Hello all,

That is not a type-o! There is actually a company that is going to be offering a Dedicated Solution for $49.95 a month and no setup.

The development is still in process, however, I would like to get peoples opinions on this deal.

The company has to remain anonymous until they are ready to put these on the market. They have invested in revolutionary custom servers that look and run awesome.

The Dedicated Servers are real. 100%. But they discovered a way to be able to offer this service so cheap...

The Dedicated Server that people will be renting is actually called a "Server Extension." It's a little grey box that attaches on the outside of a main server and it contains the following:

Transfer amount is set at 10GB (of course you can add more)

A Hard Drive - 500MB (expandable)

RAM: 256MB (expandable)

CPU: 800Mhz

Each client receives their very own box and offers the performance of a Dedicated Server. I must admit that I was quite impressed by the design of the systems.

They offer the usual features:
Unlimited E-mail and features (of course)
CPanel 4
Unlimited mySQL Databases
Private CGI
PHP
PGP
And so much more!

I don't have a release date on when these will be available since I'm not affiliated with the company. I'm thinking of getting one for myself once they are available.

I would greatly appreciate it anyone could please give me some Feedback on what you think of this deal. It will not only influence my decision but also the decision of many others.

Thanks for your input everyone!

Sounds like an interesting Idea, but it essentially seems to be its own server, doesn't draw any resources from the main box.

How does this actually differ in any way?

Well

Right now im in the too good to be true mode.

First there is no url, so until i see it, i dont believe it

Two it sounds like they will be adding add in cards

Three they arent dedicated server just another form of a private server. I say that because they dont make 500mb HD any more.

If that is the case it is a good deal but nothing special

Joe

The servers are real and in fact they don't differ from the usual Dedicated Server much at all.

They just discovered a cheaper way of offering a Dedicated Solution to clients at an affordable price.

It's true that 500MB HDD's are no longer manufactured for traditional selling. However, these systems are custom and the drives were built custom as well. They have several versions of the drives for people that need larger storage amounts.

Of course you get your own nameservers and everything too.

The only thing that I'm not quite sure about is unlimited Domains. They notified me that they can add as many Domains to the server as you would like (granted you have enough space) but they have to do it manuelly at this time. They said they will probably charge a small one time fee for adding them but you can add as many as you like.

I personally wasn't too thrilled to hear that part but they did say that they may offer another way in the very near future (even before they come out).

I hope that answers your questions.

If anyone has any further questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. I just may have to contact the company directly first cause I don't know everything.

nothing against you, but you sound affiliated with this company.

I really think that until a url or company information is supplied all this is meaningless.

Do us the favor and when the company is ready to go public let us know, until then its just another deal with no info behind it...

Either or it has its limitations

Joe

Originally posted by Kimmy
Hello all,

That is not a type-o! There is actually a company that is going to be offering a Dedicated Solution for $49.95 a month and no setup.



Sounds like a hosting package to me vs. a dedicated solution/server...

... possibily a dedicated server broken out to be a virtual/shared dedicated solution amongst a group of users which would basically make it no different than a regular shared hosting account.

Sounds like a nice marketing strategy but it is real??? I believe I will have to wait until I see it or hear others comment about it before I can believe it.

No, I'm not affiliated with the company. I wish I was because I'd actually get one DS free which would be even better. ;)

I realize I may sound like it but that's because I did go on a tour of their Data Center. And (like the other 10 people with me) had a lot of questions.

I'm sorry that I cannot release the companies name. However, I did notify the company of this particular forum and they will post a message on this board once the Dedicated Servers launch.

I do value your opinion that you think it's a great deal but if I didn't know the company name, I'd be a little skeptical myself.

By the way, I love your signature!

It's simply meant for people to have a Dedicated Solution for a popular/high traffic site. (much like this one)

Since I actually had a tour of the facility I can validate that it's a reality. It is very hard to convince me so I really thought it was a scam. In fact, I won't be with this 100% until it's actually avaialble to try.

The Extensions do not use any of the main resources since you have your own CPU, RAM, and HDD.

They are going to have the usual 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, so if it sucks, I'll drop them.

Thanks


Well tell them to let us know when this is done

Overall for $49 500mb of space and 10gb of transfer you can get a similiar account for alot less but virtual

Good luck though

Originally posted by Kimmy
...It's true that 500MB HDD's are no longer manufactured for traditional selling. However, these systems are custom and the drives were built custom as well. ...




