Well, it's that time of year again. EuroVPS have just sent me an email to tell me that the server subscription is up for renewal (two weeks before it's due. Nothing like a bit of notice.) And Good God, haven't they put their prices up?

 

As far as I can tell from their Control Panel, the amount due for the next year's service is €606.29, which works out to £409.07 in real money. Which seems a bit excessive, since last time the cost was €208.67.

 

So, do we stick with EuroVPS, or do we move home again? I'm inclined to say move, personally. And if we move, where to? It'll need to be decided fairly quickly, as the renewal is due on the 13th of August.

 

Also, I need someone to take this part of Teh ownership (collecting money, contact details ont he hosting account, etc etc) away from me, as I'll be leaving the country soon and won't be in any position to do anything much for a few months at least. Any volunteers?

oof. I don't really have time to commit to taking over the running of it, the footy season's about to begin (I think I'm due to have three days off in August, none of them together) and I'll bugger it up somehow. Also I think last time we pretty drained teh amazon fund so there won't be much coming from that this time.

meep!

 

I too do not have time to commit to this.

 

If someone has time, I think we should look at alternative options for the hosting, given that cost.

1&1?

 

Should be able to get something decent with 1&1 for £100-200 a year.

 

If donations are needed I'm happy to donate, but can't do so until end of September :(

As for taking over the hosting, I volunteer Jon Cooper. He seems sensible enough.

That can't be right.

I can't remember the details for the EuroVPS support section to see what package we're actually currently on. Going by what Plesk reports this is what I believe us to have:

Minimum Guaranteed RAM: 512MB
Disk Space: 10GB
Domains: Limited to 1.
Plesk: Version 7.5

None of this matches any of the VPS Plesk packages they sell that they have listed on their site. If we go for the one closest in spec to our current set up (VPS 450P) it's closer to €500 (~£340) so I'd be interested to know where they get €606 from and why.

I had a quick look at 1&1's virtual hosting and even though they put me off by not listing any details about their servers, they do have a special offer which would give us 3 months free and cut the cost down to £270 for a year (Business tier). But after that it'd go up to £360 which is more than EuroVPS are asking for their VPS 450P.

Hmm.

From the invoice online:

Item	Unit Price	Time interval	Total
Linux VPS 250P Plesk Reloaded/RHEL AS3 hosting plan subscription fee	€509.49	1 year(s)	€509.49
Psa Bu As3 monthly fee	€0.00	1 year(s)	€0.00
+ EU VAT 19.00 %			€96.80
Total			€606.29

Which seems to be about €45 per month. Maybe they've phased out the package we were on and moved us to this one?

Don't we get some kind of discount for paying for a whole year up front?

Their website seems to imply that is the case (linky), offering a price of €29.95 (not sure, but I think this includes VAT) a month if we commit to one year, although I guess that could be for new customers only.

I'm confused.

My compsci friend from uni has always seemed quite happy with Fasthosts, though I can't vouch for them personally. And, again, they don't seem to talk about their server specs. And I'm not sure how large the Teh DB is.

Quite possibly not suitable, then.

Last time I checked (which was a while ago), the TradeDoubler account had ~£40 in. I'd guess it's probably up to £50-60 by now, depending on how often people buy from Dabs/Play/Game using the links.

1and1 seem ok for shared hosting, but they aren't great for servers.

 

We have 3 servers from them where i work, and they aren't anything special at all - not infrequent downtime, customer service that don't care, and changes to configuration without telling you, which breaks stuff.

You can only avoid VAT if you're passing it on to someone else to pay - like you buy wholesale and pay no VAT, but customers pay VAT on individual products which you collect and send back to the taxman.

 

I think.

 

Someone could write it off as a business cost, though, and offset the cost of the server against profits, and not pay as much corporation tax. Manthorp.

Dunno how Euro VAT works, actually... I'm guessing the same as tax free shopping - would have to be out of the EU to claim it back.

What about any donations? As in, are there any left from last time, and to whom should we donate to this time?

well cheers for that :P

 

I guess I would be willing to do whatever is necessary (collect up all the donations and pay the new host?)

 

I am not technical enough to deal with all the server stuff though - I'm guessing Matt does that anyway?

(cowboy)

Any time bro (y)

 

 

The donations last time along with the referrals money just covered the fees. I should really have kept proper records, but I didn't.