Soooo, it's almost that time of year.


Last year your donations came in fast and hard and we raised the money needed in no time (I was really amazed).


This year I was thinking we should move probably, because I can see there are other hosts out there, cheaper than the current one. Current host is good, in that they have great stability and uptime, good speeds and all, but at €600/yr it's not cheap.


So, any ideas about a reliable and cheaper host we could look into to get a dedicated server?

Our stats:

-Storage-wise, we're not reachign 40GBs of data
-Bandwidth: in October we consumerd 85GBs of data, so this is an unlimited data plan we're talking about
-Database is 800MB - actually we use two DBs, one for the forum and one for the wiki, but we need more than that since every now and then we try things out on separate db's. Though with a dedicated server the number of db's is not an issue!

Cheers
T

You should possibly mention what protocols etc it needs to be able to support.

Bryce.

Protocols?

Uhhhh... http... and.... um...

But, seriously, what do you mean? You get a dedicated server, you run your OS on it, you define what's available and what not?

Maybe you'll be needing ftp access for maintaining the wiki and maybe a couple of things more.


I would be surprised if we can't raise 600€ for the wiki.

Quote from: robcfgMaybe you'll be needing ftp access for maintaining the wiki and maybe a couple of things more.


I would be surprised if we can't raise 600€ for the wiki.

Oh, yes, of course, but with a dedicated server you always get FTP access - actually, we're talking about full, root access here.

And, maybe we could do it again indeed, but why pay €600 if we can find a cheaper solution? Of course it's not easy to move everything so I wouldn't do it to save fifty or a hundred euros, but I was told we can find a much cheaper solution, so...

Quote from: Gryzor on 15:58, 08 November 12
Protocols?

Uhhhh... http... and.... um...

But, seriously, what do you mean? You get a dedicated server, you run your OS on it, you define what's available and what not?

Well some only offer virtual servers, others don't allow certain scripts, CGIs, languages or other stuff. But I understand. We are looking for a complete "do whatever you want with it" blank server?

Bryce.

Quote from: BryceQuote from: Gryzor on Today at 16:58:18Protocols?

Uhhhh... http... and.... um...

But, seriously, what do you mean? You get a dedicated server, you run your OS on it, you define what's available and what not?
Well some only offer virtual servers, others don't allow certain scripts, CGIs, languages or other stuff. But I understand. We are looking for a complete "do whatever you want with it" blank server?

Bryce.

Apologies, I took it for granted we're talking about a dedicated server, will add it now to the OP

PS to give you an idea, the current server came completely blank, all we could do was power it on remotely, reboot it and make it boot from network (which was done, and installed Linux from an ISO).

...


Well, never change a running system - just my two Pfennige

Well, if we followed that we'd still be eating bananas... oh wait, this is from another thread

Yes, I agree, and moving all this thing is not going to be easy, but if we manage to do it for, say, half the money, wouldn't it be worth it? We could even spend the extra money on other stuff, like paid add-ons or to fund a game or something?

A good friend of mine is a manager of a data service centre


In a nutshell have a look at Amibay.com Forum - Powered by vBulletin


This has over 2,000 different members log-in per day (24 hours) over 400 posts (per 24 hours), the forum software is VB3x (soon to be VB4)  I will contact you with more details.

Another site I know of have implemented their site in such a way that when members aren't logged in, they have advertising on certain spots of their page. I was just wondering if anyone was familiar with that strategy? I wasn't suggesting to incorporate it here, though I'm just bring it up since it wasn't mentioned.  

The best french Internet provider (Free) get some offers with very good price and reliability.
Accueil - Online.net

They provide datacenters too 
Accueil | Iliad datacenter


As example, a dedicated server for 29.99€/Month (excluding VAT)
http://www.online.net/fr/serveur-dedie/dedibox-classic

- Intel Xeon X3450 Quad core 2.66GHz (x2 Hyper Threading)
- 8GB DDR3 RAM
- 2x 1TB SATA2 7K2 HDD
- RAID 0/1 HARD
Connexion : 1Gbit/s
Bandwidth : 100Mbit/s
Unlimited trafic

May be a little server is enough too, for 9.99€/Month (excluding VAT)
http://www.online.net/fr/serveur-dedie/dedibox-sc

- Dell DCS / VIA Nano U2250 1.6Ghz
- 2GB DDR2 RAM
- 1x 160GB SATA2 7K2 HDD
- Hosted on the new Illiad DataCenter
Connexion : 1Gbit/s
Bandwidth : 100Mbit/s
Unlimited trafic

Why would you need a dedicated server anyway, when you can have a good VPS for a lot cheaper? How much bandwidth, memory and disk space do we need?

