Dedicated server- the only way for a huge site??

[MarkN26]

Hello,

I have plans to release a final version of my site. Let me first mention that it's several hundred pages large (it's an archive of hundreds of movies and shows -- each show has it's own web page, etc). My question is this: because of the large amount of space that will be used, and the bandwidth as well, do I have to get a dedicated server? Is there a web space provider that will handle such a site for a **reasonable** price? I've had a very hard time finding one, they all tell me that a dedicated server is what they'd recommend, however I cannot afford this. Please help if you know of any alternatives!

 

[foxdev]

What level of traffic do you expect?

I have thousands of pages on a shared server that performs just fine, but the volume (to my portion) is pretty low.

My virtual hoster provides 400 Mb of space at a pretty reasonable price, and it performs well. I get a fair amount of traffic, but not hundreds of thousands per day, so I don't know for sure how it would perform at that level. Robert Bradley
Sr. DBA, some big company
cheap prints and oil paintings:

http://www.lowcostprints.com

 

[ajmckay]

I hv a similar question to ROBERT BRADLEY ( i'm Not screaming
who is your hoster and does it support database and if so would we have to build it? are templates available.
TO ANYONE - I talked w/ a Microsoft developer and she told me Access2000 is NOT got for handling multiple users, any suggestions on reasonable software or ISP???
Scenerio - A site that will register members to buy and sell good to each other, you guys are GREAT and we really need your help...

regards
AJMcKay

 

[foxdev]

Responding to AJMcKay:

My hoster is Webaxxs (

http://www.webaxxs.net

); for my e-commerce site (I have 3 sites with them) I get 400Mb space, lots of goodies, and (most importantly for this discussion) a Miva Merchant license (

http://www.miva.com/products/merchant/

) for $29.95. You can get a similar package from them without the Miva license for about $16.

Miva Merchant lets you get a store up and running in a day. It provides plenty of ways to customize it within the Admin interface, and it is driven by a set of scripts that you are able to modify.

Like many others, Webaxxs offers the MySQL database. I've used MySQL somewhat, mostly to play around with and hone my PHP skills (which are still pretty dull). It isn't as full-featured as, say, Microsoft SQL Server, but OTOH its language offers more functions, many of which come in handy for Web development. Robert Bradley
Sr. DBA, some big company
cheap prints and oil paintings:

http://www.lowcostprints.com

 

[fhlee]

From experience. Shared hosting is fine unless you have millions of dollars to spend.

Ms Access will start showing slowness when after you have about 500,000 records in it. It allows multiple users over the net. However, please remember to use a DNS-less connection as it is faster.

My recommendation is to use an SQL database. I prefer MS SQL database and have built many sites on it.

http://www.sagaQuest.com

has a lot of data (movies and games) and considerable hits (about a thousand a day).

http://www.myvteam.com

has an extensive backend calculation and a large database (soccer point calculations) and about 200k visits a month.

They all run on shared servers. No problem. However, my advise is not to pick the [cheapest] host. Make sure that the support is good. I use

http://www.webserver.com.my

and charge about US$65 a month but the uptime, support and speed are excellent. I don't mind paying more for that as I've experience many cheap hosts that eventually kill my nap time ...


regards,
- Joseph

http://www.replicaSi.com/

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