Hi guys,

I current have a 15 GB bandwidth hosting account for $28/month. Any bandwidth over 15 GB becomes expensive. Once I start up, I want to start advertising on download.com/etc, send out press releases and maybe a bit of google adwords. I've got 2 games with each of them about 2-3 Mb for the demo.

I have the following options:
1) Host all my demos on my main site and hope that is doesn't go over the 15 GB (approx 4,000 downloads). One big advantage of this is that all other websites will link to my mainsite/demos directly, possibly increasing search engine position. It's also easier to make the move to a dedicated server, since all the links will remain the same.

2) I could use my current hosting account plus FileBurst ($1/GB). This is reasonably dynamic and cost effective, I think. Downside search engine stuff (see above). Downside is also that it will take longer to change all the links in PAD files, websites, affiliates, etc if I still want to use a dedicated server later on.

3) Invest a bit of money and go for a dedicated server. ServerMatrix has got some really good deals for $299 setup + $59.99/month now, which will take care of things for a long time to go!

I don't want to have to set everything up twice and I do feel the MySQL stuff on my current account is somewhat slower than it should be, limiting things like forums down the track. I do foresee, a busy website over time.

Anyway, could you give me some advice on how to make a decision like this? My first game was only distributed through retail and the shareware side is still new for me.

I signed up with FileBurst a couple of days ago. I'm in a similar situation, with hosting at PowWeb (5 GB/day, most of which I don't use right now).

You don't have to change any links if you use .htaccess magic. See what happens when you try to download http://www.MysteryStudio.com/demos/bbb_demo.exe (hint : the "demos" directory doesn't even exist)

We're with memset (UK based) though I have heard they are mainly a reseller for Rackshack - so that may be the place to look for US customers. They provide a dedicated line and not a fixed bandwidth though they do mutter if you go over the reccomended bandwidth). Currently we have a miniserver which gives us a share of a 2MB line, with a reccomended limit of 60GB for about £30 a month ($50 ish) - and by your figures to get the same amount would be $73 - nearly 50% more.

We have had very few problems, excellent service, and have coped quite well with having 20k accesses to our web games (300k each) in a day, and they let you upgrade the servers when your site grows.

Shop around - and I would steer clear of ones who charge per GB download, they usually end up more expensive.

- Dom

http://www.globat.com/

I've been using these guys for my website for about two years. For $90/year you get 60 GB/month bandwidth. They've been a decent web host, but they do go down occasionally for maintenance.

ServerMatrix has got some really good deals for $299 setup + $59.99/month now, which will take care of things for a long time to go!

I haven't seen much better than ServerMatrix's pricing -- I assume you're including 100mbps uplink, 1,500GB in that figure. Ev1servers (formerly Rackshack) will include anywhere from 1,000GB to 1,700GB, but the monthly fee is much higher. If you go with ServerMatrix, I'd be interested in hearing how well they work out for you.

@Gabriel:
What a great idea, that might just do the trick for starters. Have you got an example of how to do this somewhere?

@CrystalClear:
I had a quick look at it, but from what I understand it is still shared with about 32 others. Is that working out for you?

I also, did some quick math on the FileBurst option. With Gabriel's trick I could perhaps share the load over the two accounts. With $30 difference, I could use FileBurst for 30 Gb good for about 10,000 downloads (not allowing for aborted downloads). 1% CR, means about 100 sales, which is enough to breakeven, but as a business I will definitely need to grow past that, so the dedicated server is inevitable long term. Maybe it is better to go with the dedicated server now, so I can learn how to use it properly before it starts getting busy.

@Mark Currie:
From globat's user agreement.
"Binary files such as images, video and sound (i.e MP3, WAV, RA, GIF, JPG but not limited to those file extensions) may only account for a maximum of 50% of Customer's total bandwidth usage before customer must upgrade to a higher performance solution."

I think they are a bit too cheap and probably overselling. Also no files bigger than 10 Mb.

@Micehead:
Ok, I'll do that. They are by far the cheapest deal I could find for an entry level dedicated server. The offer was for a Celeron 2.4 GHz, 1024 MB RAM, 80GB Drive,10 mbs uplink and 1200 GB Transfer with cPanel. They basically keep the OS up to date and everything else you need to install yourself. Although you can make requests for additional installs when you order.

The only thing that bugs me is the $299 setup costs. If I go for $0 setup, I believe it will cost something like $119 per month (can't quite remember). Looking at it for a year, its cheaper to start with the setup fee.

It is very desirable longterm though and I need to have some time to get to grips with it too.

Why not compromise and get a vps? (virtual private server)

They have the advantage of other users not being able to affect you, and come in some very powerful plans:
http://www.defenderhosting.com/vps
http://www.servint.net/whtvps
http://www.dinix.com/hosting/virtual.htm
http://www.vpscolo.com/packages.php

All 4 of these providers have very good reputations, and vps has matured to the point where it's very reliable now.

Thanks Mike!

