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Small low-bandwidth web hosting, with 500GB block storage for photos/videos
I run three sites for me, two for others. Currently these take up less than 3GB. But I am interested in moving my photos and videos off of the 'big' services and hosting them myself. They would mainly be referenced/hotlinked on my sites or maybe some social media. Bandwidth would be low - we're talking family/friends here. Zero interest in SEO, building traffic, monetization, etc.
My price point is definitely comfortable with what I am seeing on BuyVM.net (as an example) - looks like a KVM slice + block storage can come in between $50-60/year.
Concerns:
1 - I've done reselling before, many ages ago. I have learned that I truly hate having to fine-tune and tweak every single setting just to keep from being hacked. Will their DirectAdmin provide a cPanel-ish GUI for this type of thing?
2 - My sites are NOT intricate. Most are ClassicPress sites but I'm migrating to Grav. Will there be any issues embedding/streaming slide shows or video from the block storage on these sites?
Basically I'd love feedback on the pricing and workability of this setup for my purposes. Thanks in advance!
Comments
I am using LetBox Block Storage, performance wise, very good.. @key900
Thanks for recommending us.
our packages if you interested in.
https://letbox.com/page/box
NVMe + Block Storage !
Looks like you come in about $2/year below BuyVM (based on the package I want).
quick question - does your default vPanel have basically the same sort of functionality as cPanel?
Yep, the new DirectAdmin GUI is pretty good.
https://directadmin.com/evolution.php
Francisco
So at BuyVM Stallion handles big picture stuff (reboot server, etc.) and DirectAdmin is included free and handles basic control panel features ala cPanel/Plesk, etc.?
Just looked at the demo page. Shows their demo_admin user has a Sperry 8088 for their machine CPU LOL
I think running the DA in user mode provides pretty much everything I'll need. But overkill is better than the opposite...
Thanks for the info!
Correct on all of that
Francisco
Nah it for Managed the VPs services ( rebooting, reinstalling including backups and firewall, as well as access noVNC, SPICE, or Xterm.js console,)
Does it handle mail forwarding, SSL, file uploads, etc.?
512mb slice $20/year + 500gb slab $2.50/m = $50/year, correct. You will have to run your own web server and deal with software updates, possible outages etc. It's more effort than using shared hosting but not a really big deal. A simpler but more expensive approach might be to use BunnyCDN for photo storage (0.03/GB/mo) and shared hosting for the base pages. I guess that adds up if you're really using 500GB but otherwise it might be affordable.
I've been fooling around with NextCloud and it's nice. I think it needs a 1GB server though.
How would that work, exactly? Upload my photos to BunnyCDN?
Yes, upload to bunnycdn and then each photo would have its own url and you could refer to those from your web pages. You would also be able to use their CDN for faster delivery to the endpoints if those were scattered around. But, as mentioned, it is more expensive than using a vps.
So the only place the photos would exist would be on BunnyCDN's servers? I thought the original file had to be on my own server somewhere...
Bunny has the option for cloud file storage in addition to CDN capabilities.
https://bunnycdn.com/solutions/cdn-cloud-storage
For you I'd just suggest you get a VPS with 1 TB hard drive.
looking at https://bunnycdn.com/pricing
$0.01/GB/mo for storage
Plus bandwidth:
you can limit POPs to Europe and North America to ensure the $0.01per GB bandwidth rate - people will still be able to download from anywhere in the world (unless you want to specify further access restrictions)
so for current 3GB size mentioned in OP it would be quite cheap ($0.03 per month for storage and whatever else for the bandwidth)
as the storage size grows say to 500 GB then it would be $5 per month for storage, plus whatever for bandwidth. Note that it won't be a problem to increase storage beyond 500 GB either - just "pay as you grow"
You'll need to load at least $10 per year to keep your account active so can consider that the minimum annual spend even for the current 3 GB storage amount. Still seems like a pretty good deal, less than $1 per month.
Plenty of other options to consider but really BunnyCDN seems like a good contender for "low budget winner" for the stated requirements. Should be easy enough to try it out and see how it works.
https://bunnycdn.com/solutions/cdn-cloud-storage .01/GB
Oh that is nice, I thought it was 0.03/GB in the past. Either they lowered it or I misremembered. 0.01 is not bad at all. I'd still back it up someplace but if you don't mind the CDN charges that simplifies things. This will still cost more than using a VPS but it has its advantages.
I don't know if it's still going on but there is a thread about a bunnycdn promo where you get $5 of free credit. That would be enough to get started.
Now that's pretty damned cool! Of course, it looks like the plan I signed up for with LetBox includes 256GB of storage plus 10gb of server for $35/year. But if I am actually able to upload most of my photos and videos and overshoot the 256GB then the CDN storage looks nice. I mean, if they cache copies of everything any way, why not consider one of those copies as the 'original' ? Makes sense...
I think the "free $5" was still in play as of April 22
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/2965529#Comment_2965529
but if that's over now BunnyCDN also offers a 14-day free trial
As for the OP's question regarding video
Should be fine for BuyVM and Letbox block storage (much faster than the HDD on for example a kimsufi dedicated server).
Bottleneck would be network. BuyVM and Letbox both have "pretty good" network (and that much more so if you happen to be relatively close to Las Vegas or Los Angeles)
and BunnyCDN is by design going to provide fast network to anywhere you want. They support video streaming as well: https://bunnycdn.com/solutions/video-delivery
Caching means they delete it after a while if nobody requests it or if something else is getting heavier demand. Then if another request comes in they just reload it from the origin server. So caching is not a storage product. It's ephemeral.
You should think about the bw requirements of your real projected use case. 0.01/GB is cheap in the commercial/enterprise world but it is WAY more expensive than the vps's and dedis that we are used to here. If it's for a family member to download a picture now and then that's one thing, but if you have a significant audience then it's easy to find yourself using many TB's per month. Commercial users pay the extra because the faster delivery helps them sell their own product, but you might not care about a few more milliseconds of lag.
More like 25 visitors/month reading 10 blog posts or so - each post would have 1-5 photos, then an embedded slideshow and/or video. I don't anticipate large bandwidth at any time. But you are right - if my only photo/video hosting was BunnyCDN 400GB would cost me $48/year. At LetBox I can get 256GB storage free, an additional 256GB for $30/year.
One thought - I have been sending out newsletters and those get maybe 150 views each. I have been embedding photos and slideshows/videos in those as well. I guess all I can do is test it out and see if the speed/response is reasonable.
Letbox is a very nice deal all around - both for price and performance. Should be just fine.
If you do need to speed up delivery, then of course can still use less expensive (?) Letbox block storage as a pull zone feeding the BunnyCDN bandwidth (which can be cheaper for "volume" if there turns out to be a lot of bandwidth needed, starting at $0.005 /GB and going down to as low as $0.0025 /GB if you start pushing multiple thousands of TB - which also solves a problem if Letbox will limit you after 2 or 3 TB of bandwidth per month)
anyway ... start small, think big - some of the best deals on the net I've found on LET
https://test.b-cdn.net/bunny_720p.m4v