LOOK & THINK

[rowhard]

First, I am shocked at how few are contribution. As Anita said, the money I have saved (minus the money I have spent on mods) (well, I'm sure I'm in the red) but the knowledge that I have gain is worth every penny spent. My next action will be to look for the link at the bottom of the page. Thanks Scott

[pbkid]

wow, its really great to see all the people that are willing to keep this site going how it is. however i wish i could put some money into the pot, but im still trying to save up enough to get my vx on the road. much less finding what i need to get it fixed...aka motor....i dunno if it will ever live again...

[nfpgasmask]

Funny, I read this initially, and was like, "man, what is LDub smokin today??"

I just checked back on this thread and now it all makes sense. I will send over my donation tomorrow.

Now, all that aside, I have to ask, Moncha, is this the only way you can run the site? I mean, what about a hosting service with enough bandwidth and server space? I am just thinking, I mean, my gasmasks.net site is pretty huge (content wise) and I push a lot of traffic through. I am on a hosting plan that costs me only $250/year. So, why does VX.info need its own dedicated server? Forgive me for asking, I am just wondering. Is it bandwidth? The backend? Reliability? Space? Just curious as it would seem there might be other options?? Again, just slap me if I am talking out of my arse.

Bart

[Moncha]

Funny, I read this initially, and was like, "man, what is LDub smokin today??"

I just checked back on this thread and now it all makes sense. I will send over my donation tomorrow.

Now, all that aside, I have to ask, Moncha, is this the only way you can run the site? I mean, what about a hosting service with enough bandwidth and server space? I am just thinking, I mean, my gasmasks.net site is pretty huge (content wise) and I push a lot of traffic through. I am on a hosting plan that costs me only $250/year. So, why does VX.info need its own dedicated server? Forgive me for asking, I am just wondering. Is it bandwidth? The backend? Reliability? Space? Just curious as it would seem there might be other options?? Again, just slap me if I am talking out of my arse.

Bart

We've had the experience of using hosted accounts and VPS. For the purpose of programming, speed, space, bandwidth, reliability and just about everything else I could think of, I decided a long time ago to go with a dedicated server. The forum itself does not take much room, but the photos, videos and other files do. I actually had to limit the size of photos that folks could upload to save space. Now with a huge drive capability, I'll be changing that. Have you ever played on a shared gaming server compared to a dedicated one?? It's night and day differences.

Just for future plans, it made sense to go dedicated.

Hope that helps...

But I am curious as to why you went dedicated on the "safe server"? If you don't mind me asking... How many GB is this site currently at and how much bandwidth are you going through per month?

Here is some information of the hosting I use.

Fast Dell® Intel Quad-Core XEON processors (8 cpus) with RAID protected drives, 6GB+ of DDR ECC RAM
1100GB Storage
6000 GB (6 TB) Bandwidth
More info here if you are interested. This was also not intended to be an add. Just information for those that are curious....

[EDIT] I notice you mention that the site was hacked... That answered my question... But security has changed since then...

We are at about 20GB in storage right now for the site. When I up some of the limits, that will skyrocket. I do like what you have posted for an option but, I do have some 3rd party accounts and that plan would not work according their TOS... Their reseller accounts aren't large enough for what I have planned.

To expand on the hack.. We had a Stanford student that was a jeep fanatic, decide he didn't like the VX very much so, he tried and did a good job of crashing the site and corrupting a lot of the files. He really knew what he was doing but, he was a little sloppy. I found info that traced him back and was able to prosecute. He's no longer a student of Stanford and got 2 years probation.... Security has been tightened a lot!

Scott,

I'm curious to know how much more you'll need for the equipment upgrade - I think if there's a definite $$ goal for phase 1 (equipment) then the target will be easier to attain. Phase 2 would be hitting the yearly hosting, divided by monthly fees (what I'm thinking anyway).

-- John

We need $1000.00 for the switch over to the new server. Right now we are at $800.00 which is a great achievement!! THANK YOU ALL! I'm sorry I haven't had time to break this all down into a more logical project... It truely was a surprise to me when this got started.. I am getting my mom into a nursing home today so, I'm hoping that will take some of my time load off of me so I can re-focus on this.
This weekend will be a good one to sit down and make sense of this and present it properly..

[nfpgasmask]

Moncha,

Thanks for the info. It seems you are 100% on top of things. Hopefully we can get the dough together and get that new server in place! I will try to kick a little more dough after my next paycheck!

Take care of your Mom and yourself first though, buddy!

Bart

We've had the experience of using hosted accounts and VPS. For the purpose of programming, speed, space, bandwidth, reliability and just about everything else I could think of, I decided a long time ago to go with a dedicated server. The forum ...SNIP....I am getting my mom into a nursing home today so, I'm hoping that will take some of my time load off of me so I can re-focus on this.
This weekend will be a good one to sit down and make sense of this and present it properly..

[rowhard]

I second what Bart said, we are your extended family, take care of your mom.

[tom4bren]

I thought I was going through withdrawals last week when I couldn't check in here. I made my donation to make sure that never happens again.

Good luck with all you have going on in your life right now.