[epsilonstudios]

Last thread I could find like this was on here was almost a year old.

So very simple, I know some people (including me) are curious of the bandwidth usages for different sized forums in order to choose the right hosting solution for a forum we might want to create.

So bandwidth rollcall, post your average bandwidth usage or range and any other related information you would like to share (pageviews, uniques, forum software, allowed attachments, etc.). As well as a link to your forum

I know this would help me and probably some others to choose the right hosting

Thanks!

[bcmtouring]

Bandwidth would be the least of your worries, unless you start hosting large files or your host is one of those offering few hundred MBs a month.

The biggest headache especially for large forum owners is to try to supply the database and web server with enough power to keep it all from coming to a standstill.

This also applies to small forums which are hosted on shared hosting packages. Because when you start consuming more resources, you would be either asked to move or upgrade by your host.

So it would be much better if you go through the host’s TOS and look for clauses regarding max mysql connections and resource usage.

[mh0825]

I wouldn't worry about the bandwidth. I would say disk space and MySQL space and limitations would be a primary concern.

[bmelton]

While I absolutely agree with the above sentiments, especially as I just had to ugprade dedicated servers to keep up with demand, I'd be remiss if I didn't answer the questions.

My bandwidth usage for last month was about 35Gb (slightly light month, usually is around 40Gb)

Had about 40k visits and 800k pageviews according to Google Analytics.

Forum software is SimpleMachines Forum (SMF) which works well, though I'm currently working on HEAVILY modifying phpBB.

I do allow attachments, but I don't think they're heavily used by the forum members at all.

Oh, and the forum is at HeroChat.com.

To touch on the other points though, search kept heavily bogging down the site. While it might be a problem with SMF, as it keeps dying while trying to create an index, but since I'm not ready to replace it, I just upgraded it with a new dedicated box with dual 3.4Ghz Xeons, 2GB RAM and 80GB disk, with a 1Mbps dedicated link.

It should be noted though, that I chugged along happily for years on a dedicated box with only 512MB RAM and a Sempron 2600+ processor.

It should also be noted that with about half the memberbase, the best DreamHost plan wouldn't keep up at all.

I really wanted to try out a Grid server, but I don't want to experiment with my biggest site.

Originally Posted by epsilonstudios

So bandwidth rollcall, post your average bandwidth usage or range and any other related information you would like to share (pageviews, uniques, forum software, allowed attachments, etc.). As well as a link to your forum

I know this would help me and probably some others to choose the right hosting

Thanks!

[epsilonstudios]

thank you for the helpful info bmelton, so far my plan is to start out on a vps (which I'm still narrowing down providers) and move to a dedicated server if and when need be

nice job on the forum!
Users Online 26 Guests, 18 Users

what is usually your peak of users online?

[bmelton]

On average, it's more like 80 total guest+users online, but I JUST transferred the forum over to its new host today, and DNS may still be catching up for some users.

Plus, with it having been down most of the day, people aren't checking it as constantly as normally, as is being reflected in today's ad earnings. Ouch.