Hmmmm... in order to get custom hard disk drives at a price that makes them even remotely competitive with the price of mass-market drives, you must be buying a significant quantity of them.

I dunno... I smell a shared hard disk somewhere.

They have bought in very large quantities.

You really have to if you need them custom like that. Needless to say, they must have invested quite a lot of money into this.

I asked them if I could take a few pictures of the devices to show people. However, they declined because they do not want another company stealing their idea especially since it's still in testing. I guess I couldn't argue much with that.

By law, they cannot advertise a Dedicated Server without posting that it's somewhat different than the traditional way. Even though it's the same at performance levels.

Hope it clears it up!

Those 500MB drives sound like IBM microdrives; these systems generally sound like server blades.

My main concern with such a system would be that 500MB really is too small. Most operating systems will not fit a default install into that space, even without leaving any space for user files.

If it was a 1GB drive instead -- or even better, 2-4 GB -- then these would really be interesting systems. As it is, I don't think there's much market, except for people who want to boot off of the network (which is what bladed servers were originally supposed to do).

cperciva:

I had thought of the IBM Microsoft drives as well, but they are "off the shelf", not "custom". IBM Microdrives range from somewhere around 150MB up to, I think, 1GB nowadays.



CompanyFind:

If they bought a bunch of custom drives, they had better have a very good business idea. With the rate at which disk drive technology is advancing, those 500MB drives are going to become nice paperweights sooner than later.


I'm not saying they are not or can not do what you are saying. I'm just a touch skeptical. I've seen a lot of arm-waving in the hosting business. Too many rotator cuff injuries. :D

Originally posted by Mike the newbie
the IBM Microsoft drives

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Actually most blade server architectures plan on SAN storage devices with no local blade storage at all.

Compaq, Dell and HP are all planning blade servers with Intel processors. RLX and others are using Transmeta processors for lower power requirements. Intel claims that their blade server processor will match the power requirement of the Transmeta design. We'll see.

There is a great web hosting architecture possible with FreeVSD virtual servers running in a blade environment if you write the management software to limit customer usage to only what they pay for. You would allow the customer's traffic to float over the entire rack of blade servers - in effect, load balancing. Since all disk space is on the SAN, one blade looks identical to any other.

The blades themselves are completely independant from the customer, and as such form a virtual server farm.

Storage is all in the SAN, so it's isolated from hardware failure on the blades.

It would not be an inexpensive solution from a capital perspective, but the number of sites you could host would probably make up for the initial capital outlay. SANs are not cheap. I just purchased one for $160k that had 890G of disk space. The controllers are much more expensive than the media in this architecture.

-t

The smallest drives are 500MB but they do have larger ones ranging from 2 - 4GB.

They start it very low because they said in their own words "We do not want to support the Reselling of Space and Transfer on a Server Extension. These are intended for sites that need a lot of resources at low cost."

The operating system is set up in a way so you get the full 500MB. I'm not exactly sure how the operating system is set up. I guess it is one of the secrets in development of these machines. All I know is that they are all Linux based.

My guess is that the operating system is off the disk completely and stored elsewhere. Since all extensions are connected to the main system, I would think that they are using the operating system from there for all the Extensions. Kinda like adding an extra Hard Disk to a Desktop computer. You would only need one operating system on one of the drives.

Originally posted by cperciva


:eek: :eek: :eek:

Oops... typo alert. s/b IBM Microdrives

I smell what you smell ;)

Originally posted by Mike the newbie





Hmmmm... in order to get custom hard disk drives at a price that makes them even remotely competitive with the price of mass-market drives, you must be buying a significant quantity of them.

I dunno... I smell a shared hard disk somewhere.

haha this person cracks me up, haha haha, she is either part of the cia, or is part of the company and is doing a really bad job covering it up :)

I guess I will just have to wait for the URL before I comment anything.

Nope. Sorry guys.

People post in the forum so they can make some sales by promoting a special offer. If I was with the company, I'd be saying the companies name so I could make some sales.

I posted this here at my own free will. I just needed people's reactions to help influence me and a few other people.

Besides, even if the company was really selling shared space, they would just be looking to be sued by people for false advertising. I don't think any company would want to take that risk.

Since I actually saw the devices, they were not IBM or Maxtor. It was some name that I didn't recognize but I don't remember the name. I didn't think it was important at the time.

Anyway, as said earlier, I arranged to have a rep post here once it is available to the public.

