How Big Can You Be Before you Go Dedicated ?

[dan_p]

We made it to around 700 concurrent users sustained on 1 massive web server and 1 massive database server before we had to upgrade. Now we're on 1 massive database server with 4 massive web servers and I believe this will last us for a long time to come. Our bottleneck was never our database, it was always the web server.

[ssslippy]

Ive got a web server and a db server both high end but not top end running 2k to 2.5k users at a time with a 15 min timer out.

Optimizing your server running proper cache system and a solid OS is what keeps a server running.

I never bothered with a VPS, u can get a cheap dedicated for the price of VPS.

[typatton]

Sorry to put this really off topic but I was looking at your diesel bombers site and it looks really good. Where did you learn how to do all that because I have been looking around and I am not getting a whole lot of help on how to modify my vbulletin.

[azn_romeo_4u]

I think the problem with forums is the amount of posts. Once you get over the 1 million mark, IMO you have to go dedicated because one forum search for like a 3 letter word could be crazy. I had a forum with 1600 users on at one time, it was on an old ass p4 2.8gz xeon. Of course it didn't handle it too well but it settle down. I think I had 500k post at that time. I got on the front page of digg that's why =D

I would recommend for you, a server in the 150-250 price range. IMO, a quad core core 2 duo with like 4 gigs of ram would suffice. Ram is the most important when it comes to forums is what I notice.

[DieselMinded]

New Server has been Doing great

Our Main Stats - Threads: 20,308 Posts: 267,976 Members: 8,475

0.68 1.03 1.06 | 282 Users Online (50 members and 232 guests)

Dell PowerEdge server
Dual Xeon 2.8 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 2x512 KB cache, HyperThreading ready.
4 GB ECC Registered memory
5x73 GB SCSI 10000 rpm drives in RAID5
1x36 GB SCSI 10000 rpm drive as HOT SPARE (or you can configure these 5 drives as RAID5)
PERC hardware RAID controller with 64 MB cache and BBU (enabling fast and safe write-back operation)
CentOS 5.x OS

[rin]

I did 25GB traffic per day when my old, shared host kicked me.
Back then I probably had around 3000 members with 20.000 posts.

[kevcj]

Originally Posted by rin

I did 25GB traffic per day when my old, shared host kicked me.
Back then I probably had around 3000 members with 20.000 posts.

You did 25gb per day, with only 3,000 members and 20,000 post?? I do about 2 - 3 gigs a day, with 490,000 post and over 12,000 members. With only 3,000 members you were going through some serious bandwidth.

=============================

To answer the question about the dedicated server, I have 3 vbulletin forums, and 4 wordpress sites on a Virtual private server with 1 gig of memory. The server gets around 9,000 uniques daily and somewhere around 3 million page views monthly. I still have a ways to go before I max out my VPS.

A lot of it depends on the graphics that your site uses. If you are hosting your own videos, picture galleries, big header images,,,,, Its impossible to tell you exactly when you will need a dedicated.

On average my forum has around 300 - 350 people on it. Usually its around 1/2 members and 1/2 guest. Around 3,800 members visit every 30 days, my forum averages around 1,500 - 2,100 post per day.

Out of that 1 gig of memory on my VPS, I have around 300 - 400 megs free. CPU usually stays around 150% - 200% of my allotment.

In can see getting an entry level dedicated server in another 4 - 6 months.

[nickwilliams99]

214k user forum on one webserver, always fast. 600 - 1000 users online at anytime.
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[MOGmartin]

Originally Posted by FRDS

VPS can handle like well over 100 people online at a time. I've had VPS servers handle from 150-300 users at once with no problems before.

512MB gaurenteed ram, with up to 2GB burstable and it had no problems.

as soon as I hit about 300 concurrent users my VPS with 1gb died the death - but after removing most of my plugins it worked better... so it depends on the total database strain you are doing.

[Deriel]

I would say that when you consistently get 200-300 users on-line at the same time its time to search for dedicated. I have one big forum (1.8M posts, 45k users), one minor forum and a dozen of sites and blogs in a U$119/month unmanaged dedicated server (Xeon 3210 / 4GB RAM / 2x500GB RAID-1 HDD). The AdSense from the main forum pays the server