eFiction database: how large is yours?

FIA is 40.4Mb. Stories saved in folder (which incidentally is 110Mb). 14,987 members, 6,455 chapters, and 72,243 reviews.

Cullenated is 246.3Kb. Stories saved in folder (don't know the size). 149 members, 78 chapters, and 45 reviews.

I think the efiction database is at about 150mb. It's a little hard to tell because my SMF uses the same database (total 3.2 GB) We store our text as files.

Authors - 2889
Stories - 8379
WC - 7,442,4617
Reviews - 237831

Just the reviews take up 90mb for us. If you're going to have a sizeable archive, I would highly suggest you store as text files.

3.2GB? Eep.

Thanks Kali and Lyndsie. 😀

(I still can't access my archive. I'm using db method for Ink and I'm the only one I'm aware who uses this on the forums atm!)

We're opening up an archive soon which has the potential to become a 'sizeable' archive, which is why I'm asking, by the way. If we open up a forum, we're definitely going with bbPress route in a separate database with no bridging, I think! 😛

Here are my database AUP specs:

Databases

    * may not exceed 15 concurrent MySQL connections
    * each database is restricted to no more than 3GB in disk space
    * may not execute more than 1,000 queries per hour (insert/update/delete)
    * may not remotely connect to databases

I'm not sold on the text files storage method (yet), to be honest; which is why I'm asking this question. =/ I'm under the blanket that using text files as storage is left over from 1.1 and is an "outdated" method of storage. I made an enquiry post that points more or less to database storage... Although some of the comments posted are largely ignorant of how eFic stores stories. I'm just not entirely sure if the database will be able to handle how eFic pulls data in/out. I'm keeping options open, nonetheless! One of the main pros of text files is less data in the database, but the cons are: icky backing up -- even with sync -- and I guess I'd just prefer db'd stories?

It's a hard one to choose. 😛

I would go with folders, personally. I've seen a more issues with saving files to database than to files, particularly when an archive gets larger.

Hmm...

I can quasi-access site, so I'll post my details up:

Ink: db stored --11.33mb; 319 stories; 779 chapters; 856 reviews; 457 members; word count is 1745485.

I recommend using folder storage!
The other way, the database will slow you down and your site cannot grow 😉

Not necessarily. Database performance will only slow down if there are too many query transactions.

Not necessarily. Database performance will only slow down if there are too many query transactions.

We've actually hit the point where we're dropping connections because there are to many queries happening and we're on a business class dedicated server. (My 'boss' is on the phone with tech support right now) While ours is sort of a special case because of it's Titanic like proportions, I can't image it would be better if we were pulling the story text as well.

I think yours is a pretty interesting case to observe. 😛

OK, I'm just a teensy bit worried about people managing to read text not meant for them, but I think I'm probably going to go with file/folder storage. Hopefully, database back-ups won't kill the server and I can just keep syncing (and get others to sync with me :P). To test the 'curl' 'lynx' 'python' issue...

OK, I'm just a teensy bit worried about people managing to read text not meant for them

This isn't so easy, very few know how to reach the files.
At least, in Italy XD
The common user cannot really reach the files =)

Don't worry for this.
BTW, a girl I know once stored in DB, then it started collapsing every now and then, and finally...
Server storage XD

Haha, still a precaution, nonetheless! I am being insanely anal about this, I realise. 🙁 I think it's time for more .htaccess permission rules lol 😛 (I use them already for my .tpl in skins folders; I was not impressed with skin thievery.)

Thank you. 🙂

For us it was the bots accessing the stories folder that was  the problem. The way the stories are store makes it ridiculous to try to match chapters to stories, so it was bandwidth issues that were the problem.

Did you do a robots.txt or a .htaccess or something, Kali? *is curious*

We use both, actually. We block bots from everything that isn't in the main directory. The .htaccess is more for images and the occasional hard to block bot (we do by IP)