If thats the case were not trying to be hard on you, in fact welcome to the forum, its just that when reading your posts they dont seem to flow and seem rather narrated.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. I re-read my posts and they seem to be okay. Maybe a punctuation error here or there but nothing major.

Anyway, thanks for welcoming me.

The part of this that just doesn't sit well with me is the custom 500M disk drives.

Custom manufacturing in quantities less than 10,000 is certainly not cost effective. I suspect that custom platter and packaging configurations in disk drive manufacturing would be very cost prohibitive.

Why would you even bother? The cheapest hardware is assembled from off-the-shelf parts, built in quantity for the mass market. Period. If you are looking for cheap, you are looking at off-the-shelf.

Kimmy's defense of the company also strikes me as too close to the company to be credible as a third party - potential investor? Potential customer?

I'm looking forward to the URL and will save any more comments for then.

-t

You could call me a potential customer I guess.

They are the only company (that I've seen anyway) that offers this. I guess because it was there idea and development in the first place.

I don't know anything as far as the amount of money invested into this but I'm sure they are planning on it to be big.

Like I said, the minimum amount of space is 500MB. You can increase that as well as the amount of RAM too.

how did you find out about the company?

I have a friend of mine that works for the company. He's just one of the Support people.

He got me in to have a small tour of the facility. It's nice but very, very isolated.

They have guards everywhere, it was very interesting but there were people watching every move you make.

Guards everywhere... in a manufacturing plant... manufacturing servers.... ummm

Guards as in Security Personell. Most (if not all) Data Centers have them.

There just seemed to be quite a few that's all.

I wasn't at the place that actually manufactured the servers. I was just at the Data Center that maintains them.

This seems familiar, perhaps a reseller for this co?
http://www.infinology.com/dedicatedcomparision.html
also check this thread
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=22269&highlight=500+drive

Thanks! I didn't know there was another company that offered something similar. Although they are more expensive and they don't use the extension technology. I'll consider them if I here any good reviews about them.

How the heck is it a dedicated sever (infiniology...) if one shares the processor and memory, etc. with other users? It's a frigging shared server.

Kimmy,

I hope what you are talking about is not similar.

You get your own CPU (at 800Mhz), your own RAM, and your own HDD.

I don't know why a company like that is so much more expensive than the company I'm talking about. But the setup is totally different. I was just not aware that there was another company trying to simulate the same.

If anyone has any questions (besides, what company is it?) just ask. :)

I'd like to see a picture of the so called dedicated server. is it going to be like in a 1/4th U case?

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures.

I had a camera with me when I went but they had to take it and give it back when I left.

They don't want any pictures of the devices at all because they do not want to risk another company stealing their idea. Especially, since it's still in testing.

They really aren't much to look at. They are like tiny little computers. Like the insides of a laptop without the shell.

Sorry, but right off the bat.. there is no point in a company going out to have 500mb hard drives manufactured.. LoL

Even in the million range it could not be done cheaper than
a 30gb hard drive.. so why wouldnt it be a 30gb hard drive?

The material is all the same... nothing would be saved.
Pointless..



End of discussion....

Sorry the more i think of this, the more I laugh! Its just that ridiculous..

I hope someone can close this thread now please. Thanks

I can sit here and reply to this bs all day, and Im bored so here's another one

Hi, ok you want a 500mb hard drive..
But now you want a 1 gig.
Ok now they are custom manufacturing different sizes
LOL

Here's another one
What happens when you install your OS?
500mb FILLED
LoL


Nice Dream, but the world dont work that way.

Originally posted by Kimmy
You get your own CPU (at 800Mhz), your own RAM, and your own HDD.

Heh, I immediately thought about thin blade with NAS.
If they are going to use thin blade, I heard that it has some
problem with heat? And it's not proven reliable in commercial
environment, yet?

But, what I don't really understand is 500 MB HD:confused:

If anyone goes this route, and after the contract if they are able to keep the server, take pictures, cause I am having trouble imagining theses things. Why not just put in a 4 year old 2 gig hard drive. ;)

Once again, the minimum amount of space is 500MB and I have confirmed that the max amount is 4GB.

The Operating System is not installed on the hard disk. They did not give any further information after that. They said, 500MB is what you get. Otherwise, they would have wrote: 500MB - OS - Control Panel = (fill in the blank) It's all the same with any disk drive that you choose to have.

I have seen what it looks like and the drives don't look old and they are very small in size. (They look smaller than a Laptop HDD)
Maybe they are using them? I don't know.

The 500MB and the 4GB do look the exact same size. I just wish I took down the brand name.

