Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : New to VPS, can somebody analyze my needs?

So, over the past year and a half I have made the mistake of making bad choices for webhosts, and paid the price. I found this site and you guys really seem to give great advice, so i thought i'd register.
Anyway, the host i'm with now constantly suspends my account for using over 10% of the cpu. It's a shared webhost so i'm thinking it's time to move away from that and onto the next best thing.
Basically I run a small phpbb board that at present has had up to about 300 users online at one time. This in itself has crashed the website, but now i'm planning on expanding, i'd like to add a chatbox/shoutbox on my site as well as a music player my users can listen to while browsing the site.
Also eventually I have plans to expand this phpbb board into a full website, and I also anticipate growth over the next year or so with regard to the number of users I will need to support online.
So what i'm looking for is a vps that will support all of that without the site running slow, it would have to include cpanel since i'm familiar with it and would have to be a managed host since i only half know what i'm doing.
I heard servint is really great and wasn't sure if there $49 a month plan was enough to meet my needs. 1 gb burst ram, 384 mb guaranteed ram, that doesn't sound like a lot. Plus with only 15gb storage, my site isn't big but i have about 8 gb of music i need to load into the music player (it's a site for an artist who is ok with his music being online, but he has a large catalogue)
Is the essential vps package enough for my needs? Should i be looking at the Signature VPS package? I really hate to be spending $49 a month let alone $89 a month, but i do have to find something reliable that isn't going to shut me out if my users triple over the next year. I have about 1800 users, but want my site to at least be able to run smoothly with 1000 logged on at once to prepare for the future.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Sorry for the book I just wrote lol.

[Dynash]

You can get a hybrid VPS (http://www.servercomplete.com/hybrid.sc), though they're costly compared to normal VPS'. You should run fine on a normal VPS host though, to support 300 users online, but it depends on how many connections are being made by those 300 that will cause you to cause high CPU/RAM spikes.
You should also look into high caching of everything and anything possible, and optimizing Apache/Lighthttpd, and mySQL. Perhaps you should add the features you want to add at a later date, when you get on a good host - and support your current forum.
If you plan on adding those features right away, play it safe and get a small dedi.

[24shells]

I feel that if you are planning to have cPanel you should go with atleast 512mb or 1024mb guaranteed ram. cPanel itself consumes a fix amount of ram, which will leave you with very little room on 384mb vps.

lol ouch, this just gets more and more costly.
Dynash, any experience with that hybrid company? Are they any good?
Why does this small website have such a large demand on the server? This is getting costly

[Dynash]

I've not dealt directly, but I've not seen a bad review of them. Here's one, http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=5266819
If you optimize your mySQL, from my.cnf, and to the tables themselves - then cache control everything avaliable, then you'd be playing it safe for awhile. That's the problems with forums, almost all data is stored into a database - even the template files in some cases.

[psp7492]

300 concurrent users will require a lot of CPU resources. I am not sure a VPS can handle that. You should consider using a dedicated server. Because besides RAMs you need CPU, which will be shared in a VPS server.

[Dynash]

That's why I said perhaps consider a hybrid. But, the 300 users might not be doing anything, so mySQL connections wont be adding to it.
But to the OP: how many bots are there online at a time? You shoud limit them - they'll add to it all.

[gate2vn]

When saying 300 members online, we always need to consider the session time setting. We have a VBB forums with ~700 members online (15 minutes session time) running fine on a high-end VPS. By default, I believe most forums scripts set 24 hours session time. In that case, 300 members online is not a big number.

From what I can see, the bots are rarely on. And when they are it's usually just 1 at a time logged on.
I should probably add that i'm new to all of this so the idea of optimizing mysql from my.cnf is the equivalent of asking me to perform a tracheotomy. LOL
FYI, i do appreciate everybody who has been giving feedback.
Really what i'm looking for is the lowest priced option, that will meet my needs and yet also provide me a solid level of technical support if there are any problems.
With trying to expand the site to make it better, i can't afford to keep getting suspended.

[midnightsoftware]

A 512/768mb vps should do you fine - it may be worth getting some kind of management too, even if just a one of service to optimize your system for you.

[KarlHost]

For something like that i would suggest maybe a 512ram but find webhosts that allow an upgrade service for your expansion.
A normal VPS should do the trick you just need to research a few different companys first.

[Dynash]

This thread will come in handy, you will still need basic knowledge of SSH commands though. But this will help you secure and optimize your VPS. If all else fails, pay someone to do it
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468168

So, over the past year and a half I have made the mistake of making bad choices for webhosts, and paid the price. I found this site and you guys really seem to give great advice, so i thought i'd register.
Anyway, the host i'm with now constantly suspends my account for using over 10% of the cpu. It's a shared webhost so i'm thinking it's time to move away from that and onto the next best thing.
Basically I run a small phpbb board that at present has had up to about 300 users online at one time. This in itself has crashed the website, but now i'm planning on expanding, i'd like to add a chatbox/shoutbox on my site as well as a music player my users can listen to while browsing the site.
Also eventually I have plans to expand this phpbb board into a full website, and I also anticipate growth over the next year or so with regard to the number of users I will need to support online.
So what i'm looking for is a vps that will support all of that without the site running slow, it would have to include cpanel since i'm familiar with it and would have to be a managed host since i only half know what i'm doing.
I heard servint is really great and wasn't sure if there $49 a month plan was enough to meet my needs. 1 gb burst ram, 384 mb guaranteed ram, that doesn't sound like a lot. Plus with only 15gb storage, my site isn't big but i have about 8 gb of music i need to load into the music player (it's a site for an artist who is ok with his music being online, but he has a large catalogue)
Is the essential vps package enough for my needs? Should i be looking at the Signature VPS package? I really hate to be spending $49 a month let alone $89 a month, but i do have to find something reliable that isn't going to shut me out if my users triple over the next year. I have about 1800 users, but want my site to at least be able to run smoothly with 1000 logged on at once to prepare for the future.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Sorry for the book I just wrote lol.

[Dynash]

You can get a hybrid VPS (http://www.servercomplete.com/hybrid.sc), though they're costly compared to normal VPS'. You should run fine on a normal VPS host though, to support 300 users online, but it depends on how many connections are being made by those 300 that will cause you to cause high CPU/RAM spikes.
You should also look into high caching of everything and anything possible, and optimizing Apache/Lighthttpd, and mySQL. Perhaps you should add the features you want to add at a later date, when you get on a good host - and support your current forum.
If you plan on adding those features right away, play it safe and get a small dedi.

[24shells]

I feel that if you are planning to have cPanel you should go with atleast 512mb or 1024mb guaranteed ram. cPanel itself consumes a fix amount of ram, which will leave you with very little room on 384mb vps.