Yesterday, I got my bill for PG&E and my plan is working. With my main server turned off for about 3 weeks, my latest bill is $55 cheaper. For a full month, it should come out to $80 cheaper. With the cost of moving things into the cloud, I still come out $50 ahead.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Death of a Hard Drive
Sadly last night, one of my hard drives died. But luckily, I saved all the data I needed from it already. Most of the data is on its way to the cloud.
On another note, I'm starting to turn my main computer into a server. Just installed VMware Server on it and moved some of my VMs over.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Search for Other Online Backups
Since Carbonite turned out to have those two severe limitations, I went looking for other online services. I really liked the unlimited backup size and the online accessibility of Carbonite. But after using DropBox, I don't really need to have my backups to be accessible from my devices. Most of the time, I'm going to need them from my laptop. Luckily, I found an online provider that has all of these features: LiveDrive. We'll see how well it holds up as I give it a spin for the next couple of weeks.
Update: After syncing 12 hours, it has uploaded 4GB or so.
Further update: after 36 hours, we're up to 12GB or so.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Carbonite
Alright, after really moving things into the cloud, I realize that there's one feature I don't have in the cloud: backup. So even though I moved things into the cloud, I'm still worried about having other files on my computers that are only backed up locally. After doing some research, I finally settled on Carbonite. It's got the best price: $59 a year! Other companies offer storage for a price per month whereas Carbonite offers unlimited storage. They charge by the computer for the year. Can't beat that price. I'm going through a trial period now. Another feature I love is that my files are available through my portable devices. Give them a try!
Update: There are two serious limitations to Carbonite that prevent it for my use. The first is that there is a rate limit for the uploads from my computer to their site. The second is that it doesn't backup my external hard drives. How dumb are these restrictions? I totally can't understand the first restriction. I have 450GB of pictures! If you restrict my upload, how long will it take to upload this? Maybe a year? Ugh.
So Excited!
I am sitting here on a beautiful Monday, slowly digesting my banana, waiting for a bus. I am anxious, waiting for 2 o'clock. It is a brand new day, a brand new start. I can't wait.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Happy Birthday
I can't believe it has been a year since Elson past away. I miss him dearly. Rest in Peace!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Moving to the Cloud
On April 4th, I've decided to move everything over to the cloud. I've been working in the cloud space since 2001. I've created my first domain back in 1998 and hosted some sort of service since. My servers have been increasingly more powerful through the years to today where it is a dual quad-core Xeon CPUs with 28GB of ram and raid 5 hard drives. For the most part, it runs headless. Even so, it sucks up quite a bit of power. I haven't measured exactly how much power it uses, but my electricity bill is much higher than I would like ($200+). I figure the server is using at least $100 of that per month.
What I mostly use my server for is the following:
- Web hosting
- Pictures and videos
- File sharing
- Source control
- Project management
- Blogging
My needs are different from most people, but for me, having a server all these years kept me in the loop on how to write software for the web and running it. Do I need to run my own server anymore? I've been writing software for the cloud since 2000. I should really start using other people's work.
So I started doing a little research:
| Service | Cost per month |
|---|---|
| $4.17 | |
| Web hosting | $0 - comes with Email |
| Pictures and videos | $5.00 |
| File sharing | $10 |
| Source control | $5.83 |
| Project management | $0 - comes with Source Control |
| Blogging | $0 - comes with Email |
So the cost so far is $25 per month for a savings of at least $75 a month. I'm guessing more. In addition, I also to take advantage of my provider's bandwidth. Another requirement for me is that the service must work with iPad and Android phones.
The providers I'm using are:
- Drop Box
- Codesion
- Smugmug
I'm also using these free services:
- Freshbooks
- Evernote
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)