Increasing Costs. Running out of space. Server Migration.

[Brother_Bliss]

This announcement is just to let the community know a little bit about what is going on in the background regarding the community and what we plan to do about it. We have 2 issues facing us in the very near future. 

 

Issue #1 is that we are running out of disk space. We are currently using about 90% of our hard drive.

 

Issue #2 is that we are about to face yet another price increase. As it is, our core costs today are $239/yr higher than they were in 2019, and we just received notice that CPanel will be raising their prices another $30 annually again in the middle of December.

 

 

We do believe we can kill 2 birds with one stone, however. Our host, Knownhost, supports a CPanel competitor called DirectAdmin which is FREE. We've never used DirectAdmin, but we only ever need Server Management Software occasionally, and we're techy enough to figure it out. It looks pretty comprehensive and comparable to CPanel and the host is really promoting and supporting it to combat the CPanel's abusive prices. Besides, we pay for Managed Support, so KnownHost is always there to help if there is something we need to do that is over our head.

 

We currently have a 90GB Hard Drive (not an SSD) and 2GB of RAM. Knownhost is offering a server with a 150GB SSD and 4 GB of RAM with DirectAdmin for $135 LESS per year that what we currently pay. Moving to an SSD and doubling our RAM should mean that the site would function better and faster. Getting more disk space, a faster disk drive, and more memory while lowering our core costs by $135/yr seems like a no-brainer.

 

To change plans will require a server migration. Knownhost will handle that migration for us, but there will be some downtime.

 

 

[Qapla]

Just give us some notice - and we will weather the drought while JWT is down.

 

 

[hatcheckgirl]

Appreciate very much all you do to manage this site, Bob. Thank you. 

[New World Explorer]

You're doing amazing job. ❤️

[Eejay]

Thanks for facilitating the site.  😊

[Brother_Bliss]

8 hours ago, Qapla said:

Just give us some notice - and we will weather the drought while JWT is down.

 

We haven't placed the order yet, but will put up an announcement when we do. 

 

Hopefully the downtime will be minimal. We will have to turn OFF the community, copy it to the new server, and change our nameservers at GoDaddy to point to the new server. Each of us will have to wait for our local ISP to update their DNS and start pointing us to the new server. Once my ISP is pointing me to the new server, then I can see I can attempt to log in, make sure we have the software we need and that the database is restored, and turn it back on. Knownhost will handle much of that so we will let them know ahead of time what we require to operate. 

[Tortuga]

So each of us need to remember our logon and password? 🤔

[Qapla]

[New World Explorer]

4 hours ago, Tortuga said:

So each of us need to remember our logon and password? 🤔

Turtles have good memory, I worry about donut boy ….
He only remembers last lame joke about donuts 🍩 

 

[Sheep]

I am assuming this will change nothing about the software and the appearance and functioning of the site...?

[New World Explorer]

9 hours ago, Sheep said:

I am assuming this will change nothing about the software and the appearance and functioning of the site...?

I also assume that. 

 

Bob will change the "library" that holds the book

But the book itself remains the same, we just need to go to different library for storing the "book"  

[carlos]

15 hours ago, Sheep said:

I am assuming this will change nothing about the software and the appearance and functioning of the site...?

 

In principle, the site doesn't need to change. What would change is the gauges behind the site, but members don't see those.

[Brother_Bliss]

16 hours ago, Sheep said:

I am assuming this will change nothing about the software and the appearance and functioning of the site...?

 

That's correct. We're not converting to different software. We are staying with Invision (which itself has gone up to $210/yr).

 

Although I do expect that being on an SSD will mean faster page load times. The jump from 2GB to 4GB of memory might also help during peak busy times.

[Jendo]

On 11/29/2022 at 2:53 PM, Brother_Bliss said:

 

Each of us will have to wait for our local ISP to update their DNS and start pointing us to the new server.

when Im doing some changes with dns, I reboot router and devices and dns update is faster. (reboot flushes dns cache). (mini hint )