Equipment Upgrade Needed. Details plus auction inside
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 1:12 pm
1) From my heart: I just want to thank you all for all the continued help over the last 4+ years. Without each and every one of you guys we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing here! This has been the biggest blessing in my life to see a community grow steadily over a period of time with NO STOPPING! I LOVE IT! I know that money is tight for EVERYONE. I’m not asking for a ton. Heck, I’m not even asking for anything if you can’t do it. ONLY, and ONLY if you can spare even $1 or even $2, that will help. If we can get 1,000 $1 donations, we have $1,000!! Even people that are just browsing, please help if you can! I have opened a dedicated short term account at my bank to put all the money into so nothing gets missed! I will also post the totals of what we have here but it WILL remain anonymous! Here is the link for that: DONATE HERE. All this money will stay together in a separate account. Total help needed: $1750 (Price is being beat by a different, trusted company and they can do $1750! (Updated 9/16/13)
2) Statistics: Before I go into nitty gritty, let me post some statistics that we should all be proud of: The traffic to the site for the last 4 years has increased to a level that this server can barely handle. We are around 2600 visit’s with 553 UNIQUE visitors and OVER 14,000 page views all in a month’s work!!!! 83.2% are repeat visitors and 16.8% are NEW VISITORS! This is simply amazing! Also, and this is the BIGGEST thing for us: The average time on the site is up to 8:26!!!! That’s simply amazing. With that being said: GOOD JOB EVERYONE! Honesty has always been my #1, and I mean #1 commitment! If anyone wants to know any specific stats or anything in more detail, I am MORE THAN willing to provide that in a private message!
3) Short story: The server we’ve been running on is about tapped out. The server was about 5 years old when I opened Toughbooktalk. Now we’re going on 9+ years of good reliable service! I had NO IDEA that we’d grow like we did! There is 3.01GB free on the Toughbooktalk drives out of a measly 279GB. 118.6GB is used for the OS and all the software. We cannot put any more drives in as they are the old school U320 drives. The server needs to be replaced after 9+ hard years of work! Not having enough storage for the generously uploaded recovery DVD’s and other great information that needs to be shared is just the start of our blessings! The other half is the traffic which I already posted above!
4) Proposed solution: The server that we need that will do what we need it to do and secure us for the next 8+ years: SEVER HERE a. Price: $1750 (Price is being beat by a different, trusted company and they can do $1750! (Updated 9/16/13)
5) Nitty gritty:
a. CPU: Dual Xeon E5430 Quad core, 3.0GHz CPU’s.
b. RAM: 16GB RAM. Q: Why only 16GB and now 32GB, 64GB or even 96GB. A: Websites are NOT memory demanding, they are hard drive demanding. The MOST we’re using right now on the old system is about 3GB out of the 4 that’s in it and that’s all allocated to the SQL server. The new system will need about 8GB or so to run. 16GB is PLENTY. RAM is easy and cheap to upgrade later too!
c. Hard Drives: 8 x 600GB 2.5” drives which will give a storage of about 2342GB (7 x 600GB = 4200GB – 7% overhead = 3906GB – 200GB for OS = A good solid 3.7TB of storage. Q: Why 2.5” drives? A: This is where servers are ALL heading and God forbid we need to upgrade again, this is the newest in which we can get. Q: Why 10,000 RPM drives and not 15,000 RPM drives? A: 15K drives are TWICE the price and we won’t take advantage of it because of the internet line we’re on.
d. Why this server and not this so and so brand instead? A: I’ve seen through time and time and time again that IBM just seems to run forever! More so than DELL or any other brand. What is there now is an IBM 346x. It’s OVER 9 years old and is still running Server 2003 Standard!
e. Back end support is still good. New router is installed. New 2TB backup SAN is running great with PLENTY of room thanks to all of you. The backup to the backup is gravy too!
6) Software: I’m not worried about because I have a Technet account with a free license to use.
