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  1. #1

    Question Few questions about Hosting.

    Hi to everyone! My name is Daniel, I'm from Argentina and I've been following this community since last year. Before start I would like to thank you all for spending your time reading this and I hope to learn something new from this thread.

    I'm planning on starting a File hosting business. I made a lot of research and I'm aware of the amount of this kind of sites that exists out there.

    I've been looking for a dedicated host who can offer me a reasonable amount of storage and bandwidth. I'm not worried about servers costs but I'm not quite sure how they works.

    I requested a custom quote from amanah.com and they offered me the following:

    Dual Xeon 5620
    16GB RAM
    2TB x10 HDD
    100TB / 1Gbps
    for about USD1.500 plus USD1.500 one time setup.

    Suppose that I need only one server (I know that I need more than one, is just an example).
    If I'm not wrong, that means that the servers can support around 128 users downloading at 1MB/s (10Mbps) at same time or 256 users if I set download speed for, lets say Premium users, to the half which is 500KB/s (5Mbps).

    Taking that in mind it means that for that amount of users (256) I can offer 80GB of storage per user.

    If that is right, and that is the way to know how much users the server will support, I'm having troubles when it comes to set the services prices, because I will have to charge high prices in order to, at least, pay server costs.

    I'm kinda new on this hosting thing. If you guys can help me with this, maybe explaining me how things works I'll be very grateful.

    If I wasn't clear please let me know I'll try to explain it again because my english is not good.

    Thank you again for your time.

  2. #2
    From what I understand if you ignore your own profit and the one time set up fee and assuming that you do get 256 users, you'll have to charge about 6 bucks per user. (which is an amazing price for what they are getting from the looks of it) That doesn't look to bad to me, it all depends on how much profit you are looking to make and how well you advertise to get to that 256 users.

  3. #3

    A different way of doing the same thing

    Daniel,

    I would suggest a different approach to this. The first thing you want to do is keep your initial investment low while still getting what you need.

    I would suggest that you instead of trying to build out with a large storage server you instead build horizontally.

    What I mean by that is build with smaller cheaper storage nodes in a cluster. This allows you to add nodes as your storage needs grow. Most of the time this storage is essentially stagnant so buying a big expensive node and not being able to inexpensively expand is silly.

    If you like I can get more detailed on how to implement this.

    - Mark
    PCLHS | SAS70 Datacenters in New Jersey/Texas
    100TB Dedicated Servers 1U - Full Cab Colocation Complex Hosting Horizontally Scalable Hosting DR/HA Hosting Public and Private Clouds Web Farms Innovative, Reliable, and Responsive
    Contact Us E: mark [at] pclhs.net | W: www.pclhs.net

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Moved > Dedicated Server .

    Specially 4 U
    Reseller Hosting: Boost Your Websites | Fully Managed KVM VPS: 3.20 - 5.00 Ghz, Pure Dedicated Power
    JoneSolutions.Com is on the net 24/7 providing stable and reliable web hosting solutions, server management and services since 2001
    Debian|Ubuntu|cPanel|DirectAdmin|Enhance|Webuzo|Acronis|Estela|BitNinja|Nginx

  5. #5
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    perhaps due to not knowing everything in the server purchase provided. AS you did not provide much on the details. That seems a little pricy for just the hardware you listed. Of course I don't know if its managed or ddos protection etc etc.

  6. #6
    Thank you all guys for your answers!

    Quote Originally Posted by pclhosting View Post
    Daniel,

    I would suggest a different approach to this. The first thing you want to do is keep your initial investment low while still getting what you need.

    I would suggest that you instead of trying to build out with a large storage server you instead build horizontally.

    What I mean by that is build with smaller cheaper storage nodes in a cluster. This allows you to add nodes as your storage needs grow. Most of the time this storage is essentially stagnant so buying a big expensive node and not being able to inexpensively expand is silly.

    If you like I can get more detailed on how to implement this.

    - Mark
    That would be great Mark!

    Quote Originally Posted by net View Post
    Moved > Dedicated Server .
    Thanks net, sorry for the mistake.

    Quote Originally Posted by Silvatech View Post
    perhaps due to not knowing everything in the server purchase provided. AS you did not provide much on the details. That seems a little pricy for just the hardware you listed. Of course I don't know if its managed or ddos protection etc etc.
    Well that actually was what I thought and I didn't take notice of that I'll contact them to ask if it's managed and if it has ddos protection.

    Thank you again guys, your knowledge it's very useful for me.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Audioslave View Post
    Thank you all guys for your answers!



    That would be great Mark!



    Thanks net, sorry for the mistake.



    Well that actually was what I thought and I didn't take notice of that I'll contact them to ask if it's managed and if it has ddos protection.

