Merging two forums (VB 3.8)

Hi, can I merge two 3.8.4 forums together using Impex?
It won't overwrite the source database will it?
Also what are your tips and experiences using Impex to merge?

Btw, the forum is quite large so downtime should be minimal.

Thanks,

Tom!

 

Hi Tom,

Yes you can merge two vB sites. It's easier then merging from another board into vB but plan to spend at least couple of hours doing the merge. The time required really depends on how much data has to be moved and how powerful your server is.

I've never done a merge on a live site. As a precautionary measure, I've always copied the database into a new database, did the merge there, ensured everything is working and changed config.php to point new DB deleting the old one once I felt confident everything was humming along fine (normally a week or so).

Last year I did a vB to vB merge on a very large site (1 million+ posts) and it was hell mySQL kept crashing. All in all it took me 3 days to finally get everything done and it involved migrating to a new server to do the move. The new server was supposed to be for the finished merge but I wound up needing it's horsepower to do the merge.

Good luck with the merge if you run into any trouble post back.

 

Dan, thanks for the reply.

The site I'm merging aren't huge but around 250k posts.

Not sure how much DB's they have so I may just have to backup and if it goes wrong restore.

Will tell you how it goes if the merge goes ahead!