It occured to me today that this is an incredible data-base of stored wealth (in information). How much more info can this site hold before it’s full. Maybe more to the point: Is there a finite amount space to hold all previous AND future threads? Or can this go on forever?
I run a slightly active music message board called Musika
It currently has just around 200,000 posts. Using the UBB software this takes up about 200MB of storage space.
This message board uses a database engine which is a different way of storing the messages then what I use, but from what I suspect this entire board takes up less then 1gig in storage total. (perhaps 750MB or so??)
Since I’m here, I’m gonna move this thread over to ATMB. That is the proper forum for technical questions concerning the SDMB.
And to answer the question, let me copy this portion of a post from jdavis, one of our site administrators.
So, it appears that the nearly 1.4 million posts requires approximately 1.7 gigs.
Maybe, I asked the question wrong…
Does the Chicago Reader, Inc or C.A. have the ways and means to continue these boards (saving current information) for an indefinate time? Or…You are now using 1.7 gigs, how much do you have available to you? Or…Extrapolating the current post trend, when would you expect to hit the max gigs that the Chicago Reader is willing to pony up for?
Dn’t knw th lmts bt w cld ll sv dsk spc b nl sng cnsnnts n r psts. Ths wll gv hbrc flvr t th thrds.
Bns pnts t whvr dcphrs ths.
Y mssplld “nt.” Bns pnts m ss.
Wrng, brby. Tr gn. 
“Don’t know the limits but we could all save disc space by only using consanants in our posts. This will give hebrewic flavor to the threads.”
What do I win?
Oh, and U.B. while you were in here, you could of took a shot at the answer to the OP…
I did. Jdavis says the backup is 1.7 gigs. From that, I assume the sum total of the database is, well, 1.7 gigs. How much can we store? I dunno. Depends on how big and how many hard drives the CR is willing to spring for. I thought that would be self-evident. I don’t know what else to tell ya.
I didn’t read it that way. I read it as that’s what you were currently using to fill your current needs.
Regardless, I assumed as a mod you would be privy to how much more is available and how much more CR is willing to spring for. I know a lot of people dick around in here, but this really is a very good reference site - kinda the ‘Library at Alexandria’ of our day. Just hate to see us loose this valuable data. Forewarned is forearmed.
Thanks for your input.
Library of Alexandria? Unc, check the doors. I think we may be expecting a mob with torches soon! :eek:
As an administrator, I can tell you that I’m NOT privy to that data. Possibly I could get it if I asked…but I probably wouldn’t remember it. Most of us, you know, don’t even live in Chicago, we do all our moderating from remote places. Some more remote than others.
With gigabytes running at $5 each these days, the space required isn’t going to be constraining factor. The bottleneck is in the retrieval times, which are not linear with space, but tend to be better for straight retrievals, and worse for searches, as time goes on.
Well ,I guess if speed, or technically the lack of speed, is the constraining factor, then the limit is whatever the members are willing to put up with. Whatever.
1.7 gigs? Wow, that’s tiny, considering the sheer volume of information it contains. That means, theoretically, that I could store all posts, ever, on less than 5 percent of my hard drive at home.
Does that just include the stuff on the boards, or the archives of Cecil’s columns and the staff reports too? I know the content of http://www.straightdope.com is on a different server (it has to be; even when the boards were at their slowest Cecil’s site was still truckin’ along); is it in a different archive as well?
Just the board.
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Well, you can buy 60 gig for around $100 (and getting cheaper by the day), so as far as space is concerned, thats not an issue. Its backed up to tape nightly, so its not going to be lost to riots, crashes or hackers, most likely. Cockroaches are probably the biggest threat.
Name: straightdope.com
Address: 65.201.198.8
Aliases: http://www.straightdope.com
Name: boards.straightdope.com
Address: 65.201.198.9
While they are indeed on different servers, the difference you noticed in speed has nothing to do with it. The slowdowns on the board probably have little to do with web server speed. The slowdowns we see on the board are due to database related issues. The content on the columns likely resides on a different database than the message board, and its the limit on connections/volume of I/O between webserver and database that slow things down. Typically if you’re online and you’re seeing slow page loads there are usually 2 culprits, your bandwidth limitations, or the website’s database limitations.
preparing to be shot down by Jerry
You win a free link to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary to help correct some egregious spelling errors , and a wet kiss from yours truly 
.