Dedicated Server Host for large forum?
 

<font size="1">I am asking this here because I still cannot access vB.com from home or at work.</font>

I am looking for a good dedicated server for a rather large (but not huge) forum.
Forum specs:
- 20,000 members
- 100-200 concurrent users at peak times
- 500,000 posts
- database is about 600MB (of which 300MB is the search index)

Current Server:
- Virtual Private Server on a dual Xeon with Raid5 (one of 10 accounts)
- 396MB RAM
- 4GB Disk space

When my user count goes above 100, I have no RAM left at all.
CPU load never gets very high.

I'd like to upgrade to vB3 and add a lot of new features. So I am thinking that I need a dedicated server with something close to these specs:
- P4 2GHz
- 1GB RAM


I've checked out Rackshack (ev1servers.net), prices are great ($150/mo for what I need) but they have no uptime guarantee.
I am with OLM.net right now, it would be about $250/month for the specs I need. Thier support is good, but I am worried because of the problems I am having (server basically shuts down once I use up my RAM).

I've looked at some others but I was wondering if anyone has specific experience with a host and running a site as large as mine.

Myself and NTLDR have a P4 2.4GHz 1GB RackShack server, and have had no problems with uptime in the 5 months we have been with them :)

Granted, they have no uptime guarantee, but we have never had any uptime problems to my knowledge :)

Satan

That's good to know.. :)

Thanks!

apparently unsupported too, yet i have found rackshack to offer better support than many other hosts, for free. also, never had an uptime issue :)

I decided on the ServerMatrix SuperSCSI Server.
It is a P4 2.8GHz with 1GB DDR RAM, 73GB SCSI HD and 1000GB monthly bandwidth.

The lower end EV1 servers were a better deal, but speced out with a SCSI HD, this server was cheaper than the equivalent EV1 server.

I am excited to move my site, it will be nice to actually view my board during peak times (right now it just times out).

Thanks agin for the info!

ive had a few probs with rackshack over the last 4 months, heck they have actually caused a 4 month delay to our business site due to a faulty cpanel upgrade they wouldnt fix, but they seem to be ok now and are actually helping us unstead of fobbin us off to there forum...

in saying that tho rs is probs the biggest and best u,ll get , sometime they can be abit iffy but they norm answer tech stuff in 24hrs and fix it, and welll 700gb + of transfer a month... yes please

Upgrade to mySQL 4 and use fulltext searching, saves you the tourble of keeping a index. I dont know if it is in vB 3, I have it hacked into vB 2 atm.