Database size help
 

So I took over control of my forum and moved it to a new host and I need to shrink it. I have a moderate size forum and so far I have moved images to the file system (images,avatars,album pics).

I am in the process of removing all old threads ect.

Any insight could be helpful for a database newbie..

Why do you have to shrink it?

Make sure after moving images to the filesystem that you repair/optimize the table they used to be in so that the table size shrinks.

I am over my limit on my host so its gotta go smaller. It was a tad over a gig and I have it down to 820 megs.

Get off godaddy, for starters.

I did a couple days ago....

Who is your webhost, and why are they limiting your MySQL storage to anything less than your allotted storage?

Siteground. I have 2 other forums hosted by them and have always had great service.

What are you storing, in your database?

Attachments?
Avatars?
Any third party addons storing their data in the database?

Attachments and avatars are in the file system.

I do have a number of products/plugins and I am trying to sift thru them to see what does and doesn't use the database. Since managing it is new to me I never paid attention to what went where. I do know Who has read a Thread uses the whoread table and its like 150 mb so I need to correct that (didn't realize there was an option to have it cleaned every x amount of days)..

So, which tables are your biggest offenders?

Be sure to update your counters if you moved things from the database to the file system.

Removing content is definitely not good in terms of seo.

Only 1Gb allowed? is that free hosting? thats seriously small. Find another host if you are paying for that as there's plenty around that will give you tons more for the same money.