Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum
General => Chatter => Topic started by: Tony on September 29, 2011, 08:40:26 PM
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Looks like VOD went over its bandwidth limit this month, a whole day without it - how will I live?!
Edit: looks like it's back again, Paddy must have topped it up from the donation fund.
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I see its exceded again,thought the donations were meant to have sorted it
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Beat me to it Keith! Last time I donated I was under the impression that it was a contribution to upgrade the software, but it never happened.
To run out of bandwidth again so soon there must be something a little weird going on.
I vote we send in Tony to sort it out!
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I dont understand the bandwidth thing,Knighty started to explain that most things shouldnt affect it but Rotary took the thread off track a wee bit!
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I'm not an expert either, but I think it's all down to the volume of traffic flowing in and out of the ISP's server. Bit like oil down a pipe ... Paddy has a medium size pipe, but 'cos so much oil wants to flow down it, he's gona need a bigger pipe.
As was pointed out, no photos are hosted on the VOD (and it's these that can be quite large files), so the volume of information transfer to build a page shouldn't really be that great.
Either there is a massive number of people requesting information from the server, or due to old software it takes a large volume of info to make a page or there's a problem like a virus consuming bandwidth.
Only the ramblings of an idiot ... I'm sure someone else can explain it better.
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So it all goes back to needing an upgrade,is that an expensive thing?
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Only the ramblings of an idiot ... I'm sure someone else can explain it better.
I don't know for sure, but it might help. I think forum software can be had for free, believe this one was, as was the wiki.
Immediate issue is the size of Paddy's pipe ... so to speak!
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If you want to use a liquid and plumbing analogy then bandwidth limit in this case is like liquid volume - you're given a set amount of it per month which each visitor sips from, until it's gone (and your site stops).
What bandwidth did paddy say VOD consumed? I was kinda expecting 100-150gb/month from a properly busy site and he said something quite a lot less.
The machine biopowered is on slurps through about 40gb a month (not just wiki and forum), sometimes as much as 70gb.
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Seems to me that there is an underlying problem consuming the bandwidth but as Paddy is a very busy boy, he hasn't the time to sort it out so just keeps enlarging his pipe.
Or have I misunderstood?
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The idea of simply paying to enlarge ones pipe is very appealing!
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Pipe envy is a sad thing! bit like pump envy
30gb is what Paddy said
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That's not much in the grand scheme of things, that's in the budget hosting domain - 50gb/month hosting can be bought for about £5/month - £30/month gets about 1000gb/month.
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Is it playing up again? or just me?
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Seems fine for me on BT
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Yeah OK for me at the moment, but then I have been outside all evening digging trenches!
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Looks like it's down again, which is annoying as I had just typed a long response to the guy looking for a new Xantia about the pump's anti-tamper plate.
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I don't really understand the problem. The bandwidth gets exeeded, we have a whipround, it gets sorted. Why does the whole thing happen again the following month.
I thought the whipround was to cover upgrading the bandwidth to a more suitable level on a permanent basis, not for just one month. As much as I enjoy the forum, I'm certainly not bunging in £5 every month. Or have I misunderstood something?
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Trouble being we aren't really sure on what the forum is using and what plan paddy is on, I would be surprised if the plan has actually changed.
Guess paddy needs to be a bit more open or maybe delegate administration to someone else?
I'm in agreement with max, we are all in it to save money and £5 a month is ridiculous when you think of the actual costs involved.
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Also the whole idea of hosting a forum on your website is to increase traffic to your site and hopefully create more revenue through sales.
To then not provide sufficient bandwidth to the point where users have to donate to keep things going seems a bit like lending someone a free hall for a party because your going to make your money at the bar and then halfway through the party asking the guests to chip in for the electricity.
I do value the VOC and was quite happy donating to the Paddy fund on an as and when basis but as bandwidth figures of £5 - £30 per month were being banded about, I did expect it to be sorted for the long term.
Would it work if the forum part of the site was given to the members to run (maybe the mods running it day to day with Paddy having the final say) who might give us a clearer picture of what is going on.
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Yea the idea of the moderators on the forum running it would be a good idea;
Back to the cost, it seems doing a who is on the vod points to it being hosted united hosting, with plans going from £5 to £69 per month.
References:
http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk/hosting.php
http://www.unitedhosting.co.uk/resellers.php
I can't remember the amount of traffic paddy quoted on the thread last month.
I am amazed that paddy does not put the effort in the forum to drive sales? , I get the feeling its not high on his list, when maybe it should be.
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It was 30gb a month - not very much in the grand scheme of things - certainly should be covered by whatever advertising deals he's got. Maybe just doesn't have time to faff around finding a suitable host?
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It was 30gb a month - not very much in the grand scheme of things - certainly should be covered by whatever advertising deals he's got. Maybe just doesn't have time to faff around finding a suitable host?
Another use for the "hitting the nail on the head" smiley there Tony. On reflection, I don't think it is anything to do with money but Paddy has probably got higher priority stuff to be doing.
Maybe it would benefit him and us if he delegated some of these lower priority jobs to someone with more time to resolve the issues. After all, without the forum he's got just another low to medium hit site that the advertisers wouldn't normally be interested in.
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Is it possible there are other sites or processes using bandwidth besides Paddy's bio site and the forum?