how much bandwidth

[MrsNOLA]

will the forum take up? 

I'm new to this stuff and was wondering how slowed down my site will be because of the forum.  Will pages take longer to load for someone who isn't using the forum?

[青山 素子]

Bandwidth is a measurement of transfer speed, not creation speed. Think of it as the difference between a 2cm pipe and a 4cm pipe. The 4 cm one can carry more water, so it has more "bandwidth". (The actual word comes from radio, but let's not go into there.)

That saying, non-forum things shouldn't slow down because of the forum because they will still be the same size.

Now, if you are trying to fit more down the same size pipe, you might notice slowness, but that is a traffic increase. It might be because of more people visiting because of the forum, but the forum itself won't cause it. If you are not hosting yourself, you won't need to worry about this last point so much.