When will my forum need a dedicated server?

My forum got over 1k unique visitors today and 3k page loads. (SMF forum). I'm on a 1and1.com linux beginners package ($3.99 a month) and the site did fine today. My forum has been averaging anywhere from 400 - 800 uniques a day. I'm just wondering how long this will hold up? When will I need a bigger server? and what hosting do you suggest for me when that happens? I want to average 6k uniques a day!

 

Nobody can tell you "exactly" when you will need a new hosting package. A lot of it depends on the size of your pages, header images, - the more images you have on your site the more the server has to process,,,,,, You should already have another option in place right now, before you have to upgrade. Personally, I like the packages at HostGator, which are around $15 a month.

When response times get over 5 seconds on a regular basis, that is usually when I upgrade. If responce times are over 10 seconds, its past time to upgrade. Or, wait until your traffic levels out. If your traffic hits a certain level and your site seems to have stopped growing, that might be a good time to upgrade as well. Sometimes that means that you have hit a certain user limit on your server.

But if members start complaining that the site is running slow, you might want to listen to them. Sometimes your members can give you good feedback about your site performance.

 

Is survivalistboards.com a forum of yours that you use with the $15 a month hostgator hosting?

 

Yes and no.

At one time I did use a $15 package from hostgator. But my forum out grew it and I had to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server. Hostgator does not offer a VPS server package, so I had to leave hostgator and go to another company.

Currently I lease a VPS from future hosting with over 800 megs of memory and 40 gigs of hardrive space. With my current growth, in the next few months I will have to upgrade to the next highest VPS which has 1 gig of memory. I also run 4 forums and 4 wordpress sites on that server. For a total traffic of around 2.7 million page views monthly and around 9,000 daily uniques.

 

you need it when you are really big

 

I have 4500 visits a day and still have a shared package.
Yesterday I asked my host about how far I am from the situation that warrnats upgrade to VPS.
They said I am having above average usage for a shared package.
But they did not tell me that I need to upgrade now.
This issue was raised by me since I felt sometimes the loading of the pages was long.

I was told I that when the resource utilisation becomes more than the threshold value, I will be given 7 days to fix or move to VPS. I know I have to upgrade any time soon, as my traffic is increasing. May be another 3-4 months.

 

I think the answer to your question depends a little on the resource utilization constraints your shared host imposes. If your host has set up and tuned apache/mysql and has not oversold the hosting on the box (unlikely)then it will support a very busy forum without impacting other users. I have no experience with 1and1 but the shared hosting I have used in the past was able to support at least a 10-fold increase in your current traffic before it demanded their attention. 6K uniques is not a lot and will comfortably run off good shared hosting.

 

don't worry from now
you will see a forum down message and SQL timeouts that will be time to go for VPS/Dedicated Server

 

I think have a long way to go

 

and if you do upgrade, you do not need a dedicated for a while. You should really think about a vps first. It will cover your traffic and it should not cost to much.

 

Hit me up, I'm only using 1/3 of the resources of my powerful dedicated server. I'll host your site for free in exchange for a link. Lots of room to grow, will easily accommodate 10 000+ uniques a day.

 

I had a terrible experience with Lunarpages. When my forum got 1K uniques a day, they shut it down. The worst thing about it is that they just shut it down without notifying me about their action, which left me helpless and clueless. I upgraded to their VPS, but, let me tell you this, they won't transfer my site on their shared hosting to their VPS until I pay $75/hour for transfer. Unbelievable. My site is already hosted with them. Why would I pay for the transfer to their own VPS?

So I asked help from webhostingtalk.com and they recommended me Knownhost.com. It is costing me a lot more to host with Knownhost, but I am extremely happy with their support team and "real professionalism" in the industry. I am adding more sites to my VPS account to maximize its usage and capability.

I have nothing against Lunarpages - I just don't like the idea of shutting down your website without informing you in advance. I had to scramble into finding ways to back up my files and database.

I hope that your host won't kill you when you have grown big. And I hope others would learn from my horrifying experience.