Please Help Me Understand vB Server Reqs

Hi vB community peeps

I've had no luck ferreting out the skinny on how much cpu/ram is needed per average single user on an unmodded 3.6 board. I would like to believe I could do some math to predict my requirements based on projected user loads.

Is there a rule of thumb that would allow one to calculate theoretical requirements for 20, 40, 100, 500... simultaneous users?

Or can we look at it from the other direction where we might be able to say a server with 256MB RAM can handle X simultaneous users and a 512MB, 1024MB... can do Y and Z... users? A table of common cpu/ram configs to comfortable user loads would be immensely helpful to those of us shopping around for hosting packages.

My immediate concern is for a photography board on which I predict to be a load of 40 users browsing thier fill of 150K image attachments. Growth is anticipated.

Thanks for taking a moment to consider my questions.

[Ntfu2]

Its hard to say really. As it depends on a number of things.

Heres how i always plan new/start up sites.

Plan their forums on shared hosting. Most of the time paying around $10 monthly will get you great hosting to get started. Its sad to say, but most forums dont ever have the need to leave the shared hosting environment. Reputable companies such as Hostwww or ASmallOrange will be good!

After you notice slow loading times, running out of space, using large amounts of bandwidth it'll be time to upgrade to a dedicated box. You can skip the "VPS" setups completely as they are useless because the price for them you can get your low end dedicated box. And everything actually decreases (bandwidth, storage, and the line speed into the box). The only real beneift is having a certain amount dedicated just to you.

After you exhaust your "starter" dedicated server, you can just keep upgrading it.

There is no need to start with some insanely large hosting package it'll just sit and go to waste. VPS systems really are about useless 80% of the time for forum owners, unless you need that level of root access for whatever reason.

[chetcarson]

Originally Posted by Ntfu2

Its sad to say, but most forums dont ever have the need to leave the shared hosting environment.

In your guestimated opinion would a $10-$20 shared server handle 30-40 online users comfortably or do I need to budget for a low end dedicated package?

There is no need to start with some insanely large hosting package it'll just sit and go to waste.

Roger that. My situation is such that I have inherited an existing community. I already have a prototype board up where we are designing and testing our layout and mods. The previous community had a 30-40 user load and I expect once I drive traffic to the new board using a similar formula it will quickly return to that level of activity. If we could operate efficiently at this level in a shared configuration I would be very happy but my gut is telling me otherwise. In my mind, properly planning this venture requires that I have some idea what my expenses will run as monetary resource limits will dictate its feasablilty. I can make blind bets with my own time and money but a community project involves a number of people whose time and effort and financial support are something one should not gamble with.

Any additional words of knowledge and wisdom are immensely apprecated.

[Ntfu2]

Yes, $10-20 on a reputable shared hosting company will accomodate your 30-40 users, i was seeing about 60 constantly online while at ASmallOrange with a optimized* vBulletin with a few extra hacks for my users.

*Optimized =Most little extra features disabled like "automatic thread search, update view counts immediately, gzip compression"