First, sorry if some parts of my message are hard to understand for those that do not have many technical knowledge - I just hope that at least some members will understand it to give comments/ideas.

I received an e-mail from OVH (where IMCDB site is hosted) because the database is currently 45 MB. The maximal size is 50 MB.
That database contains all info except pictures (so comments, car names, movie titles, etc.) - pictures take nearly 3000 MB but currently it is not a problem, that limit is at 20000 MB.
I thought that I could easily have a bigger database when the site would reach the maximal database size, but that option is not available anymore.

So the possibilities are the following:
1 - move to another hosting company
2 - delete many "useless" comments
3 - store oldest comments separately
4 - store "useless" comments separately

1 : will only work some time, as the database size will continue to increase.
2 : except some debates with explorer4x4, I am not sure that so many comments could be deleted because they would be useless.
3 : this may be annoying as it would slow down the display of the pages containing old comments, or make oldest comment not directly visible (like current "archived" comments)
4 : as mentioned in point 3, the comments marked as "archived" could be moved to a separate database.
Currently I think that the point 4 is the best solution for short/medium-term.
At short term, we could move off-topic discussions to "archive" database. So they would be available from a link on the movie/vehicle comment page like current archived comments.
At medium term, we could move the discussions related to identification of a car, as they are less useful once the car is identified for sure.
So do you think that it would be an acceptable solution for the next months?

This weekend I will do a test to see how much the current archived messages "weight", so if the solution 4 could help us for few months without anything to do to the non-archived messages.

well, maybe archiving every comment automatically after 3? 6? (whatever) months should help - anyone who wants to read older comments just click on the link and will be redirected to the database..

I think that solution 4 will only clear a very small amount of space on the database. I think that if option 1 is not an option, we have to go for solution 3...as that clears more space, which is what I think needed in order to prevent the database from gowing to much...

Do you know how much space a normal "comment" with only text costs? And how many space costs a comment with thumbnails, are they bigger?

Theorically 1 character = 1 byte, though that for a database it is not especially so simple.
So one thumbnail = 1 byte x the number of characters used for its code.
Thumbnails with "<a href...>" take more space than those with "[img...]" but I do not think that this makes a big difference anyway (though that I could do a test: convert all the <a href...>" and see how much we spare).

I do not think that old comments should be "hidden" like archived ones: often these old comments contain thumbnail or useful info that visitors "should" see. That's why I suggested option 4, as these comments are useless for the visitor in most of the case.

The advantage of option 4 vs option 3 is that the archived comments do not have to be displayed on the same page as the other, so the fact that they are stored separately is not a problem.

But anyway it is not technically difficult to have older comments stored separately but displayed with the newer ones, it will just maybe make some pages a little slower to display (though that the difference will still be measured in milliseconds, or in 1-2 second in the worse case I hope).

The big advantage of the option 3 is that "archiving old comments" is a computer-task, option 4 is a human task

I am anxious to see the testresults. Maybe you can take a look aswell to the standard items displayed with a standard comment, such as the username and the flag. (If they are storedin the database?) If that could be fine tuned, it might save much more space...

Other, might it be an idea to store the comments with thumbnails seperately? That could save much space aswell....




I agree to that, it is not the option I like most (That old comments are hidden). But I think it is the option which clears the most space most easily.

User infos currently take 0,4 MB
They are stored separately and linked to comments when the comments are displayed (only username is stored with each comment).
Putting data in separate database isn't a long-term option anyway.
I am thinking that maybe I should take a dedicated server. The cheapest one is not much more expensive than the current hosting solution, but I am not sure that the performance would be good.

New info: next week OVH will add again an option for big databases... If it is not too expensive it would be the easiest solution until IMCDB can have its own server (anyway, for that the problem is not the cost but the fact that I cannot manage a Unix/Linux server myself).
If we can have a 100 or 200 MB limit, it will allow us to keep the current system at least until 2008 or 2009

OK, lets wait and see - ad solutions 3/4 - I can not really imagine by sollution 4 the amount of work for admins (to go and clean more than 4000 pages of comments... :impossible: )

what about deleting all the comments from Maximum Overdrive...won't that free up atleast 50Mb?

Lol yeah. Maximum Overdrive needs an overhaul. Get rid of the useless comments. The old comments are somewhat useful.

I don't know enough about the size of database elements to make an intelligent comment.

I do think that we need to get rid of or archive a lot of the useless and/or off topic comments, regardless of which option we choose.

In the meantime, I guess we wait and see what our current host will do.

Here are some test results: (made on my PC, not on the real site of course)
For a current comments size of 44.9 MB,
- dropping currently archived comments: gain = 1.1 MB
- dropping maximum overdrive comments: gain = 0.5 MB
- dropping explorer4x4 & rockerbj comments: gain = 1 MB
- dropping comments that are more than 1 year old: gain = 8.5 MB (only!)
- dropping comments that are more than 6 months old: gain = 20.8 MB
- dropping comments containing imageshack picture links: gain = 13.6 MB

Note that combining 1st and 3rd one does not allow to gain 2.1 MB, as most of the archived comments are actually from Explorer4x4

Some news about that. Two solutions :
- move to a new host, cheaper and with higher limits (and that has a good reputation) : www.infomaniak.ch (120 € inc.VAT / year instead of about 230 € for the current one)
- use the new option that OVH added: for 5 € exc.VAT per month we can have a limit of 100 MB instead of 50 MB.

I am not sure that the site will run fine on Infomaniak, maybe it will be too heavy to handle for their servers (as it is cheaper they must put more site per server I guess). And the Swiss laws are maybe less tolerant for the IMCDb contents (I asked them, but they could not give a precise anwser yet )

For that reason, and for facility reason to not have to move the site quickly this month, I'll probably take the solution of staying at OVH for at least few months. Google Ads earnings are high enough to pay that anyway.

Anyway the next step within few years will be a dedicated server if the site continue to grow like that.

Sounds like staying with OVH is the best solution - particularly if we are liable to run into copyright law issues. We do post a lot of stuff that the american movie industry would probably frown at. Thanks Antp for all your work.

Actually the site relies on "fair use" concept, which exists in USA but not in Belgium/France/Switzerland. So legally OVH (France) is not so different. To be "more legal" the site should be hosted in USA, under the name of a US citizen. Well, I doubt that it would change much, I just hope that no movie company will attack the site with stupid argument, as the site makes more "advertising" for the movies than something else.

Definitely advertising. There's a few movies that I've rented or bought based on the screenshots I've seen here.

A few...? I have bought tens of dvds based on the screenshots...

I even bought (cheap) DVDs mostly to make screenshots.
e.g. http://www.imcdb.org/movie_250390-A-Friday-Night-Date.html which was not bought for the quality of the movie...

That's what I do, 5 DVD's for 5 Euro's...Very bad movies, but it's fun!

I also buy cheap movies for fun and posting. I just bought a 50 movie pack with some of the worse movies I have ever seen (Name of pack = Nightmare Worlds). Will be posting some soon.