Actually, CPC Wiki cost 600€/year (50€/Month) and we don't get a dedicated server.
For less, today, we can... So why we don't?
A dedicated server get always the same resources, no sharing with others.

A put 2 examples of dedicated solutions because I don't know the real deeds od CPC Wiki.
Sincerely, I doubt that the whole site need more than 160GB storage and 2GB RAM...

For this price, most providers offer a mutualized server with many restrictions.
So, Gryzor is wright to ask instead of pay one year more 600€ with the community fund.

Quote from: TotO on 11:25, 11 November 12
Actually, CPC Wiki cost 600€/year (50€/Month) and we don't get a dedicated server.
For less, today, we can... So why we don't?
A dedicated server get always the same resources, no sharing with others.

That is an insanely high price even for enterprise level dedicated hosting!!


I have sent Gry a PM, my hope he gets chance to read it.

Hello guys,

Apologies for not getting back to you (and have still to go through my PMs!), I have been away these past few days
   
@Zetr0 - thanks, mate, read your PM on my mobile. I'll update the OP as well, the vital stats for the wiki are:
37GB of space taken right now, growing
-85GB of traffic generated last month, which rather puts us in the "unlimited" category (some hosts do have limits like 5TB etc, I guess these will do as well!)
-db has reached some 800MBs of size.

I do guess Amibay is larger than us, maybe it'd be a good solution indeed!
   
@CP/M user: this has passed through my mind in the past, but we're entering new territory; I really dislike ads, and good luck explaining the why to those who don't know the whys and hows. However, if anyone knows of a way to have non-intrusive, tasteful ads, we could look into it...?
   
@TotO: sounds decent enough. Even the lowest-spec one, at €10 (how much is VAT in France?) is enough for the wiki, if there's a decent backup facility (since there's no RAID).
   
However, note that we DO have a dedicated server right now, I thought this was made abundandly clear from everything I wrote No way I'd ever pay €600 for shared hosting...

@Executioner: even if you find a shared hosting plan that covers your need, bandwidth and storage-wise, you start having performance and security issues. We've done that in the past, and it didn't look good... I don't actually remember if I've worked on a VPS before, though.
   
Ok, going to read my PMs now, thanks again

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:50, 12 November 12

@CP/M user: this has passed through my mind in the past, but we're entering new territory; I really dislike ads, and good luck explaining the why to those who don't know the whys and hows. However, if anyone knows of a way to have non-intrusive, tasteful ads, we could look into it...?

I really dislike ads too, though the site I'm familiar with have setup their site in such a way, that when users "Log in", the Advertisements disappear, so they aren't in your face while you're logged in. I guess the only problem that approach, is if the forum wasn't getting enough visitors. Advertisements could perhaps be specific to things the CPC has a connection with, other computers, magazines like Retro Gamer perhaps. If they had to be certain ads of the usual rubbish, then that would be annoying and not worth it.

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:50, 12 November 12@TotO: sounds decent enough. Even the lowest-spec one, at €10 (how much is VAT in France?) is enough for the wiki, if there's a decent backup facility (since there's no RAID).

VAT is 19,6% in France.
So, cost less than 12€/Month for that... Because it's hosted on the Illiad DataCenter, I though that backups are done for all, as no raid is available. (I will take a look on the FAQ)

19.6%? How did they come up with such a round number?

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:35, 12 November 12
19.6%? How did they come up with such a round number?

Probably a Imperial/Metric conversion... (or not)

19.6 is perfect when you look back :
   10 april 1954   =>  17,6
   1st april 1982  =>  18,6
   1st august 1995 =>  20,6
   1st april 2000  =>  19,6

Now for the future, and to please Gryzor 
   1st january 2014  => 20,0

You mean the ".6%" part made sense all these decades? Why not .5% increments, is all I'm saying.

But, still cheap enough

Because the unit is 0.1% and 19.6% get more millions than 19.5%

Well, that makes sense

Seriously, I can't even understand why Amstrad or even sir Sugar himself don't give you a server slot somewhere... they should fund the CPCwiki.