They must have found a way to do this that is somewhat cost effective but I just can't figure it out. I just say, wait till they are available and see what some people say about them. At least we'll know if they are even worth trying or even if their better than shared hosting at all.

"The Operating System is not installed on the hard disk. They did not give any further information after that"

Hehe where is it? Stored in a EEPROM? Im gonna FLASH my OS when it needs a tweak or a bug fix? This is absurd hehe.

But i give you credit for trying.....

I actually said something similar to them and they said that they handle all the upgrades and problems.

So, if something went wrong, you contact them and they fix it for you. Although, they said they normally spot the problem before you even contact them.

They are a stable company so, when it comes out, I'm probably going to try it and trust them. I'll at least get my money back if it sucks.

hehe, yeah, you got the answers to everything
and a first class tour all in a days action..

Yet the company is hush hush.. LOL

Next youll be saying you know more but you cant talk about because of a ND agreement.

I'm not with the company at all. If I was, I would probably be getting the thing free and I wouldn't be worrying about it.

I am just trying to figure out how this thing works exactly. And as far as the tour goes, that was last week.

After asking the company so many questions, they must be regretting the fact that they had a tour in the first place.

I'm just trying to go on with as little bit as I know about this myself. And I wouldn't keep anything besides the company name because what would they do? Come and arrest me? LOL

I thank everyone for their input though. And if anyone has a slight idea of how the devices may work, please let us know.

Thanks!

Lets see... Service Providers like Exodus who sold out everything like hotcakes, went chapter 11 in less than 2 years.......
and they were charging 3k just for a full rack space. and then even more for peering, insurance, blah blah blah.
Didnt turn a dimes profit, and this company is gonna try
and manufacturer these phoney servers and turn a buck?
Sorry dear, thats like 150 companies in one. with only one sale
of 50.00 lets say 25.00 is profit.... lol servers cost money equipment to hook them all up costs money, managine that stuff is money, repairing that stuff is money, supporting that stuff is money, training people is money, marketing that stuff is money,
managine that stuff is money, researching that stuff is money.
etc etc


Here's yet another picture to think of

I can see how this company already can be taken down
by one hacker.........

Say they have their own OS, and its Conformed......
Guess What, one little bug discovered.....
EVERY SERVER VUNERABLE!!!!
They have all their ips listed by them in arin....

Hacker writes script to randomly attack all these ips
owned by company.....

Total time for complete destruction 5 hours.

Business SUED....
Business DOOMED.....
Business Gone.....

No company can provide such a solution on a Large Scale Basis
It's Purely Impossible to manage everyones needs.......
At 50.00/m they couldnt afford to answer the phone,
Let alone accomplish such a ficticous dream

I agree with ya!

But a major company like this must know what they are doing. And if they don't, they go out of business or another company takes over and that's the end of it.

From the looks of things, they seemed to know what they are doing. But who really knows?

Sure they have a lot of security but nothing will ever be 100% secure.

I'm still considering giving it a try though just to see if it's worth it. Probably because it's really cheap and there isn't even a setup fee. And if it turns out to be really cool, I'll be glad I did. And if they suck, I'll just drop them and move on.

At least there isn't a contract involved, otherwise I personally wouldn't even consider it.

Well, we will wait and see. I think some of you guys should stop talking to kimmy like she owes you some explanation for everything. She has already mentioned a few times that she is not with the company and is investigating it herself. So, until we know otherwise, we have to believe her.

Also, there always comes a time when a technology becomes old -and eventually it becomes "obsolete". That is why they don't make buggy whips anymore because we use automobiles. It is possible that someone if not this company will come up with some cheaper, better, faster hosting or whatever it is and the whole hosting industry might look totally different in a few years. So, we can all be skeptical about this but from what she has mentioned so far is not rocket science. It is possible, feasible and probably is going to happen if not from this company, from some other company. Ensim is doing something similar already. It is not far fetched.

Thanks, Gurudev.

It's nice to know that at least one person can see it from my point of view. Although I did start this never-ending thread, I dont know the answers to everything.

And I agree that it is possible, it has to be cause I've seen it. I just can't figure out where the OS could be.

Do you have any ideas, gurudev?

It just amazes me that you would know things like
what theyre selling price would be before THEY even have all the answers.......
heheeh

They have projected that would be the price. I made sure to take that down because I think it's rather important, don't you?

If I didn't post the price, you should know many people would be asking for it.

Why than are they trying to sell you and noone else?

