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Quake / Re: Last ditch hair brain idea 
Insightful
on July 16, 2021, 04:34:20 AM by yahoo
So I've been trying to stay quiet despite being as torn up as anyone else about the news due to not being welcome around here and wanting to be respectful, but I just have to chime in on this point specifically.
The server is most likely over priced by quite a bit, and is not spec'd out in any kind of useful way.
12 cores. I'm gonna guess that is 6 cores and hyperthreaded, which could mean a higher end E3 or lower end E5 (I think this was last moved before the whole platinum/gold/silver stuff). Core speed is going to matter, but not a whole bunch for the age of games running. An E3 proc is most likely going to be better for the application due to higher clock speed, with the later editions supporting 64G ram no problem.
64GB ram. Probably not completely necessary. 32GB might be sufficient, but this is one area where the spec is probably good. Could definitely run 6x8g sticks and get away with a 48g server while maintaining reasonable performance though.
1TB HDD is laughably underwhelming if there is any kind of storage concern. At the very least I'd think a couple 2TB drives set up in an mdadm raid (save money on hardware raid) would be a good alternative. I know software raid has some stigmas but I've seen it run in production environments for years without issue supporting massive workloads.
There are a handful of big factors that determine monthly cost of a rented bare metal server. The first is proc/board as newer stuff costs more and older stuff is all paid off (for the hosting company) so they can give it at a discount. The second is form factor, where blades or microclouds take up less physical space in the datacenter but also they can't take as many drives. Third is bandwidth, where you have the easiest time to shave BIG costs off as servers can come with 10-100TB of bandwidth and some times you only need like 2TB or so. A standard 1G port running full stop for a month uses something like 300TB, but typically game servers use almost none and any bandwidth usage would be from downloading/uploading files.
Another thing to be aware of is that you can't directly compare hosting companies. There are big providers like IBM (formerly softlayer, formerly theplanet who used to host TS) with actual datacenters with proper cooling, network stacks, fire suppression, certification, and competent technicians. There are also sketchy assholes that just run server farms in warehouses and use dodgy brands for hardware. Obviously cutting corners means the servers are cheaper, and respectable companies can't compete on price with the amount of corners cut in most cases. So cheap is not always good.
Backups are also going to add to cost, but those are so all over the map that I can't comment on what would be good or speculate on what is set up now. Honestly some one could rsync to a local server, using a ton bandwidth for one run then minimal for changes after. (SQL databases are a bitch to backup though, for phpbb)
I thought the server ran cpanel or something similar due to the user account set up and file structure, which would add an unnecessary amount (32ish?) per month.
Going virtual to save money on a VPS of sorts, the storage is a problem. Typically the cheaper VMs have small disks, and to get up in the 1TB storage range it can quickly cost more than an older spec discounted bare metal server.
Even if you cut a lot of unnecessary costs, get an optimal set up for hardware for use case (dual 2tb in mdadm raid, slightly older E3, 48g ram, microcloud/blade chassis, maybe 2tb bandwidth), and go with a reputable company that still has reasonable prices... You are still looking at over 1k per year, BUT that is a lot more affordable than the numbers provided for how much TS costs currently.
In regards to Wabbit's mention of requiring the root keys, you shouldn't need them if the server has a BMC or some one at the datacenter can temp set up a kvm for it. If the disk is encrypted then that complicates things, but most likely it should just be possible to mount an ISO and go through normal root account recovery procedure (enabling/disabling users, changing passwords, modifying authorized keys, w/e). If the account gets transferred to some one responsible (like Jehar IMO), that should be almost a non-issue.
And @ yahoo who responded while I was typing this, the servers not populated are negligible on resource usage. 100 empty servers can run in the background without so much as a blip on the server resources. The only background server TS runs thats probably using more resources than necessary is the Q4 one because Q4 has some weird server bugs that make it use CPU even at idle.
Just some information for people who don't know server hosting well I guess. I don't have much of a stake in this as I'm basically non-existent around here right now, but wanted to help out.
EDIT: 6600/year is what is listed in the dono thread that recently got bumped which works out to 550/month, but after talking to some people it sounds like it was cut down significantly after the move a few years back. Still think there is some room for cost savings if it becomes an issue, but its not as overpriced as the public numbers make it look.
