Any database experts out there?

Happy New Year everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone could help with this question.  This fall we built a
site using www.e-classifieds.net classified ads software.  The client had an
extremely limited budget and so we suggested using this script which we
modified for her.  While the e-classifieds.net company offers many different
scripts at varying prices, this was all the client could afford at the time
and she felt it would be sufficient.  We did tell her of the limitations
before we started, but we were asked to go ahead with it.  The site went up
Oct. 1 and she's already had over 1200 members register.  This is many more
than she had anticipated and of course now we are all worried about the
database and how long this 'cheaper' version will last before it starts to
really crawl.  The e-classifieds website says it should hold between 5000
and 12000 ads depending on the server setup.

If anyone is familiar with this particular script (it's the 'photo' edition)
or could offer any other advice, I'd very much appreciate hearing from you.
The data is all in one file which is currently at about 800K in size.  The
site is at http://meetme.org if anyone would care to look.

One thing I'm wondering about is splitting up the site into more than one
database. (one for men, one for women).  I think this would be a pain, but
do-able.  Each would still be a flat file database and only searchable from
within it, but it might help.

Does anyone have any great ideas?  P.S.  The client also wants out of it
already.   I guess it's too much upkeep to have to preview every ad
(although they don't really need to be previewed.)  I think she is concerned
about being able to sell it given that we can't give her any answers on how
long the database will hold.

Once again, I'd really appreciate any help or advice ;-)

Regards,

Heather

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