20 January 2010, 18:45

We are negotiating with the IT department regarding the hosting server for Mahara. There are two questions for the experienced Mahara admins here:

1. How big the disk space is required for the database itself? The system will be linked to the database through a Linux mount point, which means the database could be on a seperate disk/partition. We can tell how big the database can be when it's first installed. A rough idea how fast it can grow will be really helpful, assuming the number of potential users are about 1000.

2. According to the installation guide, PostgreSQL is strongly recomended. The IT agrees to support MySQL but not if we decide to use PostgreSQL. Any recomendations whether we should take the risk of using an unsupported database?

Thanks.

20 January 2010, 21:59

Hi Shen,

We certainly intend to continue to support mahara running on MySQL!  We just recommend postgres, especially because it handles upgrade errors without leaving the database in an inconsistent state.  You've probably seen the thread on this, but if not, have a look here:

 http://mahara.org/interaction/forum/topic.php?id=302

22 January 2010, 0:05

Thanks for the information, Richard. The free beer sounds really attractive. Meanwhile, the reassuring of the support you have for Mahara running on MySQL is also a good news for us.

Regarding the other question, do you have any suggestions? I would think the recommendation on the disk quote of 250MB per user is for the physical files under the Maharadata directory and the database growth should be a different story. Just need a rough idea how fast it can grow for a site of about 1000 users.

 Thanks.