Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Cloud Hosting : How to sell disk space to users?

[yasmagic]

My website runs on a dedicated server, and our premium membership allows members to store content in our server. I am trying to find a scalable solution that allow allocating disk space, for example, in the cloud, so i don't run out of my server disk space.

Please share your inputs on how this can be accomplished?

[Evan H]

I suppose the easiest way would be to give your premium members FTP accounts on your server with whatever disk space quota you want. Otherwise you could look for a file sharing script somewhere and use that.

[PatrickMS]

I use Amazon S3 for file storage and so for every file which is uploaded via the website I take the file size (saved in bytes), put that to the database and then upload it to S3. Then when the user deleted the file, I tell S3 to delete the file and then subtract the file size from their total.

As for capping the user, have 'packages' or what ever you need and a simple if else statement will decide whether the file should be stored in the cloud or ignored due to them going past their storage quota.

[yasmagic]

Originally Posted by PatrickMS

I use Amazon S3 for file storage and so for every file which is uploaded via the website I take the file size (saved in bytes), put that to the database and then upload it to S3. Then when the user deleted the file, I tell S3 to delete the file and then subtract the file size from their total.

As for capping the user, have 'packages' or what ever you need and a simple if else statement will decide whether the file should be stored in the cloud or ignored due to them going past their storage quota.

That sounds good. Did you mount your Amazon S3 bucket to your local server or using the API?

http://code.google.com/p/s3fs/wiki/FuseOverAmazon

Thanks!

[PatrickMS]

From what I hear the EC2 micro servers aren't especially good, so we're running on a VPS and using the API. I think when we get around the ~1.5GB ram area I'll consider swapping over to EC2.

[Dave G]

+1 for object storage

[bodmark]

I suggest you can consider a private cloud solution and store all data on a SAN. You can signup with any cloud storage provider and store your data.

[raindog308]

Originally Posted by PatrickMS

I use Amazon S3 for file storage and so for every file which is uploaded via the website I take the file size (saved in bytes), put that to the database and then upload it to S3. Then when the user deleted the file, I tell S3 to delete the file and then subtract the file size from their total.

When a user wants to download that file, you have to pay S3 bandwidth, right? Presumably you add the bandwidth to the user's bill?

I think storage into S3 is free, but when the file comes out, it's a per-GB charge ($.10/GB or thereabouts).

[LuxuryServers]

I would do this two ways , one by giving out ftp accounts to premium members or get a file upload script and give them access to the script.

You can switch to a bigger server or upgrade or go into cloud web hosting and then it would be much easier to upgrade or add more disk space to your account.

[PatrickMS]

Originally Posted by raindog308

When a user wants to download that file, you have to pay S3 bandwidth, right? Presumably you add the bandwidth to the user's bill?

I think storage into S3 is free, but when the file comes out, it's a per-GB charge ($.10/GB or thereabouts).

I believe so, but don't take my word for it. And yes, you have to pay for the S3 file download bandwidth, last I saw it was $0.125/GB, though their calculator says $0.13 so I'm assuming that they're rounding up (http://calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/calc5.html)

If your premium users are already paying, then is $0.125 really that much? If cost seems an issue, I know that Rackspace Cloud Files is a tiny bit cheaper, somewhere around the $0.11 mark.

[raindog308]

One minor advantage is that Rackspace doesn't charge a per-I/O-operation fee. Not a big deal if you don't do a lot of I/O ops, but if you were rsyncing huge trees or something, it could add up.

[stuntnmore]

you could do a vps then ftp and do like the other guy said using the ftp quota or use disk manager and ftp and split a drive just for you clients

[Brian_R]

Does your dedi provider supply Cloud/SAN storage space? That might provide a straightforward alternative to S3. Just make sure your backup/DR plan covers this data as well as your dedi.