First for the good news. I don’t know if you all have noticed but over the past few years aw.org has gotten busier and busier and busier. The growth recently has been amazing and I think it’s totally great. We’ve not built just a website, but an entire social network for those of us who find washers, dryers and dishwashers fun and interesting machines.
Let’s have look at some quick statistics:
First number of threads and posts (as of last week):
Imperial-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 11,370</span> /<span style="color: #000000;"> posts made: 144,052 </span>
Deluxe-threads <span style="color: #000000;">created: 5,647</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 72,366 </span>
Super-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 14,720</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 212,912 </span>
AsTubTurn-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 448</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 6,080 </span>
DirtyL-threads created: 302 / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 6,427 </span>
Number of posts from our old Applianceville system from 2001-2004: 44,433 (I started the first post in thread #1 in the Discuss-o-Mat at 44,434 to reflect the posts from the old system).
Next, here is the number of fabulous Pictures and Scans members have uploaded to share over the years:
Imperial: 32,537
Deluxe: 10,605
Super: 27,525
ATT: 729
DirtyL: 6,427
Total Images since 2004: 77,823 pictures! Isn’t that just amazing!!!?
Next take a look at this chart I just made, it shows the automaticwasher.org usage over the past five years:
This chart shows the bandwidth of the site. Bandwidth is simply number of bytes that the site sends out to its users, think of it as each time you click on and read a thread it takes bandwidth. The more pictures and text in a thread, the more bandwidth it uses. We are nearing an average of 300gb per month. According to what I find on the web, the average website uses barely 1gb per month. The other thing is our disk has now grown to almost 17gb of text and pictures and almost 100,000 files!
Now for the bad news. Our web host has contacted me to let me know that we have outgrown our current server. We are on what is referred to as a shared sever. We share the sever with between 500 and 1000 other websites. Our web host provider wants us to move to a semi-dedicated VPS server which means will only share the sever with 5 to 15 other sites and each site gets its own disk space and memory allocated to their site. That means that if we get a huge spike in traffic or people download lots of manuals all at once, we will only affect our site speed and not anyone else’s. So that means I have to start shopping around for a new web host. Sure I can choose a new plan at the current host we have, but it’s good to shop around and read the reviews. Our current host’s reviews are only fair and we did have that issue last summer with someone hacking our hosts central server that rerouted 1000s of their hosted websites (and some of our traffic) to a hacker website in Sweden. That made me a bit nervous when that happened to say the least. Although otherwise I would say that the current host has been great and I still might decided to stay with them but purchase a new plan. The didn’t give me a deadline for moving, but if we continue to grow and do not move they will shut us down. I will never allow that to happen! This website is too important to me and so many of us here.
For those of you who are knowledgeable about web hosting if you have any advice or recommendations, now is the time to speak up. Moving 16gb web site is a HUGE task so I don’t want to do this often. It also means that the costs of running the site are going to at least double and possible triple. Thankfully I’ve collected enough donations that should cover most of these costs for the transition, a big thanks again you guys. I’ll keep everyone posted about the move. A move will mean some down time, but I plan on keeping it as painless and as fast as possible, at least to the best of my ability.
Ugh, just when I finished with the changes to the site and was ready to settle down and start working on my rubber-tub Bendix machines, this happens lol. Oh well, life on the internet. Again, this site is so worth all the time and effort.
Let’s have look at some quick statistics:
First number of threads and posts (as of last week):
Imperial-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 11,370</span> /<span style="color: #000000;"> posts made: 144,052 </span>
Deluxe-threads <span style="color: #000000;">created: 5,647</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 72,366 </span>
Super-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 14,720</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 212,912 </span>
AsTubTurn-threads<span style="color: #000000;"> created: 448</span> / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 6,080 </span>
DirtyL-threads created: 302 / <span style="color: #000000;">posts made: 6,427 </span>
Number of posts from our old Applianceville system from 2001-2004: 44,433 (I started the first post in thread #1 in the Discuss-o-Mat at 44,434 to reflect the posts from the old system).
Next, here is the number of fabulous Pictures and Scans members have uploaded to share over the years:
Imperial: 32,537
Deluxe: 10,605
Super: 27,525
ATT: 729
DirtyL: 6,427
Total Images since 2004: 77,823 pictures! Isn’t that just amazing!!!?
Next take a look at this chart I just made, it shows the automaticwasher.org usage over the past five years:
This chart shows the bandwidth of the site. Bandwidth is simply number of bytes that the site sends out to its users, think of it as each time you click on and read a thread it takes bandwidth. The more pictures and text in a thread, the more bandwidth it uses. We are nearing an average of 300gb per month. According to what I find on the web, the average website uses barely 1gb per month. The other thing is our disk has now grown to almost 17gb of text and pictures and almost 100,000 files!
Now for the bad news. Our web host has contacted me to let me know that we have outgrown our current server. We are on what is referred to as a shared sever. We share the sever with between 500 and 1000 other websites. Our web host provider wants us to move to a semi-dedicated VPS server which means will only share the sever with 5 to 15 other sites and each site gets its own disk space and memory allocated to their site. That means that if we get a huge spike in traffic or people download lots of manuals all at once, we will only affect our site speed and not anyone else’s. So that means I have to start shopping around for a new web host. Sure I can choose a new plan at the current host we have, but it’s good to shop around and read the reviews. Our current host’s reviews are only fair and we did have that issue last summer with someone hacking our hosts central server that rerouted 1000s of their hosted websites (and some of our traffic) to a hacker website in Sweden. That made me a bit nervous when that happened to say the least. Although otherwise I would say that the current host has been great and I still might decided to stay with them but purchase a new plan. The didn’t give me a deadline for moving, but if we continue to grow and do not move they will shut us down. I will never allow that to happen! This website is too important to me and so many of us here.
For those of you who are knowledgeable about web hosting if you have any advice or recommendations, now is the time to speak up. Moving 16gb web site is a HUGE task so I don’t want to do this often. It also means that the costs of running the site are going to at least double and possible triple. Thankfully I’ve collected enough donations that should cover most of these costs for the transition, a big thanks again you guys. I’ll keep everyone posted about the move. A move will mean some down time, but I plan on keeping it as painless and as fast as possible, at least to the best of my ability.
Ugh, just when I finished with the changes to the site and was ready to settle down and start working on my rubber-tub Bendix machines, this happens lol. Oh well, life on the internet. Again, this site is so worth all the time and effort.
