Hi Stovall, I contributed on day 1 of this drive, so I believe in the exercise. However, lets be open about this since this crowd funded. How much is the target and what do you need?
kind regards
Eric
The Goal is $13,000 US.
That covers:
Rent on .com server 1 x 32 bit Linux Server (physical Server), Quad Core Xeon Processor, 1 TB Hard Drive 4 GB ram
--- This is the server that houses our main website Forums and file library.
Rent on .net server 1 x 32 bit Windows Server 2008 Standard (physical Server), Quad Core Xeon Processor, 1 TB Hard Drive, 4 GB ram and Microsoft's Yearly fee for the windows operating system.
--- This is the server that hosts our TeamSpeak3, FS Host, Backup Forums, and where we physically backup the .com Server
Yearly software license fees we have to pay for functions that run on the servers.
--- Many of them are not visible to the normal members. This includes anti virus for the .net, Stop Forum Spam for both servers, vBulletin fees, cPanel fees, csf fees and a host of other things I know I am forgetting.
Yearly maintenance fee for onsite support.
--- This pays the company who physically shows up to touch the server if something goes wrong. This is money we hope we never need but in the past its been needed. Keep in mind that we pay this company a hour rate if they have go to the data center to touch the servers.
We pay for all of our bandwidth allotment each year up front for both servers.
---Every year we have had to increase the allotment because our bandwidth needs keep going up of course because of the file library downloads. The sad thing is this keeps going up but the number of unique donators to SOH keeps going down or is stagnant.
Every donation costs us money.
--- Its sad to say but every donation has a cost. Pay Pal charges us a % for each donation so the bandwidth drive has to include the fact that out of that $13,000 close to $1,000 is going to paypal. Proportionally they take less for larger donations than smaller donations. So if each member donates just $10 we pay them more than if each member donated $500. Worse yet is when a member donates but the donation has been cancelled which has happened in the past. When the donation is cancelled we get hit with fees that end up erasing several small donations not just the one that cancelled.
It is preferred that any money we need to support the site through out the year comes form the yearly bandwidth drive. It's necessary to keep some money in an account to cover any unforeseen expenses that might happen through out the year. If you remember a few months ago Ickie had to run a mini charter drive. This was because our coffers were dry and we hit a few extra expenses.
This year is unique in that the .com server needs to be replaced or a new hard drive. About a month ago it started throwing hard drive errors complaining that a drive failure might be pending. We are looking into a new server but I fear that we may just end up replacing the hard drive. If we have to replace it that means having the maintenance company there to image the drive then restore the image to the new drive. That process can take almost a whole day. So lets say that it takes 8hrs including drive time to the site @ $150/hr that is $1200 or 9.25% of this years bandwidth drive.
So the $13,000 is a guess based on what we know we have to pay and what we think we might need in the future.
For everyone who has donated I say Thank You
For everyone who has not please do.
We really need to expand our donation base for the future. We are a shrinking hobby and its more important now than in years past that we all pitch in. We have some 4,000 active members yet only 282 of those members have donated and I know for a fact that more than one of them is not unique.