7) What is in the future?:
a. Batteries on one of the backups (The main 3,000VA one) WILL need to be replaced in about 2 years or so (6/9/15). Not worried about that at ALL now because the secondary battery was just replaced 1 year back. This is cheap (Less than $200) maintenance cost.
b. Server will be moving into my dedicated server room at my new house that I will be purchasing in February (2/14). This will cut overhead costs by a TON.
c. Internet line will be upgraded to a 50M down and 10M up line when I move. We’re at 27M/7M now and were at 22M/5M about 2 years ago. Progression is just fine as we move forward.
2) Statistics: Before I go into nitty gritty, let me post some statistics that we should all be proud of: The traffic to the site for the last 4 years has increased to a level that this server can barely handle. We are around 2600 visit’s with 553 UNIQUE visitors and OVER 14,000 page views all in a month’s work!!!! 83.2% are repeat visitors and 16.8% are NEW VISITORS! This is simply amazing! Also, and this is the BIGGEST thing for us: The average time on the site is up to 8:26!!!! That’s simply amazing. With that being said: GOOD JOB EVERYONE! Honesty has always been my #1, and I mean #1 commitment! If anyone wants to know any specific stats or anything in more detail, I am MORE THAN willing to provide that in a private message!
3) Short story: The server we’ve been running on is about tapped out. The server was about 5 years old when I opened Toughbooktalk. Now we’re going on 9+ years of good reliable service! I had NO IDEA that we’d grow like we did! There is 3.01GB free on the Toughbooktalk drives out of a measly 279GB. 118.6GB is used for the OS and all the software. We cannot put any more drives in as they are the old school U320 drives. The server needs to be replaced after 9+ hard years of work! Not having enough storage for the generously uploaded recovery DVD’s and other great information that needs to be shared is just the start of our blessings! The other half is the traffic which I already posted above!
4) Proposed solution: The server that we need that will do what we need it to do and secure us for the next 8+ years: SEVER HERE a. Price: $1750 (Price is being beat by a different, trusted company and they can do $1750! (Updated 9/16/13)
5) Nitty gritty:
a. CPU: Dual Xeon E5430 Quad core, 3.0GHz CPU’s.
b. RAM: 16GB RAM. Q: Why only 16GB and now 32GB, 64GB or even 96GB. A: Websites are NOT memory demanding, they are hard drive demanding. The MOST we’re using right now on the old system is about 3GB out of the 4 that’s in it and that’s all allocated to the SQL server. The new system will need about 8GB or so to run. 16GB is PLENTY. RAM is easy and cheap to upgrade later too!
c. Hard Drives: 8 x 600GB 2.5” drives which will give a storage of about 2342GB (7 x 600GB = 4200GB – 7% overhead = 3906GB – 200GB for OS = A good solid 3.7TB of storage. Q: Why 2.5” drives? A: This is where servers are ALL heading and God forbid we need to upgrade again, this is the newest in which we can get. Q: Why 10,000 RPM drives and not 15,000 RPM drives? A: 15K drives are TWICE the price and we won’t take advantage of it because of the internet line we’re on.
d. Why this server and not this so and so brand instead? A: I’ve seen through time and time and time again that IBM just seems to run forever! More so than DELL or any other brand. What is there now is an IBM 346x. It’s OVER 9 years old and is still running Server 2003 Standard!
e. Back end support is still good. New router is installed. New 2TB backup SAN is running great with PLENTY of room thanks to all of you. The backup to the backup is gravy too!
6) Software: I’m not worried about because I have a Technet account with a free license to use.
7) What is in the future?:
a. Batteries on one of the backups (The main 3,000VA one) WILL need to be replaced in about 2 years or so (6/9/15). Not worried about that at ALL now because the secondary battery was just replaced 1 year back. This is cheap (Less than $200) maintenance cost.
b. Server will be moving into my dedicated server room at my new house that I will be purchasing in February (2/14). This will cut overhead costs by a TON.
c. Internet line will be upgraded to a 50M down and 10M up line when I move. We’re at 27M/7M now and were at 22M/5M about 2 years ago. Progression is just fine as we move forward.