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Cheap Storage Server Providers which allows video streams?
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Cheap Storage Server Providers which allows video streams?

I'd like to know what are the cheap storage server providers which are streaming friendly?
I list some here, maybe youll give me some advice?

  • Kimsufi : Not sure if they allow streaming for small audience (10-20 users).
  • Soyoustart: prices are close to kimsufi but not sure as well
  • Time4vps: took a lot of bad reviews for their storage vps on let bcz of low iops etc.

Any others?

Comments

  • hetzner?

  • What kind of content are you going to share, and how?

  • @rikjohnsen14 said:
    What kind of content are you going to share, and how?

    our (math science) teaching videos (some are hd some are not) around 100-300 videos.

  • Can anyone explain me what this means:

    "But for example with KVM server you can mount Storage one through NFS. Speed between server would be better and KVM server would be able to handle transcoding."
    ???

  • IkoulaIkoula Member, Host Rep

    Hello,

    Considering DSM provides Video station, maybe a hosted NAS would also do the job ?

  • As I scrolled down I saw another 5 threads created by you.

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited September 2018

    At first, stop abusing this forum. You have opened over 10 new threads in the last 10 days. This is not your personal help desk or emergency line. Respect the other users.

    Now, on topic. The key here is whether you just stream videos or you transcode them. If you just use the server as mainly the storage for the videos with some lightweight player in it (e.g. nginx rtmp/HLS or just a flowplayer), then, any low end server with enough space for your needs, can fit. Especially when you don't expect tons of concurrent visitors (in such a case, you would not have any issues with CPU/RAM but with I/O recourses).

    So, even a nice vps would fit perfectly. Just search for the needed disk space (plain old HDD in RAID-1 can do the job if there are 20 concurrent users or more, for videos using ~1Mbps. Do the maths: even a semi-decent vps can achieve speeds over 50-60 MB as I/O. A video can be usually from 1Mbps to 3-4Mbps quality, in mp4. So, multiply the bitrate you will need with the I/O bitrate of your speed. I have not seen since long ago any cheap vps hoster that offers speed lower than 50MB to his disks.

    You will need also enough bandwidth. Any actual speed over 70-80Mbps (~10MB/s) will do for such low demands.

    Don't worry about iops. Iops are the number of the files you have in a cumputer/vps. 100 or 200 videos with some thousand of files for the system, is really nothing.

    Time4VPS is excellent for a cheap storage server. Their I/O is not the fastest in the world but decent enough for its purposes. They could serve video on demand, with the condition I mentioned on the beggining: NO TRANSCODING.
    Their I/O to my server is this:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
    16384+0 records in
    16384+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 17.9966 s, 59.7 MB/s
    

    Kimsufi and SYS (and any dedicated server) are killers for what you are asking, except if you need transcoding on the fly. If you really need to transcode the files when played, then, you probably will need a small dedicated server if there are 10-20 concurrent transcoding jobs done all the time. But I guess this is not the case...

    If you need transcoding, then, you need to tell us more details (type of videos, transcoding needs etc.).

    To sum up: Decide your space needs and go with some decent providers here with good prices: Ask @AnthonySmith , @Francisco , @Clouvider, @AlexanderM or go with Netcup, Hetzner cloud, scaleway, prometeus, DO etc. All of them are excellent providers according to my experience with them (I forgot a lot, this is a small list).

  • Upload it to YouTube unlisted, and you are done.

  • folomfolom Member
    edited September 2018

    @jvnadr said:
    At first, stop abusing this forum. You have opened over 10 new threads in the last 10 days. This is not your personal help desk or emergency line. Respect the other users.


    Now, on topic. The key here is whether you just stream videos or you transcode them. If you just use the server as mainly the storage for the videos with some lightweight player in it (e.g. nginx rtmp/HLS or just a flowplayer), then, any low end server with enough space for your needs, can fit. Especially when you don't expect tons of concurrent visitors (in such a case, you would not have any issues with CPU/RAM but with I/O recourses).

    So, even a nice vps would fit perfectly. Just search for the needed disk space (plain old HDD in RAID-1 can do the job if there are 20 concurrent users or more, for videos using ~1Mbps. Do the maths: even a semi-decent vps can achieve speeds over 50-60 MB as I/O. A video can be usually from 1Mbps to 3-4Mbps quality, in mp4. So, multiply the bitrate you will need with the I/O bitrate of your speed. I have not seen since long ago any cheap vps hoster that offers speed lower than 50MB to his disks.

    You will need also enough bandwidth. Any actual speed over 70-80Mbps (~10MB/s) will do for such low demands.

    Don't worry about iops. Iops are the number of the files you have in a cumputer/vps. 100 or 200 videos with some thousand of files for the system, is really nothing.

