Today I placed an order for a new server. We had enough to get the base system, so to save time I went ahead with it now instead of waiting for all remaining pledges to come in. Instead, I will use any other cheques, payments etc to upgrade the new server (more RAM, second HDD etc) as the cash becomes available.
Depending on how quickly it gets here, I hope to have it up and running in a week or two. I’ll keep you all posted.
Update to Update: It’s here! Crikey it’s a noisy monster.
Here’s a cut n paste of the order.
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ORDER NO. 7017505 | ORDER ITEMS |
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Antec 4U22ATX 4U Rackmount Case, Black, No PSU, Fits 12x13in M/B, 2 rear fans, removable bays
AL-CSR-4U22ATX |
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$214.50
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1
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GTR 500W EasyPlugPro Modular power supply, 14cm fan, 20+4-pin, 4/8-pin, 6x HDD, 2x SATA, 1x PCI-E, 2x FDDPS-GTRAD500AS |
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$143.00
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1
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Lite-On Black IDE drive, DVD 20×8+R/20×6-R, 8x DVD+/-DL, 12x DVD-RAM, CD 48x32x48, w/software and extra beige panelMU-LH-20A1P |
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$75.90
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1
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Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz Processor, Quad core (Kentsfield) LGA775 105w 2x 4mb cache, BX80562Q6600
CP-BX80562Q6600 |
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$385.00
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1
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250Gb Seagate 7200.10 7200rpm SATA-II hard disk, 16mb cache, NCQHD-ST3250410AS |
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$137.50
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1
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Patriot 4096Mb Extreme Performance PC-6400 DDR2 RAM kit, 2x 2048mb 240-pin DDR2 sticks, 5-5-5-12AIT-MMPA2804GELK |
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$368.50
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2
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Gigabyte GA-G33-DS3R LGA775 P4/C2D G33 board, 4x DDR2, PCI-E x16, 3x PCI/PCI-Ex1, 8x SATA, Video, GigaLAN, Audio w/SPDIF
MB-GA-G33-DS3R |
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$215.60
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| Freight ex |
TBA |
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| Total ex |
$1755.00 |
| GST |
$175.50 |
| Total inc GST |
$1930.50 |
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Come on – you have to let us geeks know what you bought.
Andrew, I updated it just for you!
mmh “extra beige panel”
I coulda sent you one free.
Andrew Reynolds said “you have to let us geeks know what you bought”
And what about giving a plug for the stuff geeks don’t buy but download and install? (Don’t give away software version numbers – makes it too easy for the crackers)
I’m currently running the site on Ubuntu and I imagine that’ll be true of the new installation too.
Surely at these prices it would have been cheaper to buy blogging software capable of handling more than 6 concurrent requests?
If wordpress is as bad as you say there must be some money in doing it properly…
Transferred some loot electronically to the bank account details you published and it was debited and then credited back to my account again. Any thoughts? Perhaps I shouldn’t have labelled it ‘Observa’?
Troppo seems to have picked an expensive option, and one that requires more technical administration and maintenance, when all you needed to do was get a decent host.
There are WordPress sites *way* larger than this one that run successfully on AU$25 a month shared hosting accounts.
Essentially, Club Troppo has been continuously outgrowing each level of hosting. First a small shared host, then a big shared host, then a cheap VPS. After that comes a pricey VPS, then private server. Personally I am sick of migrating the site every 3 months, so I decided it would be easier just to hop straight to own server.
Originally I was going to host it myself, but instead we are going to host the system with the UCC, who will give us free colocation and internet access in exchange for the eternal glory of hosting Troppo, plus access to spare capacity on the box. But to do so we needed a rack mounted server as they have no room left for tower systems, which kicked off the current round of fundraising.
The fundraising went better than I had hoped, so I spent it on a better system. That strikes me as the way to go about it.
So as you can see, every step was logical. It only looks bonkers if you jump straight to the conclusion. For what it’s worth, the new system should give us room to expand a lot. Last month we had about 90,000 visits and the only way I kept things smooth was to turn away search engine indexes. This new system would easily handle that sort of traffic every day.
Knowing bugger all about the techs, it is exciting. Great to see a project grow and develop. Congrats to you, too, Jacques, for putting in what you do.
Troppo is understandably privately run, however, publishing those stats helps make it attractive to contribute. They’re significant numbers.
Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, it’s great to be part of something on the move. It’s also been heartening to see visits and comments growing steadily despite server troubles. We don’t have a “recent comments” function, for instance, though these are typically considered de rigeur for Wordpress blogs nowadays.
Of course once we hit the new server there will be an exciting explosion of features. Recent comments, return of Missing Link emails, link sharing etc etc. Right now I’ve turned off all the frills because of they work the database too hard and cause the whole site to choke up.
Cheers. The ‘recent comments’ feature when it arrives again will help enormously, as posts are revisited.
If you want to have some fun, compare your readership to figures on any regional newspaper or television footprint per show: that perspective would illustrate your considerable achievements.
I already know that the NT News has a peak readership of about 30,000 people; though that maps to “unique visitors” and not “unique visits”. The later figure – which I gave above as circa 90k – more closely maps to circulation than readership.
Still, our unique readership keeps climbing. It was well north of 5,000 last time I looked, and that figure didn’t include RSS feeds etc.
Correction, the NT News a peak weekday readership of around 30,000. It shoots up a lot on Saturdays.
Maybe you can offer hosting to Catallaxy and LP – keep the whole thing in one, big, happy family.
That’d be great for my ego, but would multiply anguish by taking down all 3 sites together if the server came to grief.
Jacques,
Again, same failure. Some system somewhere keeps my $50 for 48 hrs then sends it back (no fees for which i suppose I should grovel gratefully).
The point is that this time my banker’s system recognised the BSB as Troppo so it can’t claim ‘incorrect details’.
It just doesn’t want to play
That’s a bit rotten. If a bank transfer won’t go you could try Paypal or Cheque, or give it a miss if you don’t think it’ll be a goer.