The site servers have been running nicely for the last few years. In fact, the current server hardware has been running continuously 24/7 for more than 6 years, greatly outliving its original projected lifespan!
However, that extended run time is now taking a toll on our trusty rusty machines. Power supplies have failed leaving us on a redundant supply. Cooling fans have stopped working. Several disks have been replaced. Our backup server has completely died. And now we are seeing even more failures all around.
As a result, it is now high time for some fresh servers. Regular donations have kept the site going and will continue to do so, but we don't have enough loose cash sitting around for a much needed major server update. This is where you come in.
We currently have 4 on-site hosted servers and 1 off-site backup server: the web server, database search server, primary video storage, and streaming video server. The offsite backup server is a read mirror of everything in case something catastrophic happens (hacker breaks in and delete everything, fire burns the building down, meteorite destroys the datacenter, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!!).
All of the servers must be replaced. The last time we bought new servers (2009), the entirety of the server hardware cost about $30,000. We raised that amount purely with donations with room to spare! With technology advancing, we need just half the amount we did last time: the goal is to raise $15,000 total between now and midnight on Saturday, July 4, 2015, for servers to replace all our current machines.
We will have all new servers with new disks, CPUs, RAM, motherboards, power supplies, fans, network cards, new everything! Things will be running fast and smoothly again for years to come!!
Together we can do this, easily.
To donate towards this effort, please use the regular pledge and PayPal system. Every donation made between now and July 4 will go towards this effort. If you would like to skip PayPal and physically mail a donation, please contact me directly through forum private message for the mailing address.
And just like last time, to put my money where my mouth is, I give you not one but two challenges: As soon as we reach the halfway mark of $7500, I will personally purchase the entire backup server for the Org with my own money and make that my first contribution towards this effort! This will leave more funds to go towards the main site servers!! Secondly, I will also personally match the largest single cash donation up to $1000; if you give $1000, I will give $1000.
Finally, for everyone who does donate $1000 or more, I will send you a very special gift. I will go out and buy a brand new hard drive, copy every single video from AnimeMusicVideos.org over to the drive, and mail it to you along with some very nice bonuses (pre-made playlists sets I've showed at conventions, full playlists of every video best-to-worst, a data sheet with lots of info, and more). Any donation you make between now and July 4 will be summed towards the $1000 mark, meaning if you make four donations of $250 each, you still get the drive. To put this into perspective given that we have about 5TB of hosted videos, it would take you about 90 days to download them all at a continuous 5Mbps; luckily for you, I will be making the copy directly from the offsite backup disks.
You are all awesome and I know we can do it to keep the site running for years to come! The fund drive starts now!!
Thank you and have a great day! ^_^
Phade.
). $15k is a solid goal for solid replacement. We want this stuff to last for a very long time so we can do this kinda fund raiser as infrequently as possible.