Question Database size concerns - Can site content and forum posts be separated?

I'm evaluating forum options for Joomla, and I'm leaning towards Kunena. The integration and ease of use are certainly appealing! I'm concerned about scalability and long term performance though. :dry:

* Can Kunena forum data be separated from Joomla article content into a different database?
* Can anyone provide some sizing statistics for a typical Kunena forum? Before anyone says "there is no typical, each is unique!", here's what I mean by "typical".
- How big is the forum on Kunena.com?
- Can anyone provide an example of the format "Where X number of users are registered, a life of Y years, with Z average posts per day, our database size is ABC megabytes"?
* When a user attaches a file or image to a post, is the image stored in a regular directory and referenced by Kunena via URL? Or is the file actually stored within the database itself?
* Let's assume Kunena forum data can be separated from Joomla article content. Is there a way to break up the forum data as well? Let's use Kunena.com/forum as an example. After the forum reaches a certain size and activity level, it may be desirable to break it into different databases such as:
- (1) Kunena - To Speak!
- (2) Kunena 1.5.5
- (3) Kunenea 1.0.11, older
- (4) Kunena Wiki (5) Etc.

Thanks in advance!!!

Good question that I would also really like to know. Is it somehow possible that the
Kunena forum could run on a separate database?? Any hints??

Kind Regards Mikkel.

Why do you want separate database? All tables are stored in separate files, so it should not be issue.

Database with 250 000 messages takes about 250MB, so it's about 1KB/message.
Add avatars and attachments into that, if you allow them. They are stored in directory.

I don't think that forums will differ in these numbers as it's mostly data which is saved.

Breaking forum data into many databases/tables is highly inefficient and should not be done. If you want to store data in many places, do it in database server, not in software that uses it. And forums with millions of messages have still relatively small databases.

Hi Matias,

thanks for your reply.

OK, when the messages does not take up more space than around 1KB per message
then the datebase issue for me is not problem. My concern was if the messages
took up a lot of space, then it would be a problem. There was also a back up
issue for me in this. But if 250.000 messages only fill up 250MB then it is perfect.

Once again thanks.

Regards Mikkel.

Well, if your users are always posting novels, messages will take more space. But usually messages are about the same size as in this forum.