Looking for VPS, How much RAM do we need?

I was wondering if I could get some estimations on how much RAM to shoot for when looking for a VPS? We run a vBulletin forum and at peak times have about 50-60 members online concurrently with the addition of anywhere between 200 -300 guests that can browse threads in certain sections (as well as forumdisplays for the whole site) but not post. We're also growing a little every day so we'd like to have some extra room to expand of course. We run a moderate amount of plugs/modifications (maybe 10-15). Does anybody know what we should shoot for approximately?

Thanks

 

Well it depends on what control panel you will be using, Cpanel requires around 300mb to run properly. Your then going to need a fair bit of RAM for VB. So I would say around 700mb - 1024mb would work wonders. Again as it is a VPS upgrades take seconds and cause 0 downtime.

Let me know if you need anymore help

 

Wow that high really? Somebody told me elsewhere that 256 would be fine. We're running Direct Admin on our shared host right now and we're fine with it. But, I guess we're not real picky about what control panel we use....whatever works and/or is lightweight/cheap. Could you give a quick breakdown of RAM usage among popular cps?

Thanks for the quick reply

 

I would recommend to start with 512MB, or atleast 256MB and upgrade as and when needed.

 

Thanks , and just to clarify, are we talking 512mb guaranteed? Or burstable up to?

 

Always look at guaranteed RAM. burstable RAM is an illusion. burstable RAM is amount of free RAM which is not used by other users. so you can't rely on it

 

With vbulletin, some modifications, 50-60 members and 200 -300 guests - I recommend at least 512 megs of memory. If it was my forum, I would go with 768 - 1 gig of memory.

With vbulletin, there are a lot of little factors that can add up to affect performance. Such as the reputation system, is it on or off, how heavy is the theme, do you have quick reply with no click required turned on or off - this makes the user click the "Post Reply" button every time they make a reply, are you storing images in the database or on disk, are members automatically subscribed with instant email notification to every post they make,,,,,,. You do not have to answer those questions. They are just examples of how some of the settings can affect performance.

When my main vbulletin forum hit 2.5 million page views a month and around 200 members online all the time - that is when I moved to dedicated server. But I also run 3 vbulletin forums and 5 wordpress blogs off one server.

Lets say that you have streamlined your site, the theme is less then 100K, your site is sending out a modest amount of emails,,,. I think that a VPS with 512 - 768 of memory should be ok.

 

Thanks for the detailed response, that helps a lot. And thanks for the burstable info Gary. That's what I figured, but just wanted to make sure