a few customers have shown interest in me providing a off site backup for them. Only way that would be possible without cutting into my profits would be for the server to be around $100.

I would need 300-400GB of drive space, 1500GB-2000GB of data transfer. Processor needs to be 800mhz+ and 256mb ram+.

Needs to be 100mbit & for $100.

Willing to pay a setup fee as long as its not to high.

Any suggestions?

Already have done the host quote, just looking for some companies or perhaps info on places that might not use WHT

might use google or check dedicated and colocation offers forum.

although you may not post a request there thats why host quote is there for requesting purposes

For your specs you're probably looking at closer to $200 / mo.

what if it was colo?

If you put the box together your self and colo it, then you would have all the diskspace you need. Though, your probably not going to find a place that will colo the box with that much bandwidth on a 100mbps port for $100.

Colo at FDC, probably cheapest option and good enough for backup.

With FDC you are not going to be get more than 20mbit out of it.
And if you use too much they will limit you to something silly like 5mbit.

FDC is your best bet for that low budget.
BTW, 5mbit = 1500GB, which is just right for him.

What's FDC? Pardon my ignorance...

Originally posted by UltraUnixNET
FDC is your best bet for that low budget.
BTW, 5mbit = 1500GB, which is just right for him.

no, it's not. it is likely that he doesn't want to be backing up every single minute of every day, but rather do a backup in 4-5 hrs and be done for the week. if he doesn't have burst, it ain't gonna happen.

paul

"What's FDC? Pardon my ignorance..."

FDCSERVERS.NET is a discount (low end) dedicated/colo facility in chicago.

You could buy 1 mbps of bandwidth on a 100 meg port billed 95th. 95th percentile means 30 hours or so of bandwidth usage for a month is not counted. So if you used say 50 mbps for about 7 hours each week, that'd be 28 hours of 50 mbps and you would still be billed for the 1 meg used the rest of the time.

One thing I think people might be overlooking is that this box will be using 90% of its bandwidth comming on-net, which for most providers is something they have plenty of. The only time he would be using the outbound line would be in the case of a restore.

To me, $100 + set-fee for the large drives seems perfectly feasible as I have negotiated similar deals in the past with providers.

You can also consider the option that there are many providers that allow you to have incoming for free since most people don't do much incoming bandwidth at all. This would be able to save you alot of money as long as the host did'nt get mad for you using an extreme amount of incoming but personnally I wouldn't see it as a problem.

Originally posted by RaineTech
You could buy 1 mbps of bandwidth on a 100 meg port billed 95th. 95th percentile means 30 hours or so of bandwidth usage for a month is not counted. So if you used say 50 mbps for about 7 hours each week, that'd be 28 hours of 50 mbps and you would still be billed for the 1 meg used the rest of the time.

95th percentile is usually set to 36 hours. Anyway, this is a very good suggestion indeed.

Originally posted by Apoc
95th percentile is usually set to 36 hours. Anyway, this is a very good suggestion indeed.

Ahh I thought it was 36 but it sounded like too much so I stayed safe and said 30 ;). Anyway this makes it even better as it wont cost the provider more and hence saves you more. Im sure you could build your own server like this for $800 or so and then the colocation would be $99/mo. or so.

If he needs 300-400GB of space, chances are, his backups will take longer than 1 hour each day (depending on frequency of backups). You're not going to be able to do the storage at that price. Your best bet would be GNAX at $0.50/GB storage and no transfer limits or caps.

- Matt

Originally posted by mainarea
If he needs 300-400GB of space, chances are, his backups will take longer than 1 hour each day (depending on frequency of backups). You're not going to be able to do the storage at that price. Your best bet would be GNAX at $0.50/GB storage and no transfer limits or caps.

- Matt

Well it totally depends on the frequency of the backups. If he only backups once a month, there may be cheaper solutions. If you want to do more frequent backups I'd definately recommend GNAX. Infact, I do always recommend GNAX, but it just depends on the frequence.

I have a number of customers who have static sites, so their sites (one even has a content of 1TB) only had to be backuped once. In that case you should look into tape-backupping. I don't think that's what you're looking for though.

the primary data being backed up are databases/emails/press releases/etc.

matireal is stored for 6 months & would be occasionaly accessed off site(from the backup server). So outbound & inbound traffic would be needed, though inbound would be great than outbound.

