Very basic questions

[macrophotofly]

I am looking to create a forum for around 200 users, with around 20 new posts each day and circa 50-100 responses to those same posts per day.
I have read the basic requirements for my hosting server, but wondered,
1) how large does the SQL database limit on my server need to be? My provider only allows 1GB SQL databases maximum.
2) what is MYSQLi? How do I check if my server host provides?
3) if I only have basic HTML and CSS knowledge how much time will a basic forum with customised skin take me to build?

 

[Paul B]

1GB is more than enough to start with.

Most hosts should have MySQL installed.
Confirm with your host that they have, as well as the MySQLi extension.

You can customise the style using Style Properties or the templates.
How long it will take depends on your skill and the extent of the changes.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I'm in the process of converting a forum with 170k posts and 150k PMs and the database is well under 0.5GB. You'll be fine for a while.

 

[macrophotofly]

Many thanks for the help - very useful to know the size of an existing db