Building a server

007007 said:

Those plans suck! Tyler currently has our site hosted with www.bluehost.com We have over 600Gb storage and 6Tb of transfer.

All for the low price of 94$ a YEAR.

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O__O

Most companies I've found charge that per MONTH.

It depends on how much disk space and bandwidth you're buying but for reasonable newbie requirements you should be able to find plenty of companies offering well under US$10 per month for web hosting, probably closer to US$5 per month. Check whether there's a setup fee, whether domain name registration is included and how long the contract lasts.

If Bluehost have a good reputation (and I'm not saying they don't!) they seem to be well worth investigating. Their monthly fee is higher than WestHost's lowest price level but they don't have a setup fee, they do include domain name registration, and they offer much more disk space and bandwidth (but on the other hand you're very unlikely to need that much of either).

Another major web hosting company possibly worth looking at is GoDaddy but I've read some rather variable reports about their service.

John

A question somewhat along these lines in that I am thinking of either an extra HD to store my TRS2004-2006 files or using a no-longer needed older computer to house (use as a personlal server) those files. Somewhere I believe I read in the forms of this being done. My technical wording may not be adequate to express my desires but hope someone gets the direction I would like to go.

Also, thanks for all those posts from long ago to current. They have helped this somewhat newby a great deal.

414Scootermon said:

A question somewhat along these lines in that I am thinking of either an extra HD to store my TRS2004-2006 files or using a no-longer needed older computer to house (use as a personlal server) those files. Somewhere I believe I read in the forms of this being done. My technical wording may not be adequate to express my desires but hope someone gets the direction I would like to go.

Also, thanks for all those posts from long ago to current. They have helped this somewhat newby a great deal.

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The simplest in my opinion, install a second HD in your computer, build 2 folders, one for 04 files and one for 06, and simply copy the files directly to the second HD ?
Maybe this is not what your wanting to accomplish.
FYI possibly starting a new thread will allow you more and quicker suggestions ?

---DLR (this thread is from Dec, '07)

deeelare said:

The simplest in my opinion, install a second HD in your computer, build 2 folders, one for 04 files and one for 06, and simply copy the files directly to the second HD ?
Maybe this is not what your wanting to accomplish.
FYI possibly starting a new thread will allow you more and quicker suggestions ?

---DLR (this thread is from Dec, '07)

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Thanks Deelare, This is just what I was wanting to do. Thanks for your quick reply.

Fitting an additional hard disk is much better idea if you just want it to hold data for your own use, as it will be vastly quicker to access than something remote.

There are two fundamental ways of doing it, internal or external.

An internal hard disk drive is the best bet as it will communicate with the processor faster, but it requires:
The computer to have somewhere inside the case to fit it properly.
A spare data connection, either IDE or SATA.
Enough spare power supply wattage.
Enough spare ventilation capacity.
Someone with enough knowledge and skill to select a compatible device and fit it.

An external hard disk drive only requires the computer to have a spare USB 2 socket.

Take a look at any of the online computer equipment retailers (for example in the UK Dabs, Ebuyer, Maplin and Play.com - perhaps someone else can suggest some US retailers?) to get a feel for what's available and pricing. Sorry if this sounds silly but don't confuse external hard disk drives with external CD and DVD drives.

For external hard disk drives, Freecom seem to have a generally good reputation.

This article has some good info and photos:
http://askbobrankin.com/add_a_second_hard_drive.html

HTH, John

john259,

Actually I like your idea better, I do not use external drives except for "stick drives" and the idea was completely out of my mind !
External Hard Drives have better merit when it comes to just using them to back up data and/or transfering data to another PC with a like USB port . And they can be unplugged and stored away from the PC for even safer storage !

---DLR

Thanks John, You've given me some thoughts I had not even taken into consideration. Is there such a thing going as having just the os on one drive and everything else on another drive?

I'm not sure if you can achieve that 100% but you can certainly get close.

With the majority of programs you can specify where to install them and also where their data files are held. Trainz is very unusual in holding its data files in its program files folder.

There's also issues such as where the virtual memory swap files (=page files) are (which you can control), where the System Restore files are, where the Internet Explorer cache files are and where the Recycle Bin files are (I'm not sure if you can control where the last three are but you can control their sizes). This is fairly advanced stuff though.

Splitting things across drives makes very good sense when they are different internal physical drives with fast IDE or SATA connections. I'm not sure it makes sense with logical partitions of the same physical drive. If a drive is on a USB 2 connection it won't be nearly as fast to access as an internal drive. Firewire is another type of external connection which I think is faster than USB 2 but not as fast as IDE or SATA. All these different types of connections are incompatible with each other (but you can buy enclosures which convert internal drives to USB 2, and maybe Fireware but I'm not sure about that).

Sorry for the long waffle,

John

SamBigley said:

I think the important thing is how usable it would be and how cost-effective such a solution could be. For example, if it will significantly help in the robot, it makes a lot of sense, especially the choice of service that will provide it. If continuous robot operation is important, then I recommendI am using it myself and it has not caused any problems. All very convenient and understandable.

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