Please recommend a host - 400 users avg at a time

We are overrunning our current hosting plan at Pair.com, which is a "high volume" shared package. The next step up is dedicated which is a good jump in price. I get "more than max_user_connections" emails, about a couple hundred at a time, every couple of days or so. They have the "high volume" servers, but no "high volume" database servers (they are separate) so even if I move up it's probably not going to solve the problem.

And the last couple of times they've shut me down for "overloading the server" they haven't even bothered to email me to tell me they did it, so I scrambled around looking at every part of my config to figure out what was wrong while waiting for an email response from support. This makes me look bad to users, and I'm not happy about it.

I'd appreciate suggestions. I've been with Pair since 1995 or so, and they are very reliable, but apparently I need to find someone who can handle my kind of traffic.

Their cheapest dedicated server is $249/month:

http://pair.com/services/dedicated/

Do I really need a dedicated server? I typically have 400 users online during the daytime, 120gb/month traffic or so, and always growing of course.

Help? Advice?

Thanks.

[encryption]

The link in your signature doesnt work so I couldnt check out your website but will be helpful if you can answer the following Q's

- Whats the size of your DB (Are you storing attachments in the DB or as files on the server)
- How many of the 400 users are registered members / guests
- How many modifications / styles have you added

Based on this info, I could recommend a semi-dedicated vs. dedicated server

[styleforum]

Thanks, yeah the site is down right now because they shut it down last night. At the moment they are moving it to a dedicated server there, just for the moment while I figure out what is going on.

- Attachments are still in the DB but I was just about to move them out. I think the DB is around 1GB right now. I was just going to move them into the file system when this happened.

- usually the members/guests ratio is about 1:2 or so. Per day user stats are usually around 1400+ Max users ever online is 684 IIRC

- Not many mods, at least not many that would really tax the server, and only one style is running with minimal/optimized graphics (almost all small gifs aside from some banners on a low traffic page). It's pretty streamlined.

Thanks.

[encryption]

Thanks for that, I was actually looking for the max number of simultaneous users online (both members and guests) during peak time (as opposed to total number of members visiting the board in a given day.....

from the sound of it, you "could" sail away on a semi-dedicated option but then your host would have to put you on a less crowded server.

What are you looking to spend each month ?

[Demon Child]

i got around 60 to spend prolly like to go a lil lower but i havent even put my site online yet so i should get semi deadicated?

[encryption]

if this is the first time you will be setting up a vb install, then there's no need to start on a semi-dedicated site. Your webhost should be able to guide you through your hosting experience

[styleforum]

Originally Posted by encryption

Thanks for that, I was actually looking for the max number of simultaneous users online (both members and guests) during peak time (as opposed to total number of members visiting the board in a given day.....

from the sound of it, you "could" sail away on a semi-dedicated option but then your host would have to put you on a less crowded server.

What are you looking to spend each month ?

Max number of users ever online is 684. A typical day sees up to 4-500 (total users, members and guests) at the most at any one time.

I tried their $249/month dedicated server and we crashed it a few times (though it was not optimized well obviously) and they moved us temporarily onto the highest one they have... and we are overloading that one now. I get the feeling their servers are just not configured to handle the type of load that these forums put on them.

I'd like to pay as little as possible obviously, but I need high uptime, preferably familiarity with the forum software's needs, and quick response to customer service calls at any time.

I appreciate your input.

BTW, I need to resolve this very soon, as they are moving me back down to the low level dedicated server and we will kill that off easily.

[scan-pa]

I have 2 sugestions for you.

Dedicated server w/ 4 Xeon 2.8GHZ CPU's & 2 GB RAM + 2 GB Swap Disk RAM + whatever size HDD combo you need.

Donations - if your site is so popular, then members and some guests will be happy to donate $$$ each month to help you cover the cost of runing your site on a dedicated server.

We had the same problems you describe, High CPU, High resource useage ect. on both a shared, high resource shared, and even a semi dedicated with max 6 domains, So I started a donation system on my site and have had no problems with gaining my monthly Goal, did this for 7 months and then got the dedicated server, now I have no problems running vBulletin w/ 10 mods, a wiki, a blog and photo gallery. and as of right now, the donations are still comming in to fullfill the monthly goal and expenses.

Were not even causing 1% server CPU loads with 200+ users on and 300+ guests and Spiders.

We even added a few more websites to the server to help bring in some more $$$ and have never had a problem running stuff on the dedicated server.

You should look into a donation system and then save up some $$$, then move to a good dedicated server and you will never look back.

Good Luck.

[Dream]

exportal.pl has cheap dedicated