Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
Steve St.Laurent
Staff Alumni
Well guys, the time is NEAR!! The webmaster has the new servers up and running and is currently redoing the search index. What we need is your help to evaluate them out and see if we can identify any problems. Today from 4:00pm-11:00pm eastern time we need you to go to http://216.235.147.117/forums and work them out big time. We're trying to put as big a load on the servers as reasonably possible. The search feature is turned on with 3 character searches and the time delay between searches has been eliminated so that we can load it down. Keep in mind that ALL messages posted on there WILL be deleted tomorrow - this is just a test. All of the current messages from the existing server were moved over there last night. So please go to the new servers and work them out tonight, do a bunch of browsing through old stuff, post some messages (remember, they'll be deleted tomorrow), click the refresh button, do a bunch of complicated searches, etc, etc.
Assuming all goes well with that evaluation at 11:00pm eastern the new servers will be taken back down and the latest version of the Vbulletin software will be installed. Tomorrow morning at 10:30am the discussion forums will be turned off to allow the current data to be moved to the new servers. The discussion forums will be off for approximately 6 hours (coming back up at 4:30pm). During that time all of the current messages will be moved to the new servers, the archives will be restored to them, the indexes will be rebuilt for 3 character searches (with wildcards and a 30 second delay between searches for now), and the abililty to upload pictures will be turned back on. The links that are in current messages will link to the old site for now (which will be set to read only, so you won't be able to reply to those) and once the entire site is moved to the new servers that will go away. If you click on a link to an old message and you want to respond to it you'll need to go back to the new servers and do a search on that message title and you'll be able to repy to it there. Over the next 7 days the other features of the website will be moved over to the new servers.
Thanks again for your patience with this move. We think you are going to be blown away with the speed of the new system, I know we are!! The old server took 16 hours to reindex the database with 4 character searches, the new server took 2 hours to reindex it with 3 character searches! I apologize for the lack of updates, but the situation has been so fluid (and so many bumps in the road along the way) that we've been 1. extremely busy trying to get it done and 2. not sure exactly what to say!
-Steve St. Laurent
Lead Moderator
P. S. I'll be hitting the road early tomorrow morning to go to the big rig nationals in Budds Creek, MD and won't be back until Sunday so I won't be able to respond to messages until Sunday night.
Assuming all goes well with that evaluation at 11:00pm eastern the new servers will be taken back down and the latest version of the Vbulletin software will be installed. Tomorrow morning at 10:30am the discussion forums will be turned off to allow the current data to be moved to the new servers. The discussion forums will be off for approximately 6 hours (coming back up at 4:30pm). During that time all of the current messages will be moved to the new servers, the archives will be restored to them, the indexes will be rebuilt for 3 character searches (with wildcards and a 30 second delay between searches for now), and the abililty to upload pictures will be turned back on. The links that are in current messages will link to the old site for now (which will be set to read only, so you won't be able to reply to those) and once the entire site is moved to the new servers that will go away. If you click on a link to an old message and you want to respond to it you'll need to go back to the new servers and do a search on that message title and you'll be able to repy to it there. Over the next 7 days the other features of the website will be moved over to the new servers.
Thanks again for your patience with this move. We think you are going to be blown away with the speed of the new system, I know we are!! The old server took 16 hours to reindex the database with 4 character searches, the new server took 2 hours to reindex it with 3 character searches! I apologize for the lack of updates, but the situation has been so fluid (and so many bumps in the road along the way) that we've been 1. extremely busy trying to get it done and 2. not sure exactly what to say!
-Steve St. Laurent
Lead Moderator
P. S. I'll be hitting the road early tomorrow morning to go to the big rig nationals in Budds Creek, MD and won't be back until Sunday so I won't be able to respond to messages until Sunday night.
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