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**jamesyfx** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 12:09am

I dont know what the host is like, but those specs sound fine.

**CMilne** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 12:13am

1,000+ Registered ( active ) members would require a dedicated server, no doubt about it. 20 - 90 members online at once, and up to 150 guests at any one time? Definately a powerful dedicated server, and bandwidth would be a bit heavy too ( 200+ GB Per Month ) and no way a host would allow you to operate that on their servers, vBulletin is resource hungry when you have large boards.

I'd reccoment checking out a dedicated server at theplanet.com or servermatrix.com. Good pricing and very good servers, alternatively you could try ev1servers.net, but I've had some bad experiences, over priced, and their hardware is slow and dodgy on many occasions. Support is good, but it's just as good ( if not better ) at ThePlanet/ServerMatrix.

If you really want to have a good look around, you may even wish to check out steadfastnetworks.com, I have had nothing but excellent experiences with them, I'm sure ManagerJosh could back that up.

Edit: And if your planning on operating 3.5.0 with that many users with everything enabled ..... definately, DEFINATELY a powerful dedicated server. Since some forums dont go as well as people plan, you may wish to start off with a plan like that, and if your forums start to grow move up to a dedicated server, vBulletin isn't hard to migrate.

**Arios** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 12:51am

That is pretty power hungry. 200GBs is much more than what I was told but then active users accounted I can see that. I'm migrating from another forum and in a week have gained nearly 100 members. After three months it could be 600-800 so we want that base covered if we end up with a couple thousand later on after that. I love the functionality of vBulletin as I have been an admin for ten months now and am very familiar with it. I'm sure as you say 3.5 will increase the load once we upgrade.

This is the only site that's going to be on the server so anything too overkill I am trying to avoid. Say less than 700MBs of storage is fine. One IPower virtual server is fairly inexpensive and offers 300GBs per month.
http://www.ipower.com/virtual_40gbpackage.html
Looks more like what I first thought.

Thanks!

**DelphiVillage** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 3:48am

hi,

look out you don't get thricked here ...... a board with the amount of members you tell us to have + possible guests would require a dedicated server if i was you i would ask for a test account ... before you spend money... i'm on a dedicated host and it was the best choice i have ever made i'm not gonna tell you which one or Steve get mads at me

**Reeve of Shinra** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 4:24am

You may want to look into a vps solution. That should ease your way into this.

**Jake_TP** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 4:38am

Originally posted by Arios

Hi all, newbie with a question here. I'm looking buy and host vBulletin 3.0.9 and have been advised IPower should suit my needs enough for this. What I am asking is for the opinion of some experts.

Here's what I've been told will work:
http://www.ipower.com/webhosting_proplan.html
or
http://www.ipower.com/webhosting_proplus.html

I'm accounting for 200-3000 members in the first year, with 20-90 members online and up to 150 guests simultaneously with most of the program features turned on. We do need space for picture attachment storage(but nothing too major). Will the above host work for my needs and be stable or can you recommend a one that will?

Thanks for your time

I use Ipower and they are just fine for my needs. I have about 50 daily users 10-20 on at any given time, more if you count the guests, and 500 total users. I would say that their quality is about as good as you can get with a hosted shared server.

If this is a new forum, you might be able to start with this host, but the number you are quoting above are really quite large, so I agree with the others that a dedicated server is likely a smart decision.

**Emil** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 5:47am

I've a forum with 8000+ members and we're using about 400GB per month.. I'm still only on a shared server and I've no problem with that, the board is fast, and my host doesnt have a problem with the board using to much resources or anything..

So my tip to you is: start with a shared server and then when your board gets bigger and you feel like you need to upgrade, then upgrade to a dedicated server or vps.. There's really no need to start with the biggest and best (Unless you've no problem with money)..

**CMilne** · Mon 26 Sep '05, 6:56am

Just remember, vB is very resource hungry for big boards. A lot of hosts will get pissed off at you for using something like vB when you have big and popular forums and will close your site down. As for VPS, I've found that to be stupidly annoying, honestly you should either go shared or dedicated, in my experience, VPS = over priced for what you get, and usually your better off getting a full server anyway.

**feldon23** · Tue 27 Sep '05, 12:16pm

You're right on the edge of VPS vs Dedicated. If you can get what looks like a very good VPS for $60 or less, get that. Otherwise, spring for Dedicated, which starts at $99/mo.

VPS is Virtual Private Server. They take a very robust machine (usually 2 x 3.6GHz CPU, very fast hard drives, etc. etc.) and split it up into 16 virtual machines. Each 'slice' thinks it is a full-fledged computer and has a minimum dedicated amount of RAM, hard drive, CPU%, etc. VPS was bad at first with each slice running out of RAM until they started doing minimum RAM and allowing you to 'burst' use more RAM occasionally. Most VPS, if something goes wrong, they will fix it or help you fix it.

Dedicated is you have your own dedicated server computer. Typically 1.6GHz Celeron, 60GB hard drive, 512MB RAM, and 1000GB/month traffic allotment. Unless you pay $150+ for a supported server, if problems come up in the software/administration of the server, you will be expected to fix them!

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