If I turn search on - my server overloads and crashes. Suggestions?

[محروم.كوم]

I currently have search turned off on my forums. This is the busy season in terms of traffic for my site and if I turn search on my server almost immediately overloads and crashes. Turn it back off and my loads average less than 0.5, usually more like 0.2 or 0.3

I've been using vBulletin since 2003 and this is our current stats...

Threads: 63,101, Posts: 2,012,614, Members: 14,145, Active Members: 1,880

I'd say the number of simultaneous users at crash time is anywhere from 150 to 300 visitors.

I was using vBulletin Search and I switched to Fulltext search... Didn't really notice much difference there.

Any recommendations on which search method to use?

Any recommendations on how to improve my experience?

Should I be archiving threads on a yearly basis so its not searching through as large of an index? Or does that not matter?


Any assistance will be greatly appreciated! __DEFINE_LIKE_SHARE__