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  1. #1

    Colo for cheap bulk-transfers?

    I'm working on a project where I'm going to need a half-rack someplace to do a lot of bulk-transfers- Think user-backups, and other things where latency doesn't really matter at all.

    I'm currently transferring about 5MB/sec in testing based on server config, so I'm thinking a 100Mbit unmetered line makes the most sense.

    Softlayer (Where we are now) quotes this at $2K/month, which is quite a bit higher than I've seen other places, and I'm still nervous with SL after the whole SimpleCDN issue.

    Any suggestions where I should Look?
    HE.net or Cogent BW seems like they'd be fine for this application?

    What would be the cost delta to bump it up to 1Gbit of the cheapest, laggiest BW available?

  2. #2
    FDC servers offers a Cabinet of Gigabit for $1600, or $140/server.
    Will they give me trouble if I actually *use* that much?

    Should I assume that's a shared uplink, and rather-oversold?
    Last edited by e1ven; 04-06-2011 at 04:19 AM.

  3. #3
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    You mention user backups.. Will most of the bandwidth be incoming?

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    Sounds like you would have mostly incoming bandwidth?
    You can probably find a place that could give you a sweet deal like 1Gbps (1000Mbps) port with totally unmetered incoming bandwidth, with some outbound bandwidth all while sticking on a nice premium network.

    How much outbound do you realistically expect?
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  5. #5
    The point about inbound versus outbound bandwidth is a great one, and something I hadn't considered. My quick-scan-the-logs count says it's approx 50:1 inbound v. outbound, but I don't suspect that'll hold up as we move forward.

    Here's one place I'm getting stuck.. It seems that quite a few places- FDCservers, Pooled.net, etc have servers that are about $400 for 1GBit dedicated, but a colo with the same 1Gbit dedicated is more- LOTS more. $1499 (FDC) or $4K (Pooled).. Any idea why this jumps up like this? Is it because they assume Colo customers are more likely to actually *use* it, and they can't oversell as much?

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    You may wish to consider Colo Unlimited (http://www.colounlimited.com)

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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    Here's one place I'm getting stuck.. It seems that quite a few places- FDCservers, Pooled.net, etc have servers that are about $400 for 1GBit dedicated, but a colo with the same 1Gbit dedicated is more- LOTS more. $1499 (FDC) or $4K (Pooled)..
    Seems that your comparing dedicated server pricing with a full rack.. Colo is always going to be more expensive because typically they know how much bandwidth and resources they are going to use. The pricing you mentioned above looks like your comparing a dedicated server(1-2u) to 42u with fdc. No idea on pooled's pricing on racks.


    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    My quick-scan-the-logs count says it's approx 50:1 inbound v. outbound, but I don't suspect that'll hold up as we move forward.
    I'd try to gauge what your inbound vs outbound is going to be... Inbound is cheap.... and a lot of places offer it for free.


    I completely agree with Chris on his comment.

    Quote Originally Posted by CGotzmann View Post
    You can probably find a place that could give you a sweet deal like 1Gbps (1000Mbps) port with totally unmetered incoming bandwidth, with some outbound bandwidth all while sticking on a nice premium network.

  8. #8
    @Jason- I'm just surprised at the difference in bandwidth costs, specifically. If you look at home much the bandwidth costs to increase from 10Mbit on 1 server, versus the same increase on a Rack, it's dramatically more expensive on the Rack.

    If they're assuming you're going to use 100% of it both ways, I'm not sure why the -bandwidth- cost would vary. I understand why the power/space cost would be there, of course.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    @Jason- I'm just surprised at the difference in bandwidth costs, specifically. If you look at home much the bandwidth costs to increase from 10Mbit on 1 server, versus the same increase on a Rack, it's dramatically more expensive on the Rack.
    Like you mentioned there will be the costs of space and power. Also most dedicated server clients over estimate how much bandwidth they'll need so companies oversell bandwidth or the hardware they receive can't realistically use the bandwidth for their purpose. With colo clients, typically they know exactly the resources they need. Also if you have a half/full rack with equipment you've built, your most likely using all your bandwidth you order.

    In your case, if you know your future traffic patterns you could save a lot of money.

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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    @Jason- I'm just surprised at the difference in bandwidth costs, specifically. If you look at home much the bandwidth costs to increase from 10Mbit on 1 server, versus the same increase on a Rack, it's dramatically more expensive on the Rack.

