In case you missed mlr's post on the front page, here it is for your convenience:
Hosting Nightmares
Hosting has really been a pig since we switched over to dreamhost .
It's been pig slow, stability has been iffy at best, and we paid for 2 years in advance which we cannot be refunded for. This is bleak at best. What can we do? There's hope. I (mlr) have hacently moved back to the Bay Area (Silicon Valley/San Jose) which puts me within driving distance of our old colo. This prevents (or limits) the issues where a machine goes down and we suffer for weeks. The thing here is; I have a new server, I have physical access to the datacenters, but I have sunk all the cash I had (between what was raised and what I tossed in the kitty) tied up in Dreamhost.
Should we run another fundraiser? Let's see what you have to say. The bottom line is 50.00 per month. I'd like to cover at least one year before I go sticking a box in the colo.
In a recent post on another thread I said I can live with slow response, but today's experience has convinced me otherwise. It took me two hours to connect to make this post and something crashed while I was typing, so here I am retyping.
Mlr is proposing a costly change which would allow the board to move from the present apparently substandard host to a better site, but it will cost money. I think this site deserves better hosting than it presently has and I am willing to chip in some dollars to make it happen.
Wait for the word from mlr (posted here mlr's word), but I vote yes to a fundraiser to enable the move to a higher quality and more reliable site.
It is clear that mlr has already footed many bills and should have help from us if this move is to be made. I am sure that your input via this thread will help guide mlr to a good decision.
Neil
I have not been experiencing any of the slowness everyone else is talking about. I just sat here for a few minutes timing the response for this entire page after hitting refresh each time. The results were consitently in the 4 to 5 second range. This matches what I have seen 99% of the time over the past few weeks. Once in a while it seems to take maybe 10 or 15 seconds, but all web sites (except Google) do that occasionally.
I am in eastern Pennsylvania on Verizon FIOS. Do I have a direct pipeline to the part15.us server somewhere on the west coast? I don't think so.
I wonder if anyone else is seeing good, acceptable response times? Am I the only one? I would be perfectly content if mlr sticks with this provider as is.
Phil,
Here in Central Ohio the board response has been poor. Maybe it is the time of day rather than the location. Here, the site was not responding at all between 6:30 and 8:30 EDST.
None of the other sites I frequent show any latency so I need to conclude that the problem is not with my internet service provider.
This thread will provide an opportunity for all to share their experiences and maybe by doing so mlr can determine if there is an actual problem.
Neil
Same here, Phil. I checked just now and it was 4 to 5 seconds. 2 AM and I live in western NY state. But during "peak times" it's slower or once in a great while it won't load. In which case I try again later.
I haven't thought of it as a big issue. I mean, ok, maybe sometimes it takes 30 seconds if I'm checking during the busy times of day. But hey, it's a hobby board. So I don't generally find it all that troublesome if it takes a little bit to load pages. I'm not in that much of a hurry. The content is well worth a little bit of wait in the busy times of day.
Daniel
The issue has nothing to do with geography; it's about
1) the connection between the place where the website is held and where the database is held.
2) shared hosting where sometimes something on the same machine as part16 get's "dugg/slashdotted"
3) IMHO, poor hardware.
How much in total dollars are you looking to raise?
Looking to raise a total of 900.00
We have been pledged 50.00 so far... which, given the amount of time, is awesome.
The info is here:
The server at www.sfccp.net is taking too long to respond...
I've been getting this error since last night over there. Are you sure that's where you want to go?
How much bandwidth do you use per month?
Physically, what are the machines you need colo'd? Are they in a rackmount chassis?
SFCCP use their own dns servers; which are having issues ATM - I won't be using them. All I care about is the rackspace and the network connection, which is solid. Yes, I am sure thats where I want to go.
Light duty BW right now, expectations are higher BW as people begin to use the additional services.
I currently have 2 1U, dual proc, dual core boxes with 2GB RAM (I need a LOT more), and a couple of 300GB disks.
If I need to add more, I can pop down the street and grab 2GHz+ 1U rackmount machines for under 200.00 each. Hardware is cheap here.