Forum file storage is on own drive

[matthew1]

If you don't know what this means, just skip it. It doesn't affect you in any way.

For the nerds out there, I set up an attached drive to handle the MVS forums attachments today.

It wasn't trivial, but yet not easy.

I'm ok with Linux/command line, but recruited help for this. We created, and attached and mounted a drive, and mapped it to... /storage.

Then symlinked /var/www/matthewsvolvosite.com/forums/files to it. Basically. There was lots more to it, but that's it in a nutshell.

The forum software -- this is the beauty of it -- thinks the upload and attachment (forum upload storage) path is a simple, local directory, like it did yesterday. In reality, it's a 75GB "attached" drive.

The reason? If you tried to access MVS 3am-9am on two days in the last couple weeks, it was down. That's because the server had reached its maximum file storage capacity, and when that happens the database shuts down because it can't write data to itself. That kills the Web site.

So, this frees up 26GB which is a vast amount for this type of Web site, and is the exact amount of file storage that we've used in 14 years of uploading photos and PDFs to MVS.

That's all. If you've read this far, you're now a Certified Computer Nerd. Welcome to the club!

[93Regina]

In reality, it's a 75GB "attached" drive.

Well, here's what I run in my desktop: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 HUA723020ALA641 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Hard Drive -OEM $59.95

75 GB???

What is that, some 26.7 times smaller than mine?

[matthew1]

Well, if I hosted the site from home or from a local data center, then yes, it's absurd. But Web servers are way, way different animals than personal computers. Entirely different.

MVS needs enterprise class hosting (Rackspace, data center is in Dallas). It needs to run 24/7/365 with high availability and low-latency, high bandwidth access to the Internet. It has to be up. If it's not, it's my fault, not my host's (and it has been every time except for a couple planned upgrades of their network).

Server hardware is generally much higher spec than PC hardware. Drives, RAM, OS, even processors - all not PC hardware. This stuff costs money.

A 2TB attached drive is around $1900/month at Rackspace, for what it's worth.

[matthew1]

Welcome to Web hosting .

[93Regina]

MVS needs enterprise class hosting.

That's what my drive is: Enterprise Hard Drive...$59.95

2TB attached drive is around $1900/month

Looks like a rip-off to me...unless there is some backup service involved.

[matthew1]

Having a 2TB drive in your house and having 2TB available serving data for a Web site are two very different things. If 2TB was easy to do, hosting MVS -- at less than 100GB -- should be a few dollars a month. Right? But it's more expensive than that. Why? Everything else.

Every one of a hundred individual things must work when you load a page here. Must. Storage is one. I don't pay for storage, per se, I pay for the 99 other things.

It's not the drive(s) that set hosting costs, it's everything else around it. Look around at reputable enterprise hosts. They're all expensive. Are they all ripping everybody off? Are all their customers delusional suckers? Or is that generally the cost of providing the service?

Anyone can build a 707 hp car. Not everyone can have a 707 hp *daily driver*, with a warranty, AC, heated seats... that starts every time you turn the key. That's why Challenger Hellcats are $70k+. You can build an equally fast car for 1/10th that. But Dodge has a waiting list. Why?

[93Regina]

Look around at reputable enterprise hosts.

Yes, there will always be differences, which may be related to QOS.

Here you have GoDaddy hosting on the cheap, with 1GB database storage (MySQL Linux), but it may or may not work for your requirements.

On another note, "Delphi provided national consumer access to the Internet in 1992," and in those days, "online" disk space was quite pricey for consumers to store their private stuff.

It's just interesting that in today's markets, a web hosting provider would want mucho bucks, for disk space. I can understand mucho bucks if a site has lots of vistors, like ebay, Amazon, etc., but in larger cities with access ports to internet, prices variy, but in 2010, one might pay as low as "$1500 for a 100mbps fiber link on a 5 year term. To bump it to gig-e would be $3500 total a month." And yes, setting up your own server cost $$$.

Hence, I can understand high costs for internet bandwidth usage, but not for actual storage space.

[matthew1]

I wish it wasn't as expensive, but it is and at the end of the day it's not a not a huge cost. The whole enchilada is a few hundreds of dollars/month. MVS is a business, and I'm happy to pay this business expense. It's a virtual product and thus the costs are a fraction of a physical business, so I'm really hesitant to complain.

To be fair, this 75GB attached drive is a paltry $10/month extra. But that scales up quickly as we can see with this $1900 storage price. But hey, if I ran a site that needed that much storage, the site would be making way more than MVS does, and probably that too would be a justifiable expense.

The drive space thing at MVS is -- despite this recent change -- historically not a huge problem. The MVS server is a 4GB/80GB quad-core virtual machine, and 80GB was enough to run the forum software (.4 million posts), Wordpress (1500 posts), tens of thousands of images/attachments, with a lot of traffic (relatively) for about three years. In the business world, that's a big win. Car sites are simply not storage intensive endeavors. I can take enough photos with my fancy Nikon (RAW, 45MB files) in an afternoon to fill up MVS storage. Yet 80GB was enough to take us through MVS year 15.

My choices were to use attached storage, or re-image the server to a different virtual machine with a larger natural storage capacity. The second option was not at all palatable to me, because it would have required a different IP address, different machine name, different... stuff. Too many changes to be comfortable with. DNS changes... the problems cascade. I have to babysit the machine as it is. Big changes are always going to cause temporary havoc. Let sleeping dogs lie, etc.

As far as moving to another host, it's not worth it. At the risk of using too many idioms, I'll say to that: better the devil you know than the devil you don't know. I'm happy. I'd rather pay for overkill rather than underkill. Been there, done that. Doesn't pay.

[93Regina]

storage

Having the user option to attach files/pdfs/etc is nice, but although an initial time-pill, it would be nice to organize relevant PDFs into something like this individual's effort, since it would reduce duplicate uploads.

I'm aware of ye old copy-cat laws, but I suspect OEMs have been looking the other way, since I'm not aware of any site getting a take-down notice. Its really not good for their business model to make noise on older vehicle-publications that dealerships normally don't work on anymore. In fact, some/most/all dealerships have long ago "trashed," sold, etc., these publications.

Just a thought...

[matthew1]

I did get a takedown notice from VCNA's legal department concerning wiring diagrams, several years ago. See https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/volvo-wiring-diagrams

If that other site can do it and get away with it, more power to them. Or less, depending on where you sit.