beginner questions

[marsaday]

i am hoping to set up a forum for my town (population 180k)

i will be looking at the kickstart package initially and i understand this will take up to 40 users at any one time.  is this correct?

so if the site responds and does well is it easy to transfer over to a bigger hosting package?

i am a computer novice, so do you guys set up the SMF software on your servers ready for me to use.  i dont think i can actually do this myself you see and i note a lot of providers offer this service free.

do you offer any help with using and converting the SMF software or do i need to go to SMF for this help.

can you give me an idea of how much storage 3GB is in terms of topics in a forum.  i mean is it equivalent to 100 topics with 20 posts in each. i think it will be more but if you could give me an idea it would help me visualise what i am getting.

[G.C. Admin]

i am hoping to set up a forum for my town (population 180k)

i will be looking at the kickstart package initially and i understand this will take up to 40 users at any one time.  is this correct?

so if the site responds and does well is it easy to transfer over to a bigger hosting package?

i am a computer novice, so do you guys set up the SMF software on your servers ready for me to use.  i dont think i can actually do this myself you see and i note a lot of providers offer this service free.

do you offer any help with using and converting the SMF software or do i need to go to SMF for this help.

can you give me an idea of how much storage 3GB is in terms of topics in a forum.  i mean is it equivalent to 100 topics with 20 posts in each. i think it will be more but if you could give me an idea it would help me visualise what i am getting.

The concurrent user limit for KickStarter server is capped at 30. If your sites concurrent users are above this then you will be asked to move to the Hypercycle server. We of course will move the site to the new server and get it up and running.

We have a great support team who is very knowledgable with SMF. I am sure they will be able to help you when you need help.

I have yet to come across a site that uses 3G worth of space for the database. Our biggest sites run around 200-300MB for databases and they have over 10,000 + post in the database. I would not worry about storage that is a non issue.

Frank

[Iry]

so if the site responds and does well is it easy to transfer over to a bigger hosting package?

Yes, we will be able (if needed) to transfer your site to the hypercycle server if needed.

i am a computer novice, so do you guys set up the SMF software on your servers ready for me to use.  i dont think i can actually do this myself you see and i note a lot of providers offer this service free.

GC actually has a feature in cPanel called 'Fantastico' which will allow you to setup your forum without much hassle. 
Even if that somehow fails to work (which I doubt) you could install it yourself.  SMF's installation process is the easiest I've seen of any web-based application.

do you offer any help with using and converting the SMF software or do i need to go to SMF for this help.

Converting the SMF software?
If you mean converting vBulletin users to SMF or SMF to another that would require 3rd party software which I have not used (Dont think Frank has either) but if you do mean this I'd be willing to help you out.
If you meant installing forum mods and maintaining it, I could help.  I've setup multiple SMF forums and have added mods to custom themes.

If it was neither, please clarify so I can give you a more definitive answer ^^

can you give me an idea of how much storage 3GB is in terms of topics in a forum.  i mean is it equivalent to 100 topics with 20 posts in each. i think it will be more but if you could give me an idea it would help me visualise what i am getting.

3 gigs for a forum is PLENTY unless you can manage getting everyone in your town to post a 60 page thesis.
My friends forum has 12k members and the member 'table' takes up 2 megabytes
The posts table takes up 24 megabytes and thats a total of 57k posts.

Logging feature for SMF may also take up alot of space but not much.  We have 4 megs of errors ( My friend hasnt gotten around to giving correct SMTP info) and round to about 5 megs of actual logging.

So, in the end 3 gigs is more than enough space.  Enabling attachments and uploadable avatars may (and possibly will) increase amount of diskspace needed and bandwith.