Question about renting a Dedicated Server for VBulletin

[jbcrash]

Hey guys, I have started a forum and in only 5 days from launch I have almost 50 registered members. The forum is school related so I am predicting that once school starts in the Fall and promotions begin (flyers, etc) then I will have hundreds of daily visitors. Right now I am on shared hosting, but my question is should I go ahead and upgrade to a dedicated server so I can get it all set up before a large number of people start going to the site? How is dedicated hosting from ThePlanet (www.theplanet.com)? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[13th_Disciple]

I have 2 servers from The Planet.. I have about 710 members, but the greater majority of them are only there for the downloads.. The site has only about 3 to 5 users on it simultaneously, if it were averaged out, I believe.

I have had a couple of issues with them, but mainly because they weren't very familiar with FreeBSD.. Past that, I would recommend their hosting service.. But you will be spending a fair amount of bread per month.. So try and see if you can't offset the cost somehow by doing things like google ads (haven't worked for me but great for some), premium content that you can do subscriptions, things like that..

BTW, my DB is on a Celeron 2.8 Ghz system, 80 GB HDD and 512 GB's RAM.. The other server is a dual Xeon 2.8 with HT enabled, dual SCSI 73 GB HDD's and 2 GB RAM.. The dualie is for the downloads side of the site.. Lots of UT2004 based mods and things like that available and they are generally fairly large..

The only time when I had issues with my server (the celeron) was when I had around 100 simultaneous users.. It got a little slow on my 56K, but all of my dudes told me it was still plugging along decently on their broadband.

in the end, just try and make sure you can cover your costs somehow.. Maybe get sponsors, things like that as well.. Good luck..

[The Realist]

You have a long way to go before I would consider a dedicated server. Use what you have now and see how it goes, if you find your forum is slowing down and your membership is increasing then consider a dedicated server but for now keep you dosh in your pocket.

I sell hosting and dedicated servers via one of my sites at www.serverintelligence.com and have a few customers who use there servers just for forums and they also sell space on to others and recoup costs that way.

Regards.