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TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

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Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#12

Post by raiyu »

ck2 wrote: post #11

Here's the funny thing about SSD in RAID: If they are the same model and age, they tend to fail at the same time. You get more than a single drive failing at the same time = data loss. (the 100 pushups is darn impressive though)

Also true of regular harddrives, just the nature of the game when technically all of the harddrives are under the same load due to RAID and even with different manufacturing times the loads are the same so it's hard to estimate how far apart the batches should be in order to really minimize the incidence of such events.

We do provide snapshots and backups and always recommend that customers backup their servers and take care of ensuring that they have access to their important content in case of any failure.

But maybe we can do the impossible if we can do 100 pushups ;)

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#13

Post by ck2 »

raiyu wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #11

Here's the funny thing about SSD in RAID: If they are the same model and age, they tend to fail at the same time. You get more than a single drive failing at the same time = data loss. (the 100 pushups is darn impressive though)

Also true of regular harddrives, just the nature of the game when technically all of the harddrives are under the same load due to RAID and even with different manufacturing times the loads are the same so it's hard to estimate how far apart the batches should be in order to really minimize the incidence of such events. We do provide snapshots and backups and always recommend that customers backup their servers and t…

The MTBF for SSD in a server environment is two to three years maximum though.

(just ask someone on OVH)

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#15

Post by sirn »

I was wondering about bandwidth limit of their VPS, and found this in their pricing page:

> We don’t charge for bandwidth. You’ll save a ton of money with our network and it's easy to get started. No need to figure out how much bandwidth you’re going to use, whether that traffic is in or out. Set your site up and pay no extra if it takes off.

Whenever I see statement like this I'm not sure whether I should trust it; what if I use 1 TB/month, would I get kicked out for "using too much bandwidth"? What's your real soft cap?

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#16

Post by raiyu »

sirn wrote: post #15

I was wondering about bandwidth limit of their VPS, and found this in their pricing page: > We don’t charge for bandwidth. You’ll save a ton of money with our network and it's easy to get started. No need to figure out how much bandwidth you’re going to use, whether that traffic is in or out. Set your site up and pay no extra if it takes off. Whenever I see statement like this I'm not sure whether I should trust it;…

We are figuring out what the soft cap will be based on our customers usage and averaging that out, right now we are considering something in the 2TB-5TB range.

Honestly we just didn't prioritize traffic accounting as other features were a priority =]

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#17

Post by raiyu »

ukd1 wrote: post #14

Although a bunch of people have been having issues judging by the comments, my experience just now was impressively easy and makes me want to benchmark/test it further. Great job guys.

Thanks!

Everyone has growing pains we are no exception, and today every little hiccup is public, but it's good because it makes the service overall more resilient so we welcome all feedback positive and negative because it ultimately leads to a better service for our customers.

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#18

Post by sirn »

raiyu wrote: post #16
sirn wrote: post #15

I was wondering about bandwidth limit of their VPS, and found this in their pricing page: > We don’t charge for bandwidth. You’ll save a ton of money with our network and it's easy to get started. No need to figure out how much bandwidth you’re going to use, whether that traffic is in or out. Set your site up and pay no extra if it takes off. Whenever I see statement like this I'm not sure whether I should trust it;…

We are figuring out what the soft cap will be based on our customers usage and averaging that out, right now we are considering something in the 2TB-5TB range. Honestly we just didn't prioritize traffic accounting as other features were a priority =]

Thanks, that's nice to know. I wish there would be some mention of soft cap somewhere in the website, though.

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#19

Post by zagi »

ukd1 wrote: post #14

Although a bunch of people have been having issues judging by the comments, my experience just now was impressively easy and makes me want to benchmark/test it further. Great job guys.

Thanks! We definitely got a surge in traffic from the TechCrunch post and have been able to stabilize the frontend. Everything should be working normally at this time. We'll continue to add resources to make sure we can handle user requests going forward.

Re: TechStars Graduate DigitalOcean Switches To SSD For Its $5 Per Month VPS

#20

Post by raiyu »

ck2 wrote: post #13
raiyu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also true of regular harddrives, just the nature of the game when technically all of the harddrives are under the same load due to RAID and even with different manufacturing times the loads are the same so it's hard to estimate how far apart the batches should be in order to really minimize the incidence of such events. We do provide snapshots and backups and always recommend that customers backup their servers and t…

The MTBF for SSD in a server environment is two to three years maximum though. (just ask someone on OVH)

That lines up with our lease structure for hardware which is 36mo.

It also lines up with the continuing improvements in server density which compensates for the increased costs in power usage and rack space so it just encourages good behavior in rotating out older hardware.

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