Re: hort.net update

Chris,

My gosh, thanks for all your hard work and ongoing planning.  You are giving
us a lot of bang for our bucks!  The function and capacity of list will go
from "very good" to "excellent" on that proposed next upgrade, that's for
sure!

I will plan on sending another donation soon, Chris.  I have to plead
poverty at the moment (just raided the spare change collection bank to see
me through today! <g>), but oh how I would love to help enable you to make
the next round of improvements!

One of your fans,

Wendy in SW OH

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher P. Lindsey" <lindsey@mallorn.com>
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 12:49 AM
Subject: [CHAT] hort.net update


> Hi everyone,
>
>    Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been six months since I asked
>    everyone for help with the hort.net fund drive.  By now, you're
>    probably wondering how it went!
>
>    Well, the vacation in Tahiti was great, thanks!  :)
>
>    OK, that's probably not funny.  Seriously, we've been working hard to
>    make things better, and true to form it's taken longer than I expected.
>    There have also been some growing pains along the way, but I appreciate
>    your patience as we worked out the bugs.
>
>    Here's what we've done so far:
>
>       . The main Web server was upgraded to a much faster machine.
>         I replaced the motherboard, processor, memory, and hard drive.
>         The end result is that search functions and more complicated
>         page displays are significantly faster than before.
>
>         COST:  $600
>
>       . Using parts from the old Web server, I was able to upgrade the
>         email server as well.  I would ultimately like to upgrade the
>         mail server to the same type of machine as the Web server, but
>         the funds aren't there yet.  Still, email should be faster, and
>         now all incoming and outgoing email has the added benefit of
>         virus scanning.  The old mail server wasn't fast enough to do
that,
>         but this upgrade should prevent viruses from going out to any of
>         the lists.
>
>         COST:  FREE
>
>       . I purchased a new, large, rackmount case for the main file server.
>         Right now we have what's known as a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks)
>         serving the data with a copy of everything made nightly to
>         another large disk.
>
>         We would like to switch to a RAID5 setup -- this writes data in
>         a manner that allows for the loss of a hard drive without any
>         data loss at all.  This new case is large enough and beefy
>         enough to handle up to ten hard drives (most of which we already
>         have), so data security will be better with less downtime.
>
>         In essence, if a drive fails now I can fix things manually and
>         copy over the data to a new drive.  With the new setup a drive
>         failure won't impact the system at all and it can keep running
>         without my intervention.
>
>         COST: $250
>
>       . I also purchased a backup power supply for the Web server (the
>         other servers already had one).  Lately the power grid around
>         here has been experiencing ten second blips which would knock
>         the machine out of commission.  This fixes the problem, so short
>         power outages are now a non-issue.
>
>         COST: $150
>
>       . The biggest change coming up involves our Internet connection.
>         We're changing upstream providers to provide a connection with
>         twice the speed with a lower monthly cost.  I can't reveal
>         details as per our contract, but our monthly expenditures will
>         be significatly lower.  However, there will be a one month
>         overlap period when we transition from our old provider to the
>         new one, so we'll be paying twice for the same month at one
>         point.  There may also be installation fees, although this should
>         all be recouped by the end of the year.  The projected monthly
>         savings are what allowed us to purchase new equipment as well.
>
>         COST:  unknown
>
>    What I'd still like to do:
>
>       . Put the mail server into a rackmount enclosure       $250
>       . Upgrade the mail server                              $500
>       . Upgrade the SQL/file server                          $500
>       . Buy rails for three rackmount systems                $170
>       . Buy more disk so that people can upload photos,      $300-$500
>         etc. (we currently have about 200GB of data)
>
>    Thanks again for all of your help so far!  We can, of course, always
>    use more funds to do bigger and better things, so the fund drive is
>    still open.
>
>       http://www.hort.net/funds/
>
>    Also, once all of our hardware upgrades are finished, I'll be asking
>    you questions about what features we should work on improving first
>    at hort.net.
>
> Chris
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Support hort.net -- join the hort.net fund drive!
> http://www.hort.net/funds/

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