Re: Which way is the 'best'?
If your server is good in performance and your connection also then the sollution will be the 2nd!
"2. Have a single table and store every users info in that and parse the table each time, again as time goes by that table would be enormous and become slow again."
I have a project that works like these and I have more than 30000 members and the table's size is at about 150mb. It works very fast.
Also, check if the sql queries are fast. for example, at the login sql, you don't have to select all fields from the table, just only username and password.
If you need more help, ask for it.
Re: Which way is the 'best'?
You should have a table of members, and have a seperate table for whatever these lines should be. Namely method 2, with 2 tables instead of 1.
For example, table 1:
USERS
-----
user_id
username
password
email
other_fields....
USER_LINES
----------
user_id
line_value
Obviously name USER_LINES whatever this line of text is going to be that is added on a daily basis...
Re: Which way is the 'best'?
As the others have suggested, a database is the best solution.
If you've not worked with a database before, I strongly advise you to invest a bit of time into studying basic relational database theory. This will help clarify how you should design the database schema, and save you time in the future when you need to make changes to the structure of the system in order to accommodate new requirements.