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capacity?

Started by wakewatcher, December 18, 2008, 04:30:23 AM

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wakewatcher

I'm not all that familiar with typical mySQL limitations or hosting limitations but am hopeful it is a problem I could someday have so ... Are there any limits on the number of categories, boards and topics? (other than the field sizes in the database which I assume I could increase by hand.) I'm looking at an application of up to (hopefully) 1000 categories (and a corresponding 1000 member groups), of on average of 25 boards added per year per category, and up to an additional 200 topics per week per category and let's say 5 posts per new topic. (Gulp that's 1,000,000 new posts per week.)  To be clear each membergroup only see's its own category in the forum plus a handful of general category/boards.  I already know I'm going to have somewhat of a administration nightmare with 1000 options for member groups etc. what are there other issues?  -thx-
smf 2.0.18

tech447

crap.. I had a nice big reply all typed out to you, but apparently I timed out and when I hit the post button it was all lost.  I don't have time to type it all out again but the gist if it was that most shared hosting packages out there may have a real problem with a site like you are suggesting.  They all have  different limitations, but the biggie is the cpu utilization limits.  Most of them watch that like a hawk and if you exceed their limits (usually around 4-5%) over a certain amount of time, they start to get cranky.  The other biggie is the mysql storage.  This is usually NOT tied to your hard drive storage, but is separate.  In most shared hosting packages it ranges from 5 - 100 mb.  100 Mb goes a long way, when you are talking about just text, but the site you are suggesting will produce a huge amount of text.  I have no idea how long it would last you.  No, In your situation a dedicated server is the way to go.  There are no limits except those imposed by the hardware itself, generally..  But they are expensive for startups, so if you cannot afford it, I would suggest doing your due diligence and finding a shared hosting plan that will give you some time to grow until you can afford a dedicated server.  I suggest hxxp:ameriline.duoservers.com/ [nonactive] as I have had real good luck with them.  Check out the enterprise plan.

Good luck..
Wayne

Oldiesmann

Quote from: wakewatcher on December 18, 2008, 04:30:23 AM
I'm not all that familiar with typical mySQL limitations or hosting limitations but am hopeful it is a problem I could someday have so ... Are there any limits on the number of categories, boards and topics? (other than the field sizes in the database which I assume I could increase by hand.) I'm looking at an application of up to (hopefully) 1000 categories (and a corresponding 1000 member groups), of on average of 25 boards added per year per category, and up to an additional 200 topics per week per category and let's say 5 posts per new topic. (Gulp that's 1,000,000 new posts per week.)  To be clear each membergroup only see's its own category in the forum plus a handful of general category/boards.  I already know I'm going to have somewhat of a administration nightmare with 1000 options for member groups etc. what are there other issues?  -thx-

You're going to have to modify the database structure a bit to support a forum like that.

First, you'll need to run these queries to allow SMF to handle more than 255 categories:
ALTER TABLE smf_boards CHANGE id_cat id_cat SMALLINT(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';
ALTER TABLE smf_categories CHANGE id_cat id_cat SMALLINT(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0' AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE smf_collapsed_categories CHANGE id_cat id_cat SMALLINT(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT '0';


Now we need to change the boards table again so we can support allowing so many groups to access a board:
ALTER TABLE smf_boards CHANGE membergroups membergroups VARCHAR(65535) NOT NULL DEFAULT '-1,0';

And, just to be safe, you'll want to make this change:
ALTER TABLE smf_members CHANGE additional_groups additional_groups smalltext NOT NULL;

That will prevent errors if members are in more than a certain number of additional groups (I forget what the exact number is offhand, but with 1000s of groups, it's better to be safe than sorry).
Michael Eshom
Christian Metal Fans

wakewatcher

@Oldiesmann

(Somehow I missed your reply.)  Thanks for this.  I will (hopefully) need it!
smf 2.0.18

10dc

Nice info, very very good for newbie members forums :)
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wakewatcher

@Oldiesmann

I did my quick response earlier and again thanks for this it is helpful.  A couple of questions if you may. So it is simply a matter of changing the data sized in the database?  There are no php constants which limit anything? (makes sense to me I suppose.)  Also as an educational point for me. (And apologies for my ignorance.) Does it work such that if you declare a mysql db item to be huge. [membergroups VARCHAR(65535)] mysql doesn't actually allocated that much memory unless needed? (And what is the difference between declaring as such and declaring as simply "text" as the body of the messages are in the smf_messages?)  Thanks.
smf 2.0.18

charlottezweb

don't forget the limitation of mysql connections...

wakewatcher

smf 2.0.18

charlottezweb

There will be a limit to concurrent mysql and httpd connections as well.  Not sure what you anticipate to be your simultaneous users online amount to be but that's something to bear in mind if you're anticipating 1 million posts a week.

wakewatcher

Thanks.  Does anyone know the limits that godaddy has for shared hosting?
smf 2.0.18

greyknight17

wakewatcher, is this issue resolved now?

You can try asking GoDaddy to find out. But if it's a low-end hosting package, then don't expect much especially for the heavy load your forum will be getting.

wakewatcher

smf 2.0.18

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