I looked into that now as well. That's a good in between option, actually. I must admit that I 'overlooked' it at first, because I wasn't really sure about how the server was shared, but after reading the FAQ on servint, I got the impression that they were really on to it. They charge something like $49 for 200 GB/month. That will do for startup for me, and will also give me more financial resources to do more promotional activities.

Also, thanks for all your advice on the ASP and here, you've been most helpful!

How about "free hosting" for custom builds ?

Most of you have custom builds all over the place, you could just build a list of the "trusted" affiliates sites and rotate the downloads among this sites.
0 money upfront.

pat.

What a great idea, that might just do the trick for starters. Have you got an example of how to do this somewhere?
Sure! Straight from my .htaccess :

Redirect /demos/bbb_demo.exe http://mystery.fileburst.com/bbb_demo.exe
Redirect /demos/bbb_demo.dmg.sit http://mystery.fileburst.com/bbb_demo.dmg.sit

If I try using a .htaccess redirect on an exe, my IE downloads it as a text file - displays a bunch of nasty characters instead of offering to save it as an exe, so be careful.

Currently we use a cheaper but reliable host for our website and use Fileburst for all of our downloads. We use a .htaccess file to redirect the downloads to fileburst. So far, we're quite happy with this scheme and it's a lot cheaper since we're not using over 50 GB a month. Once we start to get up to 50 GB a month, we'll probably switch to a dedicted server at www.wholesaleinternet.com for $49/month, $99 setup, and 500 GB bandwidth. They're supposed to have pretty good support as well. I'd recomment not switching to a dedicated server until you need it, but that's just me. Cheers!

Graeme

Currently we use a cheaper but reliable host for our website and use Fileburst for all of our downloads. We use a .htaccess file to redirect the downloads to fileburst. So far, we're quite happy with this scheme and it's a lot cheaper since we're not using over 50 GB a month. Once we start to get up to 50 GB a month, we'll probably switch to a dedicted server at www.wholesaleinternet.com for $49/month, $99 setup, and 500 GB bandwidth. They're supposed to have pretty good support as well. I'd recomment not switching to a dedicated server until you need it, but that's just me. Cheers!

Graeme

I have 2 dedicated servers, and the second is at Wholesale Internet. I use it to host all my sites, except retro64.com, which gets its own box :) Anyway, they're pretty small, but their support and network are good- and you certainly can't beat the price. I pay 64$/month for an Athlon XP 1800+ server, 512 megs ram, and 500 gigs bandwidth...

They've only got 256 MB RAM for $49/month. Is that enough? Plus you may have to fork out another $25/month for cPanel (if you want it ofcourse). I think they are unmanaged, so no OS patches and stuff?

What other sites have you got Mike?

They've only got 256 MB RAM for $49/month. Is that enough? Plus you may have to fork out another $25/month for cPanel (if you want it ofcourse). I think they are unmanaged, so no OS patches and stuff?

They will put in 512 meg ram for another 15$/month...
And since their boxes come with DirectAdmin, you won't need cpanel. In fact, I like DirectAdmin *more* than cpanel... WHM/Cpanel is just too much for what we are doing. DirectAdmin is simple, clean, and stable. The servers at Wholesale Internet are "semi-managed". This means they will do stuff for you, but you have to ask.

My main box is a 1u 2.4ghz p4 supermicro rackmount at defenderhosting.com.. It also uses directadmin. I was previously with cyberwurx, and they are absolutely great, but the server was unmanaged, and I wanted a managed solution... So after looking around, I went with Defender Hosting for a few reasons:
1. Fully Managed
2. Nice server, not a generic white box like other places use.
3. It's located at Equinix in Ashburn. VA. Equinix builds some of the nicest datacenters in the world. Check out their virtual tour HERE (http://www.equinix.com/prod_serv/ibx/ibxtour.htm)... DC or NYC is also good because it's the midpoint between most potential customers, so it (in theory) produces the fastest site load times.
4. Their reputation. They don't even have a real website, they go completely on word of mouth.

But anyway, if you want a real managed server, either get a VPS or prepare to pay.

For someone just starting out though, I still think a VPS is the best choice.

If I try using a .htaccess redirect on an exe, my IE downloads it as a text file - displays a bunch of nasty characters instead of offering to save it as an exe, so be careful.
Hmmm. I never ran into it (with various versions of IE, Mozilla, Firefox, Galeon, Safari,...).

This worries me. People who can't download the demo won't complain, just ignore it. Did anyone else experience this?

If I try using a .htaccess redirect on an exe, my IE downloads it as a text file - displays a bunch of nasty characters instead of offering to save it as an exe, so be careful.

It seems your host hasn't configured the proper MIME type for EXE file yet. For application files like EXE and ZIP, you need to use "application/octet-stream" to keep browsers from trying to display the binary files as text.

Just add this in your .htaccess file:
AddType application/octet-stream .exe

In our FileBurst servers, we've assigned application/octet-stream as the default MIME type for some Mac application files as well (.dmg .sit .sitx .sea .bin) so our customers don't have to configure this manually anymore.