High bandwidth hosting questions

[Flix]

I am running a non-profit site that is pulling 50 gigs of bandwidth a month...and will soon be increasing tenfold if new desired additions are made. Currently I'm only using a few gigs of storage space, but again, if these new additions are made, I'm looking at needing a hundred gigs of storage in no time. A few questions:

#1 Although what I need to do is have a dedicated server, has anyone here found any GOOD virtual webhosting with extremely high storage capacity and high bandwidth allotments without breaking the pocketbook? (Remember, this is a non-profit site. I'm not even running any banner ads.)

#2 I have already built and had running for a good stretch of time my own dedicated server (with a friend's help who is a UNIX geek). It was co-located at a place near me in Denver, but out of nowhere they called me and told me they were going to start charging me bandwidth overages and my first month's surprise bill was going to be $3000. Needless to say, I pulled the server and am back to hosting my site on ****py, slow virtual servers. If this senario is followed and I fire up my own server again, does anyone know of any GOOD co-location houses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area that won't kill me with bandwidth charges? (I am moving there in 2 months.)

#3 Sure I've probably gone mad here, but what would it cost to have a T1 or T3 line installed at my home? I am not in a DSL coverage area if that makes any difference (although I understand I didn't miss it by too much). I'm sure the installation won't be cheap, but could someone give me very rough ballpark dollar figures for an installation and guesstimate monthly charges? My thought was if the monthly charges wouldn't be outrageous, that perhaps I could provide some co-location or high storage virtual server services to offset the costs with true unlimited bandwidth at a reasonable price for others in similar positions as I am in. I wouldn't offer any tape backups and of course, wouldn't have anything more than UPS backups for power outages, but if someone had this sort of setup around currently, I would personally JUMP on it, as my site is not "mission critical" and if once in a blue moon it went down from a power outage, no biggie. I'm not looking to make money on this, just to keep from losing money. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

Thanks!

(Webmaster, I don't "think" that this post is against forum rules, but if it is and I have misunderstood, please delete the topic.)

[singloon]

well firstly, in your situation a dedicated server is best.. you say you need gigs of storage, so do you really want to be moving that much data when the virtual host says you have to move ?

colocation - i can think of my host i use, rackspace.com but bandwidth per gig would be expensive for you.

have you looked at www.maxim.com for colocation mainly but they also do have leased dedicated servers ?

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Australian Evangelion

[zMan]

I think you should put some advertisements on the website, just enough to cover your costs of running it. You are using 50Gigs of bandwidth every month, so you must be getting a lot of visitors. So just put enough ads (or sell something related to the website content) so you can make enough to keep the website alive!

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zMan

[noTek]

I highly suggest you look into http://servers.catalog.com 's dedicated solutions. They have a Celeron 500 package w/ 128MB of ram and 100GB / month for only $250. An additional 100GB of bandwidth per month is only $200, 200GB only $300, etc. That's about as cheap as it gets without sacrificing service. You could also try'n resell a few gigs on your server to make up for the costs. A dedicated T1 would cost you about $1500 / month though ( http://cihost.com/?zone=products/internet_connectivity )and god knows how much they would charge you for installation. I'm also with zMan on the issue of putting ads on your site. If you're pushing that much bandwidth you've got to be paying out the butt for it, simply tell your visitors how much it costs you every month just to run the site and I doubt they'll have any problem with a little advertising.

BTW, I DO NOT work for catalog.com http://geekvillage.com/ubb/wink.gif ! Just very impressed with thier prices and service from what I've seen.

noTek

[singloon]

well i had a nice post written for a reply, but my pc crashed/rebooted itself with vertical short green lines on the top of the monitor http://geekvillage.com/ubb/frown.gif

you can also signup for searchtraffic.com and allclicks.com and customise and integrate into your site. I use both on my sites and it pays nicely and they do pay http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

as to catalog.com check out www.webhostingtalk.com and bulletin.catalog.com both vB forums btw...

even bumped into Steve over at webhostingtalk http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif

lately i heard alot of network problems with catalog.com so be wary.



