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Beta Testers Wanted for New Storage-Focused VPS Host
I'm a longtime LEB lurker who's always been frustrated at how expensive it is to get large amounts of HDD space on a VPS. It looks like the leaders in the storage VPS space are charging at least ~$24 per terabyte per month. I think I can provide that service much cheaper. I've been putting in hours and hours of work trying to bring the dream to life, and I'm calling it BigDriveHost.
I'm new to this, so I'd like beta testers. The testers will get a free VPS for at least two weeks, and they won't have to provide any payment information. I have VPSs between 250GB and 750GB to give away. All I ask is that you be willing to answer a few questions during the beta - I need meaningful, thoughtful feedback. After the beta ends, I'll give you a code for a lifetime discount on a BigDriveHost VPS. Assuming, of course, that I get enough interest to do a full scale launch.
If you're interested in joining the beta, please send me a private message with:
- Your email address, and
- A couple of sentences about why you're interested and what sorts of things you might do with a VPS.
I'm really just looking to see that you are able and willing to write clearly. Once I get your PM I'll email you with a coupon code for a free VPS.
In the meantime, or for those not interested in the beta, feel free to check out the website, bigdrivehost.com, and tell me what you think. Would you be interested in a VPS host that maximizes gigabytes per dollar?
Comments
Those plan levels look familiar.
What's the virtualization type?
OpenVZ. I may offer KVM in the future if there is enough interest. OpenVZ is a little easier for me to work with and, in theory, there are some performance advantages. I know OpenVZ hosts are known for overselling problems, but I'm doing almost no overselling. RAM is not oversold at all, HDD isn't at all, and while CPU is harder to quantify, it should have ample headroom.
You might want to put that on your site somewhere to let people know. There's a strong dichotomy of "us vs them" when it comes to virt types; for example, some people think that KVM is more secure than OpenVZ, some people think that OpenVZ uses less resources and is faster, etc.
Doesn't have to be a big pulsating animated GIF or the like, maybe just put it in a FAQ/KB entry somewhere, otherwise you WILL get many tickets or messages with people asking.
Oversell storage. Start with one third oversell, observe for further potential.
Thanks for the suggestion, threw up a quick KB article.
Serious question: why? It seems like overselling could be a headache - if a server starts to fill up, I'd have to migrate a couple users to a different server, disrupting their service in the process. I've already run the numbers and I believe I can sustain this model without overselling space at all. Do you think the benefits are worth the potential headaches for me and the potential degradation of customer experience?
Also, where's this at? People are going to want to know at least the city it's in, and optionally datacenter. Diversify your locations (in the future): some people will want to keep their data far away from their source, some people will want it nearby for fast backup/restore.
I think have seen some good storage VPS offer here so you will have to give some really good price or something special to beat those existing sellers.
For example i saw @AshleyUk from ZXHOST giving 1TB VPS for $7/m https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/85803/zxhost-ltd-storage-vm-free-domain-offer
The first offerings are at a data center in Falkenstein, Germany, operated by Hetzner.
That's a great deal! However, my standard offerings beat their standard offerings. When translated to USD, their 2TB plan comes out to almost $45 a month, whereas mine is $36. Since the prices I have posted are the "standard" prices, I will have some flexibility to offer specials once this gets going.
Thanks for the link, I'll see what I can do to match or beat them even when they're doing special promotions
So what benefits would I have going with yourself over say a known host like time4vps's storage range or Fancisco's storage line (can't seem to find it but believe they had something in the works)
Just to be clear I believe competition is good but at the same time you need to be able to justify why your service is worth more than the others.
2 weeks for a beta test? Isn't that.. A little short?
One thing you can count on without fail: only a fraction of your customers will use what you sell them. A lot of people worry about the risk of it, but anyone who has done it can tell you that the risk is theoretical, the reality is consistent. The reality is that people don't use what you sell them.
Example: I've sold over 30TB of storage on a 4TB RAID. All users combined, since late 2013: 600GB.
Now that's email storage. Know your target. I think 1/3 is a safe starting point for raw storage.
My customers know they can trust me, they know I won't let a problem approach without having a resolution in place that doesn't require downtime for them. Be that reliable, be honest about it, people won't really mind that much.
And that's why those "Unlimited" Cloud storage providers fell under the bus. I would start with no overselling and then fill remaining space on servers with "Special" offers that state in the Terms that you're doing as such and may need to move them later on.
Looks good, your pricing is more stable then what I started with. I have a good domain related to yours if your interested, Its in the $$$ range though.
Good luck I have no problem with another player in the market, however just to put our storage LET special is a low priced offering based in Hetzner aswel (Raid 10) and can be purchased in multiples (2TB = $14)
The other storage prices you see on our website are KVM with dedicated full resources, and hosted on enterprise hardware in Telehouse, so not quite apples to apples to compare.
But good luck, just make sure you don't get into something you can't afford to operate for at least a year + without a profit. Once you get a bad name for being a "summer" host you will never fix it as many people have learnt on this forum.