Well, if you do monthly backups you may want to overwrite old databases for instance, as there aren't too many occassions that you'll need a database of 6 months old.

Tape backup doesn't sound like a solution though, I'd go for the GNAX solution.

I`d go with FDC if I were you. If the server is intended for backup than you can save lot of money on their unmetered plan. We moved our colo boxes there couple weeks ago and so far we pushed around 2000GB and pulled 5000GB and it`s only $149

And you are aware of their horrible support and network quality?

1. So your server is down, and you need a backup quickly. Support won't answer for a day or two.. what now?

2. Your automated software tries to make a backup, but the network is down, backup won't be made. Next day you need the backup, but it's not there as the backup wasn't made.

Two instances of why I wouldn't go for them at all.

Originally posted by mainarea
If he needs 300-400GB of space, chances are, his backups will take longer than 1 hour each day (depending on frequency of backups). You're not going to be able to do the storage at that price. Your best bet would be GNAX at $0.50/GB storage and no transfer limits or caps.

- Matt

That is not true. First of all he could do rsyncs which are constant backups only adding new files. If he didnt do rsyncs, he could do weekly backups. It would take 1 hour to transfer 22.5 GB at 50 mbps. So he needs to work in his time of only 36 hours to backup each month. Even by buying more bandwidth (say 2 mbps) it wouldn't help him. If he goes over that 95th percentile with a 50 meg overage, that's a huge bill.

I think it was liquidweb offering a nice backup box and plan 1tb of space like 2500incoming and 500 outgoing (I think) for like $200 might want to check them out.

Originally posted by RaineTech
That is not true. First of all he could do rsyncs which are constant backups only adding new files. If he didnt do rsyncs, he could do weekly backups. It would take 1 hour to transfer 22.5 GB at 50 mbps. So he needs to work in his time of only 36 hours to backup each month. Even by buying more bandwidth (say 2 mbps) it wouldn't help him. If he goes over that 95th percentile with a 50 meg overage, that's a huge bill.

Not true. 36 hours with weekly backups leave about 9 hours per week. He's not going to make that.. 9x22.5=202.5GB.

Liquidweb offers a backup server. I think it is like $200 a month.

1TB of Data Storage and 2TB In/500GB out bandwidth.

That would do the job, but about double the price.

Originally posted by rusko
no, it's not. it is likely that he doesn't want to be backing up every single minute of every day, but rather do a backup in 4-5 hrs and be done for the week. if he doesn't have burst, it ain't gonna happen.

paul
actually FDC boxes has burstable lines.

Originally posted by aleck
actually FDC boxes has burstable lines.

You can certainly try and burst on that FDC line. I dont think it will happen much though. Maybe you could get 20 mbps tops at certain times of the day.

Originally posted by RaineTech
You can certainly try and burst on that FDC line. I dont think it will happen much though. Maybe you could get 20 mbps tops at certain times of the day.
actually i have an fdc box as a filefarm and it easily satisfies 1500-2000 GB b/w. after all 2 TB is only about 6-7 Mbps sustained.

speaking frankly i have rarely seen inter-DC speeds of more than 1.5-2 MBps (for example TP <---> EV1), so as a backup host fdc is a possible option, espcially with pretty high b/w requirements and pretty tiny budget.

my 2 cents.

p.s. fdc is ** out of ***** compared with TP or EV1. mainly 'cuz of network issues. but if someone's budget is tight and/or the server's uptime isn't that important as usually.

sorry about the messy post, i have a mix of red bull and coffee in the blood :D

Originally posted by a-m
a few customers have shown interest in me providing a off site backup for them. Only way that would be possible without cutting into my profits would be for the server to be around $100.

I would need 300-400GB of drive space, 1500GB-2000GB of data transfer. Processor needs to be 800mhz+ and 256mb ram+.

Needs to be 100mbit & for $100.

Willing to pay a setup fee as long as its not to high.

Any suggestions?

Already have done the host quote, just looking for some companies or perhaps info on places that might not use WHT

i might be able to help you out or work something out..... i can add a 120Gig (or more) 7200RPM drive to one of my servers for your use....and provide you with unmetered bandwidth (100mbps)....email me if you are interested....i'm open to suggestions also :) shoot me an email at boo@bangsters.net