Fastest way to migrate to XF from vB4?

[XYZ500]

Hello there,

I'd like instructions and tips on how to migrate to XF in the fastest way possible so we have minimum downtime on our forum. I tested it on a dev site and the importing process alone took several hours and then comes the customizations. If I repeat the entire process, it would mean a minimum of 2-3 days of downtime for the forum and we cannot afford that.

So, I was thinking about doing this but I don't know if it will work. Create a directory on the live domain and put XF installation into it. Import forums list only. Install the theme. Install add-ons. Make whatever customizations we need. Then once we think everything is done, we close vB. Start importing users, threads, posts. Once that is done, delete vB files and move all the XF files to the root of the domain and the forum will be ready for use. Will this work? This will make the downtime as less as possible and the forum won't have to remain down for the customizations as well.

Please guide/advise me on the fastest and most efficient way of migrating with least downtime.

Thank you!

 

[Paul B]

This guide explains the process.

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/importing-guidelines.25325/

 

[XYZ500]

The rebuilding threads after the import seems to be taking too long so I tried to calculate the time. I'm guessing the 'threads' here mean posts too because the current number being shown is higher than the total number of threads we have so I am assuming it's rebuilding posts.

Anyways, the rate is roughly 7014 threads per 24 minutes 17 seconds. Is this normal?

 

[Alpha1]

XenForo doesnt use multithreading for this, so its only using 1 CPU core. This means that if you have a server with a lot of slow cores, it will go very slow. In my situation it took me a 6 days to do an import of my big board with various addons.
I fixed this by temporary getting a high CPU server with a few cores and this did speed everything up significant. I also changed the DB to InnoDB and got another speed bump.
I was able to import within a day.

Also look into @Slavik 's Ghost to quickly apply permissions and settings.

 

[CarpCharacin]

You can also install add-ons and themes BEFORE the import.