How much bandwidth and webspace does a forum use?

[Designer]

I'm working on a website and I'm thinking of adding a forum (not a computer related site), I was looking at using phpBB-2.0.10, as this is the first time i'll have done a forum and site using PHP then I was wondering how much space will a forum typically use with say 1000-2000 members? Also how much bandwidth would a forum use? Reason being I don't want to underestimate how much space/bandwidth I need and be having to pay more.

Thanks for any assistance

[mairving]

Your question is nearly impossible to answer. It all depends upon how active your members are and what they are doing. As a general rule forums don't consume an extreme amount of bandwidth or resources. I would go with a basic plan and increase it as needs arise, rather than going with a premium plan that you won't come close to maxing out.

[Designer]

So, would say 200MB and around 2000MB bandwidth be sufficient for a moderately active forum with people uploading pictures and the like with say a max upload per user limited to around 100K (total per user) with around 1500 members.

[Redfallon]

I'd say that would work, that's 20GB per month bandwidth? I would think that would more than suffice. 200MB storage space is a bit on the low side. More than enough for an active forum, just seems a little less than I've seen offered with that bandwidth.

[Designer]

So maybe go for around 500MB, i'm not inteding to run the site for profit so does anyone know a good host that would provide what I need on a really tight budget? Preferably UK based for spport purposes as i'm till a real newbie to wesite stuff

[Redfallon]

If you're looking at running strictly a forum, the 200 should be ok, what type of monthly price are you looking for? also most hosting companies give discounts the more time you pay for "upfront" (ie pay for 1 year at once, rather than monthly, or 3 or 6 months)

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

I use www.oneandone.co.uk , they offer MS hosting and Linux Hosting, although I don't see a combined ASP + PHP combo. I have never had to use there support, and found there FAQ to be very useful. If you are still offering the software package as well that is good.

Edit: Note - Redfallon reminded me, you have to pay a certain time in advance, I got MS Business and so had to pay 6 months upfront, which was ~£66, the lower the package the further you pay in advance.

[mairving]

Originally Posted by WhatsThisBoxFor? although I don't see a combined ASP + PHP combo.

And what would be the point of having a combined ASP/PHP? If you want ASP, go with Windows. If you want PHP, go with Linux. There are some Linux ASP programs but they are generally buggy resource hogs and expensive, kind of like Microsoft's products.

[Staren]

Why would you need an ASP / PHP combo? You end up useing one or the other. ASP for buessness because MS makes you pay for it. PHP is almost always open source and the only moeny you put out is any donation you may want to make to the author.

A great web host (though based in North America is www.Tera-Byte.com I use the 4U plan, but I use it for some school work storage as well as normal web space. My site www.anime-fiction.net runs off of a PHP / MySQL set-up. The simplest and most stable for someone starting out. You might also want to check out these two sites:

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Script...rds/index.html (A rather large list of PHP forum scripts)

http://www.phpbb.com (My fav forum script)

[mairving]

Originally Posted by Staren PHP is almost always open source and the only moeny you put out is any donation you may want to make to the author.

You are confused a little. PHP is a programming language. PHP is open-source software always. It sounds like you are talking about PHP scripts that people write, some of which are open-source, others are not.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by mairving You are confused a little. PHP is a programming language. PHP is open-source software always. It sounds like you are talking about PHP scripts that people write, some of which are open-source, others are not.

I think what he meant was that because PHP was an open sourced language, as are many prevelant languages that exist today, the only source of payment these open source language authors (php.net) get is thorugh donations.

And about space, I'd always imagined that it takes lots of space to host PC Mech forums, because of the sheer # of members and traffic here. But for a strict forum with only several members, I think that 500 MB would be a good amount of space, with sufficient bandwidth (3GB?).

kram

[Designer]

Thanks for your help so far guys, I'm looking to spend about £150 pa, I suppose it does'nt really matter if the host is in the UK, but I was just thinking about if I run into real problems I can just phone up.

How do sites get funding? I'm just thinking this is all coming out of my own pocket for the benefit of others, is there a way to fund a site like ad's or something? It's be nice if to would break-even but I doubt it so is there a way to soften the blow to my wallet.

Thanks

[Designer]

Originally Posted by Redfallon I'd say that would work, that's 20GB per month bandwidth? I would think that would more than suffice. 200MB storage space is a bit on the low side. More than enough for an active forum, just seems a little less than I've seen offered with that bandwidth.

Sorry Redfallon, made a typo there should have been 2GB/month

[TennBikeBerk]

I know a forum with about 6,000 members that goes through 5GB of bandwidth every *day*. Oh, and that's a flashlight forum.

[Designer]

Originally Posted by TennBikeBerk I know a forum with about 6,000 members that goes through 5GB of bandwidth every *day*. Oh, and that's a flashlight forum.

WHAT? 5GB/per day, that's gotta be expensive

What happens if you exceed the bandwidth your host provides you with, do you just get billed heavily or does your site get blocked until you pay extra etc. ?

[TennBikeBerk]

5 GB per day, yup.

We have about 2,200 users that have logged in in the past month. In the past 24 hours, about 800 different users have logged in. We get about 1,000 posts every 24 hours.

Check it out!

Not sure exactly how our billing works. I know we spend approimately $600 a month to keep the site running in addition to our auction site. We have had a huge demand on our sever lately, and we are in the process of getting two boxes.

Most of you guys probably don't care about this special case, or all of the details, but my point is, that it does vary...and it varies A LOT!

[WhatsThisBoxFor?]

Oneandone charge you for each mb you go over, I think it is £0.0175, but you will have to check that.

With cost, in your price range they do about about 10Gb/Month, although the package above is 40Gb/Month. You could get which you can afford, then see how much traffic you get (they have tools in there control panel for this, I think), if you want, you could thn upgrade.

With advertising, google does adwords which you get paid for every click, don't I don't know about other options, and I know most people don't click on ads.

[ric449]

I notice you are in the UK, look here Designer:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=101452&page=2

Look at the last post by me.