Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Disk space for forum

[wizio]

I'm planing to start a new forum but not quite sure about the technical specs for hosting. I'm expecting around 1000-1500 users having a pretty normal run at the forum. So could the ones who have experience running these kinda forums please tell me how much space should be allocated for the database and other stuff and if possible the lower limit of monthly bandwidth. Your help is much appreciated.

[Bodeba]

what software are you using?

Vbulletin could run 1500 users with an "average" amount of posts for that amount of users with an increase in space of about 20mb per month

[MatthewN]

Are you also expecting around the 1000 mark active? Thats pretty good going :-)

Also which forum are you looking at using? vBulletin would be a good choice.

It's difficult to pin point bandwidth needed because it depends on a lot of things on your site... will the forum be heavy on graphics? etc...

I would personally think if you have a lot of active members then a dedicated box might be worth looking in to. Maybe even a few if it gets really busy and had 1000 active online members.

[wizio]

Well I have vbulletin in mind. Some others also recomended invision power board. I would like to have some advice on that.

As for daily active users, it would probably be some where around 60-80% of the total users (it's just an estimation, but a good one). If the disk space keeps on increasing every month, is it advisable to start with a heap or get an upgrade as it goes ? also assuming a user makes an average of 3-5 posts per day (for the 60-80% i mentioned) wat would roughly be the bandwidth consumption for a month.

Stromhosts : as you mentioned dedicated, I get the impression that in the case of the number of active users goes above 1000 there would be a drastic change in the forum. Is it practically true for all forums? if yes, is it worth having a dedicated server. wat about VDS ? thanx a lot for your advice.

[MatthewN]

To be honest I am not fully sure but I know this forum (WHT) has quite a beafy set up to keep it running. I think we should wait for those with huge forums to come and post here!