Hosting, what do you pay for it.

@Mindhunter:

But why do u only talk about the server? Its also expensive the get some decent webspace with traffic incl. where u can upload your mod (when U’re tirred of Moddb).

Err cos we can provide the mod hosting?
We server the community so we provide hosting for mods in our download sections.
I know bandwidth on a decent web host is allways a problem, as is with the web space you get on the web hosters. Some provide enourmous amounts of webspace (gatorhost) but are slooooow and some operate at a max of 10mbit.

Atm this site consumes 40gb of data (pictures, mods, tools, old data. Its not that easy to find a web hoster who offers this for a decent price with decent speed and functions, it would often be more expensive as renting a complete server. The downside of renting a server is the maintenance and the knowledge of the OS its self, as knowing how to setup httpd services and configuring a database and php.

P.S.

I checked, we now have 1TB (1000 GB) of free bandwidth cos we recently upgraded the server.

Game related.

But more in general what people pay for their server rental or housing costs. Its just to see if there are differences anywhere, and maybe people see that they pay to much or something… just about curiousity realy.

@FriendlyFire:

You should put your website on it too… I have frequent issues with accessing it (times out often) and you would get one sweet speed from there I’m sure ;D

Agreed, FL server only runs on one core anyway. If you have 2 disks in it you could seperate that as well, but FL once loaded and played on puts most in its memory anyway cept the user files.

You could setup IIS to run on one core, and the sql DB on the other, would have a hell of a power house for hosting your game, webserver and COD 4.

but 200 usd … thats a lot of money to cover, especialy on your own. Hope you have a good community so its worth it.

@Wicked_Witch:

Why you all rent a server in a datacenter?
What’s the improvement of that?

Why should that be better than having the server at your home?
Maybe exept the bandtwith……

Well, low pings for starters, home connections allways have a few steps more before it gets to the server, than there is the over booking. Most home connections are 40 to 1 on one line, in other words, if you have a 10 mbit connection you have to share that with 40 others.
Servers at data centers most of the time are central the point where the ISP’s get together or its connected to fast peering partners to shorten the hops.
Home servers are ok when you only have players from the same country or same ISP, once you want players from other continents you have a problem.
Than there is the location of the data center, when choosing a location you have to think about the players you would expect on your server to serve them with the lowest ping possible. If you expect US people choose a good location in the US, a location where a lot of ISP’s come together like NY or LA, maybe Dalas or in Canada vancouver or Toronto.
UK london is the place, even Euro players can connect good to those server.
Hosting a good server all has to do with good pings, FL uses not that much bandwidth but with a large PVP player base pikes of 5 to 10 mbit is ver common, and most home connections don’t offer that.

@OPR8R:

3 servers atm

1. opteron 1275,2x500gb hdd, 4gbram, Windows Server 2003, 8 IP’s, 100Mbps, 170€ per month, no traffic limit

2. xp64, 2gbram, 500gbhdd, 8ips, 100Mbps, no traffic limit, 70€ per month

3. backup server (for free), 500gb hdd

monthly traffic is between 500 and 600gb atm

lol, than there are allways people who have more, nice setups OP.

@Wicked_Witch:

@Worfeh: Thanks for your reply

About the sharing, that’s correct. 2 weeks ago whe had problems with our line, and the provider told us that from the 40:1 stuff…
This was something i never knew.

Our server stands in The Netherlands. People from Canada and America have a ping around the 135.
The provider we use have a lower ping. My other line has a higher ping.
The max i could reach with the adsl is 9 mb.
I have tought about renting a server, but i think we have to less players to pay that big money every month.

If i look to the Discovery server, withs 1000’s players, than it’s worth the money.
For now, i deside to stay on the homeserver.
It’s not 100% i know, but i try to get a best performance and a best hardware stuff i could get.
We are waiting till we get glassfiber in our area. But nobody know’s when it’s coming. They say that the whole city from us, must be ready in 2010. True or false, nobody knows

And it’s not really that bad as homeserver, so….;)

I live in the netherlands as well. And even tho we are one of the countries who have highest geographical bandwidth occupation ADSL is still a main issue regarding upload speed. The 9mb you get is for download, the upload is max 1mbit. Cable is somewhat better and they now offer 60 mbit lines up and download (i believe) in certain area’s on cable. The fibers look nice but when you invensigate it a bit closer you’ll find out that the sharing is up to 1:100, I know cos 2 of my companies have that and i pay a great deal of cash to get the sharing to 1:10 and still we sometimes have issues with that. Otherwise i could host this site on one of those lines, but i don’t want to compromise business with private stuff.
I do use a test server on those lines for FL testing tho, and the archived site used to run on a capped line for a while there.