I don't have one. And I can't get one until it's available to everyone else. And I'm not getting any type of discount either.

That's not what I mean..

I mean why are you being showed and offered and told all this
information, if it's so Hush Hush

I told you. I posted everything I know except for the company name. I went on tour of the Data Center because I have a friend of mine that works in their Support Center.

I wasn't the only one, there were like 10 other people with me.

I hope someone who was there happens to stumble on this forum and post.

Originally posted by Kimmy
They don't want any pictures of the devices at all because they do not want to risk another company stealing their idea. Especially, since it's still in testing.
Well you pretty much said everything ...more than enough to take the idea and apply for a patent :D

They probably already have one! However, what you quoted me on doesn't quite seem to reveal much information at all.

I don't mean in that post only ...but the complete thread. The only thing it doesn't reveal is the company name ...because you can puzzle together all the pieces of how everything works with all these posts.

I'm not affiliated with the company nor 'am I effected by them.

I have re-read all my posts and still don't find enough specifications required to produce these systems.

It doesn't really matter to me anyway, I'm really just a future customer of the company. (maybe a future customer)

What would telling us the name of the company change from what we already know?

What could we do besides ask them about it?

Edit: You should just tell us the name.

I'm not exactly sure of the answers to either of those questions.

I was just told not to reveal the name.

My guess is that they do not have the staff trained yet for this new technology. Or they simply don't want to be bothered with loads of E-mails of questions about this.

I'm really not sure but those are my guesses.

The Name I know it I know it

FicticiousServers.com


If you didnt sign a ND Agreement form
you can say whatever you want.......

So please do so

Maybe the price was

$499.95 and misheard? :)

Yes. That's the name of it. You got me. :stickout

Whether or not you believe that this is legit technology, it is not really a concern to me.

All I wanted was people's thoughts on this <period>

Even if you could, I really wasn't asking you Compost to go and order one. Even when the company does come out to the public about it, there is going to be people that believe and people that don't.

And that's just the way it's going to be.

To be quite frank, I really don't care who believes in this technology and who doesn't. I wouldn't benefit from it no matter what so, why would I care?

I'm not being paid to do this and I'm not obligated to defend this companies developments.

(Hmmm...... I wonder if i could win a prize for creating the longest Thread in WHT's history) :rolleyes:

It's definetely $49.95

Otherwise, it's not much of a deal.

Kimmy, sit down and take a deep breath. . .

Regardless of whether this technology works or even exists, let's go back to Page 1 where Joe says:
Originally posted by JBIZ718 Overall for $49 500mb of space and 10gb of transfer you can get a similiar account for alot less but virtual

If you can't control the OS and subsystems, it isn't a dedicated anything. Sounds more like a hardware-based "virtual server".

Clearly, some R&D gearheads had fun bringing this little idea to life (and now the marketing guys are stuck with it), but from a product standpoint I don't see the attraction. It isn't much of a deal as-is.

The whole point is that it's a Dedicated Server at a good price.

It's meant for websites that take a up a lot of resources.
(much like this website) And you can get more space if you need too. (as said in like 2 of my other posts) :)

Otherwise it would be a total rip off if it was just traditional shared hosting. Who would buy it?

But the things aren't even available to the public yet so we will just have to wait and see.

A rep from the company is going to post in here once they are available.

Do you have any ideas, gurudev?

Kimmy,

Take a look at Ensim - I believe it is at ensim.com

They have what is called a virtual server, in principle it has a central os but all accounts get full root access, etc., It is almost like a dedicated server for people who do not have a very demanding web site and may not need a full dedicated.

It is possible to apply similar principles here with a cental OS but the hard drives are seperate for each account and possibly the processors too. It does not sound ridiculous at all (I mean if ensim's technology works then this is possible). If it works, it could be viable and that probably is a concern for competitive hosts.

Well since im not back into this conversation

To be honest regardless of high loads that still isnt that great of a deal

Actually you can probably find a few companies that limit reseller accounts and get alot of fuctionality and have a high end system at your fingertips

But when i see it i will critique it more

Joe

Ensim seems to be very interesting. Although, I don't recall seeing a price on them.

I've heard of the company but I've never really been too happy with their Control Panel. (I had WeBpliance)

But I'll have to look into them more.

At least this will confirm to some people on this board that the technology does (in fact) exist.

Thanks, again! :)

Its nothing special and ensim is software based not hardware based

Server xchange runs about 5k with server, then you pay a per license fee

Once again software based though

Joe