First, thank you for taking your time reading this.
As some of you know, I will be releasing my next app known as "CFToolbox .Net" very soon. This application is capable of downloading content directly from Steam's content servers in nearly the same manner as CFToolbox does now. This application can also do the basic functions such as create an archive file which is necessary to make an update for your outdated GCF. All of these great features are already part of CFToolbox.
The features that aren't available in CFToolbox is the 3rd party content server my team and I have created. It will allow for any type of file to be transferred to the client. All that has to be done is remotely upload a file to folder which the content server is monitoring and it will automatically make the changes so the clients can instantly start downloading.
Unfortunately, this system requires a Windows server to run. What I am asking for is if some very generous members could help fund this server. I'm not asking for a lot but 10 - 15 people donating $10 a month will be guaranteed to have access to a massive amount of content without touching rapidshare. The reason I am asking for this help is because we need a server to start off with. It won't be anything amazing but it will get the job done. Eventually the more users we get, the better hardware we can get to faster serve you. I will be also be giving out legit Steam accounts to these donators.
So, if you are able to contribute $5/month or more please post here. You will not be disappointed!
No problem, I'll make a post in my clan forums and try and get some more interest. We pay AU$380 per month for our dedicated gaming server box, Quad core Xeon CPU 2.00GHz, 8GB RAM, Win2k3 with 1TB upload/download, 100MB Backbone + 4 x IPs.
As a suggestion, a VM should be more reasonably priced in the US - maybe look at getting enough to rent 1 x for about 3 x months as a trial. That would give you some idea of a short term total cost. You could then start a "donate-ometer" (if posssible) to achieve this amount. Suggestion only.
BTW: My real name is Will (Nick => nickname ).
Good luck with your release today, I'm still plugging away at YASAMM.
I was thinking about that and will probably up doing that. People have to see how well it works first however. I think with the release tomorrow, they will see how easy it is to use and how powerful it is. Then when they notice that they cant just "download every file for steam" they'll go out look for someone to host a server for them .
Can you estimate how much disk space you'll need for the data files.
Estimate how many data files - this will give an average data size.
Estimate how many files - on average - each user may require.
From that we can estimate an average bandwidth requirement.
Assume a backbone speed of 50~100Mbs
Assume 10~20 users - this will give you an average download speed per user
Then the guessing begins
The DL speed of an average user ?
As you say, I'm guessing the main bottleneck on this would be connection speed, I'm guessing disk access will be relatively low, and CPU usage relatively low as well.
Some of the above may be BS - but it will probably help WWIII with his enquiry!
I'm thinking 75-100gb for storage, granted we compress everything we can probably fit most games. The only real operation that the server does alot of is reading uploading so disk speed and bandwidth will be important.
But like I said, 75-100gb storage with 2000/gb month should be plenty.