    If they're assuming you're going to use 100% of it both ways, I'm not sure why the -bandwidth- cost would vary. I understand why the power/space cost would be there, of course.
    Of course bandwidth is more expensive for colocation, especially when looking at a full cabinet. With our standard Steadfast.net colo offerings we include redundant links and the option for additional bonded links. I'd imagine that is the same with many colocation deals. Those additional circuits have added cost and then add the capacity to assure you can actually use 1 Gbit/sec on 95th percentile. With a single dedicated server you're looking at just that, a single dedicated server. You're basically NEVER going to be pushing close to 1 Gbit/sec out of a single dedicated server, but when you're looking at doing that out of an entire rack of servers, it becomes much more likely. Which is going to push more bandwidth, one server or 20 servers? In addition, you're then looking at revenue per rack. If you sell an entire rack of servers, say 36, at $400 a month each that is over $14,000 a month. Sell the same rack with the 1 Gbit/sec and you're looking at ~$1500 (as noted above). Significant difference in revenue density, and in most data centers you have a set amount of space and power, so the objective is to make as much revenue per sq. ft. as possible.

    Note: Pooled.net does not offer colocation services, so I'm not really sure where you're getting the comparison from.
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  11. #11
    Thanks for the reply, KarlZimmer!

    That's what I was assuming- Basically the single server assumes you aren't going to actually fill the pipe, where the cabinet does.
    That's entirely reasonable.. Even using 5 RAIDed SSDs serving static files, you're going to have a hard time pushing past 90MB/sec.

    For the comparison cost, Pooled.net says they're a division of Steadfast Networks, so I used the price at http://steadfast.net/services/colocation.chicago.php, which gave the $2,995 price.

    I'm not saying it's a bad deal at all! Right now, Pooled.net looks like the best option.

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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    Thanks for the reply, KarlZimmer!

    That's what I was assuming- Basically the single server assumes you aren't going to actually fill the pipe, where the cabinet does.
    That's entirely reasonable.. Even using 5 RAIDed SSDs serving static files, you're going to have a hard time pushing past 90MB/sec.

    For the comparison cost, Pooled.net says they're a division of Steadfast Networks, so I used the price at http://steadfast.net/services/colocation.chicago.php, which gave the $2,995 price.

    I'm not saying it's a bad deal at all! Right now, Pooled.net looks like the best option.
    There is a major difference in that Pooled.net has no SLA or performance guarantees (nor do I feel they should be expected at that pricing) while the Steadfast.net configuration includes redundant links, full SLA, etc. That will definitely lead to price differences.
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  13. #13
    Makes sense to me. It might make sense to start with a few pooled.net servers, and upgrade to Steadfast later on as demand warrants.

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    Slightly off the main topic of the thread (sorry!) but I'm curious: given your project seems to be largely data storage, have you thought about the use of data storage services from a DC rather than providing it yourself?

    It might turn out significantly cheaper than rolling your own roughly equivalent but much smaller scale solution.
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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    Even using 5 RAIDed SSDs serving static files, you're going to have a hard time pushing past 90MB/sec.
    Thats not particularly true. A single server can push 10Gbps if the traffic pattern is correct...
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    You need to find a company that has excess incoming bandwidth, and can cut you a killer deal on incoming bandwidth. I would email directly all major dedicated server providers, but not the largest which will probably not want to negotiate/wheel-and-deal from their listed pricing. Most major hosting provides use very lopsided ratios of bandwidth, often with 50%+ or more of their incoming bandwidth going completely to waste.
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    Quote Originally Posted by e1ven View Post
    Thanks for the reply, KarlZimmer!
    That's entirely reasonable.. Even using 5 RAIDed SSDs serving static files, you're going to have a hard time pushing past 90MB/sec.
    That's not at all true. The drive isn't going to be the bottleneck in the transfer, the network will be. A decent single drive can do it. My 2 year old 5400 rpm laptop drive can push 55 MB/sec across the network.
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  18. #18
    Yeah, I must have calculated that wrong. If you have a SSD that does 127MB/sec (per http://www.technize.com/ssd-vs-hdd-comparison/) , that'd be 1.6Gb/s.

    A 15K drive could do 170MB/s, so that'd be equally able to fill it.

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    lets face it, dedicated providers offering huge bandwidth offerings know the hardware they offer for the _majority_ of users wont be able to use/come close to what they offer in terms of bandwidth. Yes there are the few that will do it just fine but the hardware will not for the average person.

    So yes colocation which someone has a unknown on what the user can push out will be more. 98% of these dedicated hosts would lose money on their deals. Colocation is not a game of losing margins.
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