I'm not one to blow the trumpet of another company (I think it always sounds so false), but the business I work for was in need of some new hosting - and they needed it before this Friday (sounds like a commercial already!).

Anyway, it's 11:15am UK time, so most of Canada is still in bed. We registered for a new account at Tera-Byte.com no more than 20 minutes ago, and the account is opened, the site is already uploaded, and all that remains now is for the domain to resolve.

That's got to be a record.

Actually when I got an account with Interland, Inc., the account was set up and the site fully uploaded in 10. (On a 56K connection at the time to boot. :D)

20 minutes certainly is a respectable time though. I remember once waiting over a month for Tentex (at the time I thought they were good because they were cheap...in my younger, less informed days of early January). So that is impressive nonetheless.

I must say, both of those are pretty impressive considering neither has automated signups. (Alabanza hosts can probably beat both of those due to this, heh).

I've noticed a number of favorable comments about tera-byte.com along the way, and am indeed considering them for some upcoming work.

They do seem to offer an incredible amount of bandwidth for the buck. One plan is 20G/mo for $9.25/mo... which kind of has me scratching my head a bit -- that's around $0.46/G, which is extremely low.

Although this is definitely a *good thing* from where I'm sitting, I wonder how they can offer bandwidth at such a low price. Am I misunderstanding something here?

Its almost impossible to offer that kind of bandwidth at thaqt cost. What they are banking on is that you wont actually use that much bandwidth, 90% of the customers they have that get 20gigs or 40 gigs prob. only use 1-2gigs if that. Its a marketing tool.

P.S. Im not comdemning Terabyte they are a good company.

I'm aware that virtually all hosts depend upon the uneven distribution and only partial use of allocated bandwidth among clients to offer an average cost of bandwidth oftentimes (apparently) lower than what they themselves pay.

$0.46/G is, nonetheless, still extremely low.

Yes, but that's looking at it as if that is their actual cost (which it isn't due to the fact that people don't use it as you know). Really any host could offer more than they do. They aren't any different, *except* that they own the NOC, and thus have better pricing on bandwidth. A host that is colo'ed somewhere and gets charged $5/gig over their server plan would be taking a bigger risk in offering what they offer.

I follow the cost-averaging all fine, Chicken (note I said (apparent) cost above), having been involved in a hosting operation a couple of years back.

I was unaware that Tera-Byte owned the NOC; regardless of which, it's still a heck of a deal if their support is likewise reasonably good.

Originally posted by etLux

Although this is definitely a *good thing* from where I'm sitting, I wonder how they can offer bandwidth at such a low price. Am I misunderstanding something here?


I'm beginning to wonder if it is because they use Cobalt Raq's. Is this equipment a lot less expensive to own and run? Recently I found I wasn't getting my web stats and in an e-mail reply they advised it was a problem they were trying to sort out with Cobalt. Have any other Tera-Byte users had a problem with their web.log not being updated? So far this is the only problem I have experienced.

I don't think RaQ's are inexpensive servers (in fact I thought general consensus was that they were *overpriced* if anything).

As for log problems, like every Bug VW leaks oil, RaQs have log problems. I managed to overcome mine thanks to the help of about 3 people (none had ti right, but combining the info worked out and I got it fixed). Webalizer provides better stats and I recommend you install it (once you get it working again - if it isn't loggin properly, they'll be nothing to webalize).

I can probably dig up some info if it is the same thing: master access log was logging fine, but it wasn't splitting and writing the individual logs to the sites' folders. Basically, I ended up moving the master access log out and once it started writing new ones it also split them properly.

Originally posted by Chicken


I can probably dig up some info if it is the same thing: master access log was logging fine, but it wasn't splitting and writing the individual logs to the sites' folders. Basically, I ended up moving the master access log out and once it started writing new ones it also split them properly.

I Have set up Openwebscope and it was working fine but "no tickee no laundry"

So should I delete web.log? Will it resolve itself that way. Who is responcible for the log files anyway me or the Host. I had the impression this was there problem to sort out as when they emailed me back they said they were working with Cobalt and that it was a top priority to fix. As you run your own server with them I assume that your deal may be different than those with a shared server when it comes to who is responcible for what.

It might help if I knew more about what happens. I assumed that as the log seemed to cut off at a different time each day that it wasn't an automated process and that Tera-Byte staff were initiated the process manually.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that this wasn't on *your* server. Ignore everything that I said. You can't check into it and see, and muck around to try different things. If you are on virtually hosted, then I'm sure Tera-byte has mucked around with it, and it is a different problem.

Like any good VW Bug, it leaks oil from at least 3 different places :)

P.S. I don't even think it will allow you to delete web.log, just leave it since even if you could that isn't the problem.

I just tried to see if I even had access to deal with the logs and access was denied so I guess it is in Tera-bytes court to solve the problem.

This is not a major life or death issue for our site but I am sure it could be for some. Can this be considered a default on the part of the host ie: is this a service most users expect to receive. Would there be any easy to set up scripts that the host could provide to back up this in some way?.

If I were to list the things that are somewhat problematic with RaQs, logs would be one of them. It isn't uncommon, and the beast does seem to stop logging, stop splitting, or something else now and then for various reasons. I'd contact Tera and see if you have any options (things you could install, maybe a php script they could install on the server, who knows).

Like you said (heh), "no tickee no laundry" though. :(

Raqs are not cheap, a top end Raq runs to about $5000, a good normal web server (P3-800, 256MB RAM, 9gb Scsi, 2x30Gb IDE) runs to about $2200.