Gurus... Help me out

[Nick]

Alright guys, it's been like 4 years but I'm getting back in the game and creating another website. Only this time around I've got a great idea to go with that is untouched ground and I estimate that my initial userbase within first few months will be 3,000 active users that will increase into much, much larger numbers. The website will be primarily focused on a forum, I will be purchasing vBulletin for that so I need to paid hosting reliability and features.

In the past, I've used Tera-Byte.com without any problems and their $99/year plan offering 400MB disk space and 20GB/mo transfer is within my poor college student price range. What size forum will that space/transfer combo be able to handle? Should I just stick with what I know or are there better offers out there that offer significantly better features?

Some insight from experts, please?

Thanks :)!

[scribby]

400MB and 20GB will do a fairly large forum, but its not just the space? was the host reliable? if you want a sucsessful forum then you need uptime!

[Raizan]

In my opinion, if you already knows what the host has to offer and how reliable they are. You should stick with that one host if you want to take your website seriously. With that much users I suggest you stay with Tera-Byte.com instead of going to another host (that is, if Tera-Byte.com is reliable in your experiences).

Downtime or network hiccups everyday won't make your forums look good :). I personally wouldn't trust hosts that offer like 30gb of bandwidth for like $2/month. As we all know bandwidth and servers don't come free.

And yes, 400mb and 20gb a month should do fairly well for a medium - large forums. Unless you want to take your forum sky-high like WebHostingTalk.

[WMSpecialties]

I would suggest some more bandwidth, but you can always give it a try. WMS offers thier WMS-2 package which is $3.99/month.
1 GB of Space
20Gb of Data Transfer
Cpanel, Fantastico, Unlimited features (email, mysql, etc.)
phpbb2
First month Free
If you contact our sales team via msn messenger we will give you an extra 10GB of data transfer for Free. You may also reach us on AOL, or email us at slaes@webmediasystems.net

[Nick]

Yeah, I've always had great experiences with Tera-Byte's uptime and support. Basically I was just wondering if I need more space/transfer, and if that is a good price for what I would be getting. I haven't really kept up with pricing of other hosts so I just wanted some outside input.

I tend to go by "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", so if Tera-Byte is still a decent deal I will just stick with them.

Thanks again!

[Raizan]

$99/year comes to $8.25/month. That's not a bad deal for the good uptime, support, and services you're getting.

Thought now-a-day, with all the new and kiddie hosts popping up, you can get better plans that what Tera-Byte is offering for a lot cheaper. Though I won't go into how their services and support are...

[HeadBuilder]

Hi Nick,
Another point you should consider is if the host will support you should your site consumes too much resources, especially forum sites that require many sql calls. I know some providers have a clause in their TOS that says they can stop your site if it uses excessive resources, that including CPU cycles. With a forum site and that many active users, this could very well turn into a huge problem for most servers. Diskspace and transfer will be small considerations when you factor in this dimension of requirements from a site that you have proposed.

[Nick]

Thanks for the advice. I believe I will contact Tera-Byte and talk with them about the site, my plans, and possible problems that could arise to see if they're a good choice for what I will need.

If anyone has any other suggestions for a host, I'm looking for something with good reliability and support that's been around for a while and made a name for itself.

[WMSpecialties]

I recommend more bandwidth if that will fit in your budget.

[scribby]

display ad's :| y would someone want to pay for hosting if they had to display ad's :|,
I can offer you hosting.. just checkout my site www.switch2hosting.com, but if you have used Tera-Byte before and are happy with there service/uptime ect... then stick with them :)

[thelord]

Nick, I think HeadBuilder made a very valid point there. With such a huge database of active users, the server can be overloaded due to usage of excessive resources. But then, thats Shared Hosting ;)

I'd say you stick with your old host for their support.

But if you are looking for new hosts, then add total choice hosting to your list. they get back at you pretty fast.
hope that helps you out in your search

[Daniel]

Hey Nick,

Stick with your current/old host and when the time comes and they send you an email saying you're using up too much resources, then you may want to look into other options.

[Zubair1]

Hey Nick!

Just wanted to show you my offer if you really need more resources :-
You are currently paying $99 /per for 400 MB diskspace & 20GB bandwidth
I could double your space and bandwidth and also on a cheap price!
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yet in those 5 years we haven't paid a penny back to our clients
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-->
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Thank you!
Bye!

[WebDev]

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