What's the general opinion about hosting a fairly simple mybb forum with a free webhost? I guess the biggest longterm issue is dealing with a limited disk space. I hope you can help me by giving me an idea of how long 1,5GB will last, and maybe there are also some tweaks and settings to really keep the disk usage on a very low level. My forum is new, and the only real thing I've changed from default is installing a mod for profile comments. I've also disabled attachments, since it would obviously be like shooting myself in the foot allowing that. Other than that, I've no idea what to do, and I don't know how much a forum uses for like normal posts. I know about free forum providers that gives you unlimited size and with a very stable server managing hundreds of daily users. I'm just wondering, isn't this possible to create also with a full mybb forum? I really like mybb, and it would be nice could I continue using it.
Thanks.
Every provider especially free host providers that claim to provide you with Unlimited space always have hidden limits and some most likely oversell.
1.5 GB disk space would be good for a month or maximum 3 months from my experience. I would recommend buying a host after the first few months(When the forum picks up). Don't rely on free hosts for a long term.
The forum software itself is very small and wont be an issue, without attachments,etc i would imagine 1.5 gb would last a very long time.
the biggest thing i hate about free providers is the lack of service, during dev i was using 000webhost at it was pathetic, the site was down well over 50% of the time and they finally managed to corrupt the install at which point i switched to host gator, it was about $100 for the first 3 years and that includes unlimited + domain register. so if you can afford it i would go paid just to avoid the headache. (or at least stay away from 000webhost)
(2013-07-18, 02:18 PM)75lockwood Wrote: [ -> ]The forum software itself is very small and wont be an issue, without attachments,etc i would imagine 1.5 gb would last a very long time.
the biggest thing i hate about free providers is the lack of service, during dev i was using 000webhost at it was pathetic, the site was down well over 50% of the time and they finally managed to corrupt the install at which point i switched to host gator, it was about $100 for the first 3 years and that includes unlimited + domain register. so if you can afford it i would go paid just to avoid the headache. (or at least stay away from 000webhost)
I agree with you however with the attachments part, there will be a lot of members signing up and uploading avatars for their forum profiles and if the OP decides to use a different theme(Other than the default) and more plugins(which is obvious), the disk space would run out in few months.
1.5 GB of disk space should be fine to start out. Monitor your usage and expand as you need to.
Avatars are even set to 10kb maximum atm, and the forum would not contain hundreds of users. And if it did, it means the forum would be very popular and worth paying a little bit for probably.
After installing the forum and my few plugins, it had used 8mb only. However, after a day or two with only really a few normal posts and a thread had been made, it went up to 11mb according to my server host. If it uses that much, it will raise quickly.
Still, if there are any settings to reduce the disk usage on mybb forums, I'd be happy if you shared. Thanks for all replies so far.