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Australian Evangelion

[Flix]

I tried running banner ads for a 5 week period from AdFlight, but their server that ran the ads was incredibly slow and was seriously delaying page loading. Over those 5 weeks, roughly 1/3 of my traffic disappeared, which I am only slowly starting to see return, despite the comments about no one minding the ads. In the end, I didn't make NEAR enough from the ads to make it worth my while. Unless someone can recommend someone who will pay a bit better (can't even remember what I got per CPM/CPT), I think I'm done with ads.

I've been burned too many times by CI Host, so I'm not willing to give them another dollar of my business, despite their great prices. I've found lots of hidden issues with their servers.

Any other suggestions? Thanks.

[Tox]

You should consider getting a dedicated server either at www.tera-byte.com or www.maxim.net. I have a server at both places and I can't complain about anything.

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Regards,

Tox

[This message has been edited by Tox (edited 11-08-2000).]

[truelight]

I think you should check out http://www.cybertitan.com. This is their pricing on VPS: (I am just a happy customer here - they are VERY good. They always respond to trouble tickets within 30 minutes)

Level One:
- 128 MB Ram
- 3% of Server Resources (minimum)
- 1.4 GB Hard Disk space (380MB used by system files)
- 20 GB Data Transfer per month
- 1 IP address
- $120 Setup Fee
- $300/3 mo.
-----------------------------------------------------
Level Two:
- 256 MB Ram
- 6% of Server Resources (minimum)
- 2.8 GB Hard Disk space (380MB used by system files)
- 35 GB Data Transfer per month
- 14 IP addresses
- $150 Setup Fee
- $540/3 mo.
-----------------------------------------------------
Level Three:
- 768 MB Ram
- 18% of Server Resources (minimum)
- 8.4 GB Hard Disk space (380MB used by system files)
- 60 GB Data Transfer per month
- 30 IP addresses
- $150 Setup Fee
- $1350/3 mo.
-----------------------------------------------------
Dedicated with VPS System:
- 1 GB Ram
- 100% of Server Resources
- 40 GB Hard Disk space (380MB used by system files)
- 100 GB Data Transfer per month
- 62 IP addresses
- $250 Setup Fee
- $2700/3 mo.
-----------------------------------------------------

Installed on all VPS systems:
Analog Web Log Analyzer 4.03
Apache Web Server 1.3.9
DNS/BIND Name Server 8.2
F-Secure SSH 2.1.0
Gnu C/C++ Compiler 2.95.3
Lynx Text-Based Browser 2.8.2
Majordomo Mailing List Server 1.94.5
Make 3.79
Melange Chat Server 1.10
Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Extension 4.0
mod_perl for Apache 1.24
mod_php for Apache 3.0.16
MySQL Database 3.22.32
POP3 + IMAP Server 4.7
VPS Administrator 2.0
proFTPd FTP Server 1.2.0pre10
Python 1.5.2
Sendmail SMTP Server 8.9.3
Vacation Auto-Responder 1.1.1
Webcal Web-based Calendar 3.01
WWWboard Discussion Board 2.0alpha2
Ensim Secure Web Server 1.3_1.1

Options:
Additional 100MB of disk space - $20/mo. and $25 setup
14 additional IPs - $25/mo. and $50 set-up
Add 10GB/month traffic block - $50/mo. and NO setup
Upgrade or downgrade VPS - $75 setup
Miva E-Commerce Suite - $60/mo. and $25 setup

I love those guys.

[JakeJeck]

Well, for starters I would suggest making your images thumbnails that can be clicked to show larger pictures.

I went to REVIEWS --> OCTOBER 2000.
That page alone has 833,806 bytes worth of pictures that load up for every surfer! Make them thumbs that are ~3K each and reduce that page to 30K.

You're sending out WAY TOO MUCH bandwidth per user. If they want to see a closeup of an image they won't mind clicking a thumb to see the larger image. I can't believe anyone with less than cable would sit around and wait for your pages to load, they're way way way too big.

[Flix]

Interesting observation. No one else has ever mentioned the size of the review pages before, but they are quite popular. What the killer bandwidth issue here is those manual files. Some of them are several megs large.

I've been looking more and more into the T1 option and I think I've decided if I can find another person or two who needs a truly unlimited bandwidth co-location that I'll just sign them up cheap and get the full T1 line. I couldn't offer diesel generator backups and such, but for a site like mine, if the power went off a couple times a year for an hour, no biggie. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/smile.gif