To compare myself to time4vps: my VPSs have much more CPU and RAM for the money, and aren't oversold. My plans have proportional resources - the more storage you buy, the more CPU/RAM you get. time4vps and some others aren't doing that, they're selling you a big chunk of hard drive space with the absolute minimum CPU and RAM. I can go to that model if that's what folks are interested in, but it's not what I'm set up for now.
Shh, it's a secret!
I said "at least 2 weeks" for two reasons. One, I think 2 weeks is the bare minimum amount of time that would allow me to get some metrics and evaluate what people think. Secondly, I didn't want to promise more than I can deliver, and didn't want people thinking of this beta VPS as a long-term thing. If there's no interest at all, the beta would only last about three weeks, so I erred on the side of under promising (with the hope of over delivering)
Nah, Dreamhost is doing just fine with unlimited hosting. That's not relevant to this discussion, though. Unlimited is an entirely different discussion than simply overselling some disk space.
Absolutely do not advertise the excess as oversold. What you're doing there is setting the blame point. This sounds positive at first glance, but it isn't. Let me elaborate:
"Selling oversold disk space for $5."
This says "If this doesn't work out, which I'm worried it might not, you're to blame if this goes wrong. You knew up front. Don't complain to me about it."
"Selling disk space for $5." (Happens to be oversold, not stated in advertisement anywhere)
This says "I'm responsible for this. I know how to handle it. You need not concern yourself with this. Should something go wrong, it's my responsibility to handle it."
That's how you should come across. Plenty of people have taken the "Well I warned you, so deal with it" approach and it doesn't work out well for them. Take responsibility and own it.
But beyond that, it's not a risk to oversell storage by 1/3. That's not a risk at all. Anyone who thinks it's a risk has no experience doing it. Which, honestly, surprises me. You've sold stuff here before I thought you'd be well aware that no one uses what you sell them. If you've sold KVM I guess that's different, you really don't want to oversell that. Or if you've sold such low OpenVZ allocations that you weren't able to gauge it, that would make sense too. Oversell OpenVZ and pass on the savings to your customers. Not overselling OpenVZ is just not smart.
I want people to oversell OpenVZ because I know that's what accomplishes two things:
I'm under no illusion that overselling isn't what made this place what it is. It definitely did. The smartest people overselling are the ones you have no idea are doing it. They're likely a majority of the top 10 hosts here.
Now before anyone asks me if I'm using DO as a reference point, I am not. DO is also not competitive in this particular low-end space either.
As a user of the Time4VPS storage offerings, the only negatives I have to say about them are:
no free incoming/metered usage and limited IOPS. I would prefer a slightly higher ability to burst on the IOPs.
I don't mind the lower CPU part and the memory does scale with the larger purchase. The network port speed limitation hasn't been a huge problem as well.
Maybe it would be nicer to have something like OVH/SYS where you get full speed in and the cap out.
@shells
Not really, since there are a few hosts that do offer a reliable service.
For example, DigitalOcean is releasing their block storage service this summer (@jarland I
the developers who made the frontend of the DO panel 
Also, ZXPlay is offering a decent LET special for ~$46.06/year that comes with a free domain which can be found here: https://billing.zxhost.co.uk/client/cart.php?a=add&pid=40 (2GB of RAM, 1TB of disk space, unmetered BW).
Hell, I'd rather go to ZXPlay since they have dedicated threads (https://zxplay.co.uk, not https://zxhost.co.uk - sure it's for Plex hosting, but who cares about that since it's just a KVM VPS)
Also, I'm waiting for a storage promotion @AshleyUk
Well, we are thinking of something even cheaper than this. Located in Hetzner. An estimate for the price is $18.5/TB. Will come with 4.5 GB RAM. And BW per month will be 5 TB. Can be increased tho. What are your opinions regarding this?
EDIT: Virtualization will be KVM.
why should someone (at least around here) buy this? hetzner auction servers are well known and for itself come around this price tag while giving you 2x3TB with 16 GB RAM and more bandwidth etc.
this probably is simply fishing for people not knowing... but go ahead and try, first customer is to cover the costs, from the second on make profit - may work though.
Wrote wrong pricing...edited.
LOL.
hmm, now you need at least two customers to cover the monthly costs before you make profit... ;-) ;-)
maybe $18,5 makes it somewhat more attractive for people not wanting to invest $30 at all... do you intend to use at least raid1 on those?
RAID 10. And I edited the price much before. See the time of edit please.
I am not against it, but would guess it heavily depends on the group you are targeting.
it is a small range to aim at. as said above depending on customer budget for $30 and up most would probably go directly for a dedicated.
at $18,50 you have to compare with kimsufi and such, so underlying raid and faster speed than 100 Mbps is a big plus... maybe that kvm tag and a decent of ram might attract too.
yet it is already out of scope for people looking for a simple storage solution not needing RAM and such... for those 1TB at >$10 probably isn't of any interest.
If you don't have the capital to commit to at least a year out of pocket, why are you even trying to start this? Get a real business plan first and then try developing your beta product.
Any news?