Hosting Specs for an average forum?

[bbalegere]

What should the ideal hardware configuration be for a an average forum.
The forum script is mybb and the number fo user are 2000+.
Is a celeron processor with 128mb RAM sufficient?

 

[CrazyTech]

You're going to need more RAM for sure. I suppose you mean over 2000 members and not users on at the same time? I'd definitely look for more RAM, as your site continues to get busier and you run a MySQL DB, you'll need more RAM. I'd look for something around 512MB RAM or higher. You may be able to sneak away on 256MB, but given typical forum growth, I'd opt for no less than 512MB.

 

[bbalegere]

Thanks for the advice.
Will 384 be enough if there are about 30 members accessing the forum at the same time?

 

[CrazyTech]

30 users at the same time...

You could eek it out, but scratch the 256MB recommendation. Will this VPS be running cPanel?

 

[bbalegere]

Yes the VPS will be running Cpanel/WHM

 

[CrazyTech]

Well, it's your call. A 384MB RAM VPS would probably work for now. Since you want cPanel, I'd personally recommend a 512MB just because cPanel is more intensive and you're going to couple that with a resource-intensive forum.

 

[bbalegere]

Oh!I did not know Cpanel was Intensive.
Anyway thanks for the information.

 

[tanfwc]

You need to tweak Apache and MySQL to work to it's best performance as well. Turn off any unnecessary services as well to save memory

 

[bbalegere]

Can give the details on tweaking Apache and MYSQL?

 

[Jack Russell]

What should the ideal hardware configuration be for a an average forum.
The forum script is mybb and the number fo user are 2000+.
Is a celeron processor with 128mb RAM sufficient?

Well, I dont think 128mb RAM will be sufficient for a forum which 2000+ users. I think P4 will be the best suited for this site and selecting a better configuration initially itself will help you for your future needs. The VPS or Dedicated server will best suited for the site if the no. of users are increasing everyday.

Regards

 

[CheapVPS]

Oh!I did not know Cpanel was Intensive.
Anyway thanks for the information.

Yes, cPanel has lots of useful features, so take little more resources, but worth to have cPanel. WHM/cpanel is the great one to have, I have been using it since last 3 years.

I think 384mb of ram would be sufficient enough at the moment, if going for VPS, just make sure to get at least 1gb burstable RAM [2gb will be great to have], to be on the safer side. ATB

 

[bbalegere]

What if I uninstall CPanel/WHM?
Will it reduce the load on my server's resouces?

 

[CrazyTech]

It will reduce the load but it also reduces what you can do to a degree. My reccommendation is to try DirectAdmin. I've found it works very well on VPS servers because it's a lot less intensive than cPanel but it still keeps things simple. There are other alternatives as well.

 

[bbalegere]

Are there any free control panels available?

 

[PolurNET]

Are there any free control panels available?

Yea, there is a control panel called Zpanel:

http://www.thezpanel.com


Looks to be pretty good, its free & open source.

~Bill

Cool link Bill, seems nicer than Webmin too (which, by the way, is also free)

 

[bbalegere]

Which uses lesser resources.Webmin or Zpanel?

 

[traderonline]

i tried a rapidvps.com vps with 128mb ram (cpanel) everything was pretty slow and i had to swap it to webmin control panel. you should do well with 512mb i suppose (for cpanel). webmin uses the least amount of ram.

 

[WickedShark]

If you can do 384 for RAM and switch to Direct Admin you may be ok as long as you optimize Apache and MySQL.

 

[bbalegere]

Thanks for the advice.
I think I will go for 384 MB RAM.