Performance

[simonm]

If you think about it, information relating to the user is probably in one db table, then there is data about the post, the thread, avatars, logos, different scripts and includes, icons and so on. Its a big toll

I don't think there is much that can be done to make the site faster since Farjo doesn't control the server and its setup - they rent hosting. It's just an interesting topic to discuss in a hypothetical world

It might be http://www.ukhost4u.co.uk/shared-web-hosting/basic (I suspect the data is over a gig, but doubtful over 10 (mainly pictures I'd say).  This gives you the ability to install SMF from a script and use mysql.  In this case, although the admins wouldn't have control over the server's set up, I suspect they would have control over SMF's config but probably not ssh/root access.  The awstats and webalyzer stats look like cool utilities though.


I'd guess the avatars, icons and pictures would be stored on disk as blob's in a database are generally bad news if you can serve them up in a simpler way you'd be advised to.  If I'd written it I'd not store significant binary data in a database table if I could possibly help it.  Think of the traffic flow http -> disk vs http -> database ->disk