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Forum bandwidth problem - for real, nothing to worry about

Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 3:01 pm
by Rommeltje
As some of you may have noticed, the forum was down the past 24 hours or so. Sorry that it took so long to fix it. I initially assumed that it was just one of those glitches again that happen now and then and that resolve themselves fairly quickly. But as it was still down this morning, I started to think something might actually be wrong. Turns out we've been getting too much traffic this past month, and our domain host suspended us for that reason. I've now bought a bit of extra traffic space (good timing that this happened during the donation run), so we can just keep going again.

There's a good side and a bad side to this development: the good thing is that we're still getting more and more popular, thus generating traffic. The bad thing is that it's going to be a bit more expensive to keep the forum going. So if you want to help give the forum some more room to grow, please consider donating! :D (If you haven't done so already, of course.)

Re: Down time - sorry, nothing to worry about

Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 8:14 pm
by Rommeltje
Quick addition, and a heads up:

We're currently still receiving a lot of traffic, far more than usual. At this rate, we'll have hit the limit again within 24 hours, which means the forum will go down again. The new month starts on November 19, though, so either way, we'll be back again by then.

If the traffic doesn't go down soon, however, we've got a bit of a problem. Expanding the limit is very expensive, so that's not really a solution. I don't know why it's suddenly so high. It's been climbing steadily since the beginning of the forum, but since a few days ago, it has started accelerating at a disproportionate rate. The only permanent solution is to move the forum to a dedicated server, which is also very expensive (though not as expensive as continually raising the limit, though). The donations are going well, but they're not going that well that we can afford that.

I'll keep you all posted.

Re: Down time - sorry, nothing to worry about

Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:16 pm
by rudiebaga2008
If we have enough contributors and with your expertise.I say we get our own dedicated server .we should be as popular as we can fellow lovers need to make there voice heard .we can have our own promotion ....I'm working on the bitcoin thing I have 2 bitcoins and a bunch of satchi in a bunch of micro wallets .do u have a place to sell them romm?...we need to keep gloving..hard times may they be for people we have a lot of dedicated people.

Re: Down time - sorry, nothing to worry about

Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 10:20 pm
by Rommeltje
There's actually a bitcoin donation button in the donation thread now, but our bitcoin address is: 13t18JNWL7d5o658Hij3AYQjpXeX6m26KY.

But I think you may be overestimating my expertise a bit. ;) I can't built my own dedicated server, nor do I have the hardware to facilitate one. So unless one of our own members does, I'm afraid that's not a viable option.

Re: Down time - sorry, nothing to worry about

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 12:12 am
by MountainDew
What kind of hardware/bandwidth requirements are we talking about to keep the forum running per month?

Re: Down time - sorry, nothing to worry about

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:46 pm
by Rommeltje
Well, we have 200 GB available per month without extra cost. After that, every additional 1 GB costs $4. Since the beginning of the forum, four years ago, the amount of traffic we've used per month has been steadily - but slowly - rising, starting at around 30/month, to between 140-170/month the latter half of 2014. For some reason, last month had some unusually high spikes, as a result of which we hit the ceiling about five days before the end of the month.

In order to keep the forum running steadily for the foreseeable future, I guess we'd need at least 300 GB/month to stay in the safe zone. Either that, or we need to find a way to bring the traffic down. But I don't want to restrain the forum in any way, so that should really be a last resort.

Re: Forum bandwidth problem - for real, nothing to worry abo

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 12:17 am
by Rommeltje
Alright, panic mode off, everybody (or should I only address myself? :-v ). Our super savvy member blubb just pointed out to me that I had overlooked a very simple solution*: we can simply buy a more advanced hosting plan which will give us a lot more space. It's more expensive, but not nearly as expensive as a dedicated server.

So, again, there's nothing to worry about. :) There's still plenty of room to grow.

Donations are still welcome and needed. The more we have, the longer we'll stay. :nod:



*In my defense: I hadn't really started looking yet, as I had very little time this past week due to a trip to Paris. :$