Vbulletin, mysql, php, badwidth JONG question

Okay, say a person was interested in setting up a online community, somewhat like this one but about the "green industry". It would be geared towards a regional area with the idea being to help home owners and buisinesses hook up, get/give advice,etc. Also a seperate section for just industry people to network. It would need the capacity for flash buttons used as advertising from the sites sponsors and a page with a business directory with contact info for all of the sites sponsors.

How much storage space and bandwidth would a person need to run something like that.

lawnsite.com is a good example of the type of set up and advertising I would like to be able to do.

Any advice on how to go about doing this without getting my ass handed to me would ne greatly appreciated too.

space and bandwidth are almost entirely determined by traffic. if you have a busy site like this one then you will need significantly more than if you are seeing just a few users and not alot of traffic. Owens will probably share information about his server stats with you if you ask him.

Most likely you would be fine just leasing some space on a server somewhere, there are plenty of places that offer hosting like this. Usually they will allow you to increase your bandwidth/storage as needed, so go low and increase as needed. There are many places that offer hosting like this, i use these guys http://www.dtsinetadvantage.com/ you may find better prices or features if you look around.

i dont really know what you mean by getting your ass handed to you, but the best advice i can give you is back up everything. often.

I figured it out in a half a day. Or you can pay to have it set up for you.

I pay $95 a year for web hosting.
http://www.webhostingforidiots.com/
and I'm an idiot

Yeah, I spent a couple of hours doing research after my original post and I think I've pretty much got it figured out.