database backup size

[ninjamonke]

can you guys give me your best estimate how much a vbulletin database backup file size would be for a forum that has 53k users and 1.4million posts..

just estimate your best please.

[bigH2O]

Too many variables to give you a real estimate. Your allowable file types for attachments, and what you're allowable size is will make a difference, IF you choose to do database storage on attachments,

I'll give you stats from two of my sites though, both of them using file based storage for attachments and avatars. You should be able to estimate an average based on your much larger site.

Site 1:
Threads: 11,576, Posts: 160,090, Members: 8,194
100906937 bytes in the tar'd gz'd backup of the database last night.

Site 2:
Threads 81,074 Posts 570,845, Members 10,448
338500240 bytes in the tar'd gz'd backup of the database last night.

I won't bother with the stats on the rest of the sites... that ought to give you a good idea.

Again, this is all just the discussion stuff that goes in the database. I keep the attachments in the file system. If you're curious about those, post back up and I'll give you those stats, but they're massive... way more than you'd want to put in the database, much less try to back up every night.

Set the site to use the file system for your attachments, and set your backups to only transfer the files that have changed since the last backup, and it'll go quick and smooth. Of course this is all going to depend on your host and how well they cache the attachments, so your mileage may vary.

[bigH2O]

Also, with a site as big as yours have you considered looking at the new beta for the Sphinx plugin for vB4 that appears is gonna be an official vBulletin release? I'm swarming around it but haven't had the time to mess with it much yet. I sure hope it improves the search features on vB4