    Time4VPS is excellent for a cheap storage server. Their I/O is not the fastest in the world but decent enough for its purposes. They could serve video on demand, with the condition I mentioned on the beggining: NO TRANSCODING.
    Their I/O to my server is this:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
    16384+0 records in
    16384+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 17.9966 s, 59.7 MB/s
    

    Kimsufi and SYS (and any dedicated server) are killers for what you are asking, except if you need transcoding on the fly. If you really need to transcode the files when played, then, you probably will need a small dedicated server if there are 10-20 concurrent transcoding jobs done all the time. But I guess this is not the case...

    If you need transcoding, then, you need to tell us more details (type of videos, transcoding needs etc.).

    To sum up: Decide your space needs and go with some decent providers here with good prices: Ask @AnthonySmith , @Francisco , @Clouvider, @AlexanderM or go with Netcup, Hetzner cloud, scaleway, prometeus, DO etc. All of them are excellent providers according to my experience with them (I forgot a lot, this is a small list).

    thanks this is very great answer and comprehensive.
    Do you know how to transcoding on small dedi and serve them from storage server?

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    thanks for the mention @jvnadr as it happens I just launched a storage line of servers in Phoenix: https://clients.inceptionhosting.com/cart.php?gid=30

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited September 2018

    folom said: Do you know how to transcoding on small dedi and serve them from storage server?

    Why do you want to transcode on a server? You just can transcode the video files localy (on your pc) using a video editor or just vlc and then, upload them on the server.

    If you want to use a vps/dedi to transcode a video and then, move it to the storage server, it is also an easy task and you will not need tons of resources bcause you will transcode a single file at a time.
    You can use ffmpeg to do the job (google is your friend, search about the commands according to the source and destination type of your videos, the quality you want to deliver etc.). Or, setup a linux installation with desktop front end and use GUI video editors like Lives or avidemux, if you are not familiar with ffmpeg and terminal.

    Then, setup a simple free video cms solution to the final server (the storage server maybe) or even a wordpress with the appropriate plugins and upload the videos there. You can even have password-protected videos to allow only your members to watch them. This a simple list of video cms, saw it as one of the first results on a google search.

  • AnthonySmith said: thanks for the mention @jvnadr as it happens I just launched a storage line of servers in Phoenix: https://clients.inceptionhosting.com/cart.php?gid=30

    Nice. Plenty of resources I see there. I guess it is a normal kvm server on resources with just plenty of HDD space there. So, can it be used as a normal vps with a shared core and 2 gigs of ram or there are further limitations on usage, resources and things you can install on?

  • Nya said: Upload it to YouTube unlisted, and you are done.

    Youtibe is not always the solution... You don't control the storage, there are limitations on what you can upload there, there is not a real way to protect the content not to be downloaded, you cannot control the ads etc.
    There are several cases (e.g. a school project) that inserting static ads or video ads in the middle of a presentation, is not tolerated.
    And, don't forget: when you don't pay for a product, you are the product!

  • folom said: our (math science) teaching videos (some are hd some are not) around 100-300 videos.

    What location?

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider
    edited September 2018

    jvnadr said: Nice. Plenty of resources I see there. I guess it is a normal kvm server on resources with just plenty of HDD space there. So, can it be used as a normal vps with a shared core and 2 gigs of ram or there are further limitations on usage, resources and things you can install on?

    Yeah just a normal KVM server with a single core a good amount of R5 storage and a good amount of BW, they are not built for raw performance , there is a note during sign up to confirm you understand the primary use is storage, that is it, no other specific restriction.

    Keep in mind the server is only around 10% occupied right now, but from my test VM on there:

    dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
    dd: error writing 'test': No space left on device
    15824+0 records in
    15823+0 records out
    1037008896 bytes (1.0 GB, 989 MiB) copied, 2.48569 s, 417 MB/s
    
    Thanked by 1jvnadr
  • Or if you don't want the hassle of managing a server you could go with a cdn like @BunnySpeed https://bunnycdn.com/ that has cheap storage ($0.01/GB) and you don't have to worry about slow iops

  • @Vinnyletje said:
    Or if you don't want the hassle of managing a server you could go with a cdn like @BunnySpeed https://bunnycdn.com/ that has cheap storage ($0.01/GB) and you don't have to worry about slow iops

    How bunnycdn works with DCMA content? Can I use it to serve some content to my friends?

  • Well for starters I assume that you don't mean the Dutch Country Music Association (DCMA) :joy: But jokes aside, any legitimate court order will take you down. DMCA is something from the US and they are european based so you should probably ask them directly (I'm not affiliated with them in any way). As for adult content, they allow it but obviously you need to have to copyrights on it... And what are you planning to share with your friends anyway in order to need a cdn for it?

    Thanked by 1eol
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