    Thank you again guys, your knowledge it's very useful for me.
    Unmanaged no DDOS, server like that without hardrives your looking at like 100 bucks. I am not exactly sure on 2TB drives as you have 10 of em. So I am going guess 40 per drive. (I could be wrong on this. ) So I am thinking around 500 a month for the hardware. With the bandwidth I am seeing there. Now keep in mind, why I am saying to see what else is offered. I am just basically cautioning from the price there I would check other competitors.

  8. #8
    According to amanah's server configuration page, each 2TB hard drive costs 100 bucks. I thought of looking for another company, but I need one located on a free DMCA zone, or at least a flexible company who don't remove my site for any takedown request.

    I'll start to contact hostings that are recommended here.

    thanksss

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    New York
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    Server

    Quote Originally Posted by Audioslave View Post
    According to amanah's server configuration page, each 2TB hard drive costs 100 bucks. I thought of looking for another company, but I need one located on a free DMCA zone, or at least a flexible company who don't remove my site for any takedown request.

    I'll start to contact hostings that are recommended here.

    thanksss
    Almost every country has *some* kind of copyright protection law.

    There are a few exceptions but expect to pay big for these locations.
    <<Please see rules for signature setup>>

  10. #10
    Its ok for me as long as the company does not remove my site because of the first takedown notice received.

    Maybe that's because amanah it's more expensive?

    However the server cost is not a problem. I'm interested of pclhosting's approach.

    Thank you guys, glad to learn new things.

  11. #11
    Join Date
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    Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Audioslave View Post
    Its ok for me as long as the company does not remove my site because of the first takedown notice received.

    Maybe that's because amanah it's more expensive?

    However the server cost is not a problem. I'm interested of pclhosting's approach.

    Thank you guys, glad to learn new things.
    Where is Amanah located?
    <<Please see rules for signature setup>>

  12. #12
    They are located in Toronto, Canada.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Audioslave View Post
    They are located in Toronto, Canada.
    Then I do not recommend them, Canada is full of hosting believe it or not, and that server is very expensive.
    <<Please see rules for signature setup>>

  14. #14
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    I would check around a bit more if I were you.

  15. #15
    Thank you guys for your good will. I'll look into advertisment section, however if you would not mind recommending me some hosts I'll be very grateful.

    Mainly I'm looking for nice storage and bandwidth (and uplink).

    Thanks again!

    Daniel.

  16. #16
    Hello!

    I did some research to understand a little more how hosting works.

    I've read about server clustering, basically they are a bunch of dedicated servers working together through load balancers right?

    So the difference between cluster server and dedicated server will be the scalability (that I guess is basically adding more dedicated servers [that are called nodes?] to the cluster, am I right?), the performance, etc.

    I'll try to start this business on iWeb servers, and see what happens.

    So to fully understand this:

    Let's assume that this is the server that I'm interested on (just to illustrate):

    Intel i3 Dual core 3.06Ghz
    8GB RAM DDR3
    2x1TB Sata2
    Bandwidth: 100Mbps, 20TB included

    If I go for a cluster with those servers as a nodes, that means that for every node that I add it will result on, lets say I have 2 servers: 200Mbps, 40TB of bandwidth and 4TB of storage right?

    Or a better approach would be to have some servers working as Web servers and then a storage server?

    What actually means a storage server? Servers like the above but with more storage capacity?
    http://iweb.com/managed/storage

    And last (I hope), how actually bandwidth works?

    If I have a server with 100Mbps uplink port, lets say unmetered (that from what I've read it seems that doesn't guarantee that I'll be transfering data at that speed) it will result on 12,5MB/s of speed? So if I would like to offer to premium clients an average of 400Kb/s transfer rate, I would be able to support up to 32 clients (assuming that they are downloading/uploading at same time)?

    Thank you very much for your patience and time and sorry my ignorance.

  17. #17
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    You are going to want much more than 2x 1TB per server. You would get 2TB without RAID but you NEED RAID.

    To make something like this worth your money, stick at least 4x 2TB + drives in the server in RAID 1 or 1+0.
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by DoanVPS-Liam View Post
    You are going to want much more than 2x 1TB per server. You would get 2TB without RAID but you NEED RAID.

    To make something like this worth your money, stick at least 4x 2TB + drives in the server in RAID 1 or 1+0.
    Thank you Liam for your answer. Well that actually was to illustrate an example. However my main concern is the bandwidth rather than storage (despite that I agree with you, that amount of storage that I said before its not enough).

    Why bandwidth? Because as I said before, I would like to offer those 400kb/s as transfer rate for premium users. (Could be less but not less than 250). If the bandwidth is metered I'll have to charge my clients for data transfer also, if it's unmetered that would be great.

    Thanks!

  19. #19
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    A 1Gbps pipe would be ideal for this. 20-30TB is enough and you can always purchase more from good providers.
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