Member Avatar for floris

Planning on building a community, be it in the form of a forum or web chat or blog, and planning on being big? Do you invest in shared hosting until you can't hold it any longer, or do you invest in big hardware which should be able to handle the load as it increases over time.

Are you satisfied with IDE hard drives on single CPU with 512mb ram systems, 10mbit network that works now, but might get slower in the future?

Or do you not mind investing money into SCSI setups with dual CPU and at least 2gb ram on a 100mbit or bigger network.

(not taking into consideration how the software might be setup).

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Member Avatar for Dani

When I first started DaniWeb, and it wasn't making any income, I put myself on a shared server. Had I know then what I know today, I would not have done it. Reasons include not having a dedicated IP and simply not having the control over my server that I so preciously now cherish.

Since then, I've gone through a series of major server upgrades - everything from a Pentium III to a Dual Xeon. I am now quite comfy on a Dual Xeon 2.8 Ghz with two gigs of RAM and three SCSI drives in a raid 5 array. Server loads average 0.25 (from what I notice), with heavy fluctuations throughout the day. I am hoping that this machine will last me for quite some time. When I finally do outgrow it, my next step is a second similar machine, which could be dedicated to MySQL.

Member Avatar for floris

vBulletin.nl still runs on older shared hosting account but still pulls it all wonderfully.

Member Avatar for Dani

I'm amazed you can run vBulletin.nl on shared hosting. Really! ;) Seriously, though, you should consider moving to dedicated if for no other reason than the SEO benefits.

Member Avatar for Scribbller

Well my own forum which I personally own is small, 600 odd members so its running quite comfortably on a shared server, the bigger one which I mentioned in the other thread (I dont own so I dont pay, just an admin) is hosted on a dual xenon server from server matrix with 2 X 80gb drives and 1024 MB RAM. We started off with a dedicated server but that was a small Pentium III server.

Member Avatar for Dani

Well it's good you didn't mention the site because we follow a no-advertisement no-self-promotion no-link policy in this particular forum ;)

Member Avatar for floris

Are those 2x ide 7200 80gb hd's or sata or in raid setup?

Member Avatar for floris

I'm amazed you can run vBulletin.nl on shared hosting. Really! ;) Seriously, though, you should consider moving to dedicated if for no other reason than the SEO benefits.

It runs well because I do my best to run it optimized :) Yes, dedicated hosting is nice, but as the site is sponsored and not really needed, I don't think the sponsor would just want to put in more money if it is not needed.

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