with that statistics.
It's quite common that a website might use 35% of resource at a time but less than 5% on average in a day.
I suggest that you contact sales of potential host to query about your requirements and confirm that they are able to transfer all your websites free.

35% CPU usage seems high to me given the traffic you're describing. Maybe it was just a spike. Another explanation could be given by the hardware they're using, or some script/mod misbehaving.

As Premimumhost said, try to get more info on the usage, and its specific source.

Honestly, I don't know anything about that 35% CPU usage because as I mentioned in my previous post, no reports, warning, suspension, notification nor advise was given to me regarding the activity of my package during the duration of more than a year and a half of stay with my current host. It was only when I said that I would like to change hosting package that they hit me with it and ask me to use my remaining time to prepare, look for another host and inform my clients and it's final. With my limited knowledge, I only look at the bandwidth and the disk space.

With this, I'd rather not waste my time asking for report, statistics or proof from the host regarding that 35% server usage. I prefer to spend my remaining time looking for another host and make sure I got everything before the Host pull off the plug.

I am considering of getting a managed VPS since I still need to learn a lot of things regarding VPS and this time I'll ask first if they will ask me to leave if I reach more than 35% CPU usage. :D


Thank you for your suggestions.

35% does seem high for what you are doing. I'd ask for a clarification from your current host so that you don't end up in this situation again.

A vps will just get slower as you use more resources but shouldn't impact other users. So you likely won't get booted from a vps but you may find a need to upgrade your plan as time goes on and your site usage increases.

I'd rather not waste my time asking for clarification, other users from that host are also now complaining based from what I read here. I also ask from the same host if VPS can be a solution to my problem, they said probably yes but their decision is final so I must move out. With that, I'll just spend my time moving out the files from their server.

Thanks. :)