I know how to create small data driven websites but want to get an idea on how to convert them to handle large data flow.
The questions are based on a site that would act mostly like stack overflow, craigslist etc where people could post stuff and others reply and would have basic search capabilities based on tags.
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Are regular relational databases like SQL server, Oracle etc strong enough to support a lot of data read and writes?
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If I have a site hosted on a dedicated single server, how much traffic in general can I expect it to handle?
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Are there any general design rules or problems that need to be taken into account when creating mid to large level applications?
With a good caching strategy and well-written SQL statements, any RDBMS should be sufficient.
Short answer is it depends. There’s an good discussion on this very topic here.
I would suggest you start by reviewing this post. Just following basic coding practices will help make your code more scalable.