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Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

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Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#81

What are you doing for DB backups? Do you have a replica/standby? Or is it just hourly or something like that? Because with a single-server setup like this, I'd imagine that hardware (e.g. SSD) failure brings down your app, and in the case of SSD failure, you then have hours or days downtime while you set everything up again.

> Because with a single-server setup like this, I'd imagine that hardware ... Yeah. This blog post reads like it was written by someone who didn't think things through and just focused on hyper-agressive cost-cutting. I bet their DigitalOcean vm did live migrations and supported snapshots. You can get that at Hetzner but only in their cloud product. You absolutely will not get that in Hetzner bare-metal. If your HD o…

You can just run 3 dedicated servers and design your app so that it never fails.

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#82

What are you doing for DB backups? Do you have a replica/standby? Or is it just hourly or something like that? Because with a single-server setup like this, I'd imagine that hardware (e.g. SSD) failure brings down your app, and in the case of SSD failure, you then have hours or days downtime while you set everything up again.

The easiest I’ve done is in MongoDB replication, sharding, failover, and all that is super easy. Recently, I did it in PostgreSQL using pg_auto_failover. I have 1 monitor node, 1 primary, and 1 replica. Surprisingly, once you get the hang of PostgreSQL configuration and its gotchas, it’s also very easy to replicate. I’m guessing MySQL is even easier than PostgreSQL for this. I also achieved zero downtime migration.

Replication is not a backup. It helps for migrations or clean single node failures but not human error, corruption, or an attack.

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#83
post #31

The migration sharing is admirable and useful teaching, thank you! I see the DigitalOcean vs Hetzner comparison as a tradeoff that we make in different domains all day long, similar to opening your DoorDash or UberEats instead of making your own dinner(and the cost ratio is similar too). I work in all 3 major clouds, on-prem, the works. I still head to the DigitalOcean console for bits and pieces type work or proof o…

https://xkcd.com/2948/

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#84
post #10

I saved about $1200 a year by moving from AWS to Hetzner. Can’t recommend it enough. AWS has kind of become a scam.

it's not scam, it's like Casino House. Everything is designed to pull your money and make you believe that you are benefiting from it.

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#85
post #9

I moved two servers, one from Linode and the other from DO to Hetzner a few months ago, with similar savings. The best part was that the two servers had tens of different sites running, implemented in different languages, with obsolete libraries, MySQL and Redis instances. A total mess. Well: Claude Code migrated it all, sometimes rewriting parts when the libraries where no longer available. Today complex migrations…

Wow a Claude add embedded into a Hetzner add. How deep does this go?

By this logic your most recent comment was just an ad for Netflix.

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because with a single-server setup like this, I'd imagine that hardware ... Yeah. This blog post reads like it was written by someone who didn't think things through and just focused on hyper-agressive cost-cutting. I bet their DigitalOcean vm did live migrations and supported snapshots. You can get that at Hetzner but only in their cloud product. You absolutely will not get that in Hetzner bare-metal. If your HD o…

You can just run 3 dedicated servers and design your app so that it never fails.

Can you elaborate? I'm coming up with similar designs recently (static site plus redundant servers) but my designs so far assume no database and ephemeral interactions. (Realtime multiplayer arcade games.)

Curious what the delta to pain-in-ass would be if I want to deal with storing data. (And not just backups / migrations, but also GDPR, age verification etc.)

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#89

> Cloud providers are expensive for steady-state workloads. Asking the obvious question: why not your own server in a colo?

We used to run some servers in a colo, we had 4u. The problem with actually owning hardware is that you need a lot of it, and need to be prepared to manage things like upgrading firmware. You need to keep on top of the advisories for your network card, the power unit, the enterprise management card, etc. etc. If something goes wrong someone might need to drive in and plug in a keyboard. Eventually we admitted to ours…

> and need to be prepared to manage things like upgrading firmware

At one point in the early 2000's, my brother was soldering new capacitors onto dell raid cards. (I like to call that full-stack ops.)

Re: Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner

#90
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow a Claude add embedded into a Hetzner add. How deep does this go?

"ad", with a single "d". So it's a Claude ad inside a Hetzner ad inside a decent grammar ad.

Ad for which elementary school?
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