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Hi all. For some years I've been operating MyBB forums with a few hundred registered users (and pretty much continual non-registered page views).

I'm now possibly faced with configuring a new MyBB system that will need to support around 50K users from day one. The actual activity level of those users may not be enormous to start, but it will likely be necessary to at least pre-create those 50K accounts based on other data (the best way to do this is not entirely clear). Growth is expected to continue at a good clip beyond the ~50K user starting point.

A more basic question is what sort of server(s) configuration(s) would be recommended as the foundation for this sort of environment. Overspending is to be avoided, but clearly we want to have adequate capacity for launch and for reasonable growth.

All suggestions appreciated. Thanks!
It's fine saying you will have 50k users registered on your board, but the main question is: How many are you expecting to be active on a daily basis?

I don't mind putting together a recommended server setup for you.
(2011-03-28, 11:41 PM)Danny7211 Wrote: [ -> ]It's fine saying you will have 50k users registered on your board, but the main question is: How many are you expecting to be active on a daily basis?

I don't mind putting together a recommended server setup for you.

Unfortunately, there is no way to answer that question. This is an entirely new project without any history to use as reference in this context. The only known fact for now is the starting number of accounts. Everything grows from there.

Hmmm, you're best option would be to have 2 server - Quad Core, 4GB+ RAM, 4 SATA hard drives under RAID 10. One server would be used as the web server, dns, email etc and the other would be used for only the database.

The web server doesn't really need to be RAID 10 because it will only be containing the main files which you can keep backed up on your PC but if you edit the files a lot, then it would be better to have RAID 1. A 1000Mbps cross connection between the servers too.

This should cover your 50k users & provide room for some growth.
(2011-03-28, 11:54 PM)Danny7211 Wrote: [ -> ]Hmmm, you're best option would be to have 2 server - Quad Core, 4GB+ RAM, 4 SATA hard drives under RAID 10. One server would be used as the web server, dns, email etc and the other would be used for only the database.

The web server doesn't really need to be RAID 10 because it will only be containing the main files which you can keep backed up on your PC but if you edit the files a lot, then it would be better to have RAID 1. A 1000Mbps cross connection between the servers too.

This should cover your 50k users & provide room for some growth.

Devoting an entire server strictly to MySQL is definitely recommended then?



(2011-03-28, 11:54 PM)Danny7211 Wrote: [ -> ]Hmmm, you're best option would be to have 2 server - Quad Core, 4GB+ RAM, 4 SATA hard drives under RAID 10. One server would be used as the web server, dns, email etc and the other would be used for only the database.

The web server doesn't really need to be RAID 10 because it will only be containing the main files which you can keep backed up on your PC but if you edit the files a lot, then it would be better to have RAID 1. A 1000Mbps cross connection between the servers too.

This should cover your 50k users & provide room for some growth.

Are you assuming the RAID is shared across the 2 servers or separate for each with 2 (or 4) separate drives per server?

Yeah, MySQL puts a lot of loads onto servers with busy forums etc.

Server 1 (Web server) - RAID 1 or no RAID at all.
Server 2 (MySQL) - RAID 10.
(2011-03-29, 12:06 AM)Danny7211 Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, MySQL puts a lot of loads onto servers with busy forums etc.

Server 1 (Web server) - RAID 1 or no RAID at all.
Server 2 (MySQL) - RAID 10.

Excellent. At what point would I likely have to start looking at multiple MyBB servers per se, and/or multiple master/slave MySQL servers? Thanks.
You shouldn't really need load balancers until you're probably hitting 10x more than 50k. For now, it would be possible to upgrade the servers I suggested but make sure your provider allows you to upgrade later.
(2011-03-29, 12:18 AM)Danny7211 Wrote: [ -> ]You shouldn't really need load balancers until you're probably hitting 10x more than 50k. For now, it would be possible to upgrade the servers I suggested but make sure your provider allows you to upgrade later.

Understood. Thanks again very much. The MyBB Community is a winner.