The server is most likely over priced by quite a bit, and is not spec'd out in any kind of useful way.
12 cores. I'm gonna guess that is 6 cores and hyperthreaded, which could mean a higher end E3 or lower end E5 (I think this was last moved before the whole platinum/gold/silver stuff). Core speed is going to matter, but not a whole bunch for the age of games running. An E3 proc is most likely going to be better for the application due to higher clock speed, with the later editions supporting 64G ram no problem.
64GB ram. Probably not completely necessary. 32GB might be sufficient, but this is one area where the spec is probably good. Could definitely run 6x8g sticks and get away with a 48g server while maintaining reasonable performance though.
1TB HDD is laughably underwhelming if there is any kind of storage concern. At the very least I'd think a couple 2TB drives set up in an mdadm raid (save money on hardware raid) would be a good alternative. I know software raid has some stigmas but I've seen it run in production environments for years without issue supporting massive workloads.
There are a handful of big factors that determine monthly cost of a rented bare metal server. The first is proc/board as newer stuff costs more and older stuff is all paid off (for the hosting company) so they can give it at a discount. The second is form factor, where blades or microclouds take up less physical space in the datacenter but also they can't take as many drives. Third is bandwidth, where you have the easiest time to shave BIG costs off as servers can come with 10-100TB of bandwidth and some times you only need like 2TB or so. A standard 1G port running full stop for a month uses something like 300TB, but typically game servers use almost none and any bandwidth usage would be from downloading/uploading files.
Another thing to be aware of is that you can't directly compare hosting companies. There are big providers like IBM (formerly softlayer, formerly theplanet who used to host TS) with actual datacenters with proper cooling, network stacks, fire suppression, certification, and competent technicians. There are also sketchy assholes that just run server farms in warehouses and use dodgy brands for hardware. Obviously cutting corners means the servers are cheaper, and respectable companies can't compete on price with the amount of corners cut in most cases. So cheap is not always good.
Backups are also going to add to cost, but those are so all over the map that I can't comment on what would be good or speculate on what is set up now. Honestly some one could rsync to a local server, using a ton bandwidth for one run then minimal for changes after. (SQL databases are a bitch to backup though, for phpbb)
I thought the server ran cpanel or something similar due to the user account set up and file structure, which would add an unnecessary amount (32ish?) per month.
Going virtual to save money on a VPS of sorts, the storage is a problem. Typically the cheaper VMs have small disks, and to get up in the 1TB storage range it can quickly cost more than an older spec discounted bare metal server.
Even if you cut a lot of unnecessary costs, get an optimal set up for hardware for use case (dual 2tb in mdadm raid, slightly older E3, 48g ram, microcloud/blade chassis, maybe 2tb bandwidth), and go with a reputable company that still has reasonable prices... You are still looking at over 1k per year, BUT that is a lot more affordable than the numbers provided for how much TS costs currently.
In regards to Wabbit's mention of requiring the root keys, you shouldn't need them if the server has a BMC or some one at the datacenter can temp set up a kvm for it. If the disk is encrypted then that complicates things, but most likely it should just be possible to mount an ISO and go through normal root account recovery procedure (enabling/disabling users, changing passwords, modifying authorized keys, w/e). If the account gets transferred to some one responsible (like Jehar IMO), that should be almost a non-issue.
And @ yahoo who responded while I was typing this, the servers not populated are negligible on resource usage. 100 empty servers can run in the background without so much as a blip on the server resources. The only background server TS runs thats probably using more resources than necessary is the Q4 one because Q4 has some weird server bugs that make it use CPU even at idle.
Just some information for people who don't know server hosting well I guess. I don't have much of a stake in this as I'm basically non-existent around here right now, but wanted to help out.
EDIT: 6600/year is what is listed in the dono thread that recently got bumped which works out to 550/month, but after talking to some people it sounds like it was cut down significantly after the move a few years back. Still think there is some room for cost savings if it becomes an issue, but its not as overpriced as the public numbers make it look.
Racist Ignoramus
