Donations will be open soon

I have managed to get the donation addon sorted. I have left the original goal Icyhot setup showing for now.

I will be working out how much it will cost for the initial move and setup a goal just for that purpose.
What I have paid for the current hosting will go towards the new one so it's only the difference that will need to be paid.

Once we are setup on a VPS, I will add a goal for the cost's of the new hosting. From what I have seen it will most likely be a monthly cost. If there is enough donations we may be able to pay every three months to save a few dollars. I think paying over six months or a year would save more but it would be costly.

There will be a cost breakdown for everything so everybody knows where the money is going.

 

OK guys. I have spent most of this afternoon researching web hosts. If we stay with the current web host it's going to cost quite a bit money.
I found lots of reviews for another web host called KnownHost. There are quite a few recommendations from members on Xenforo's main forum as well.

Here's what the cost breakdown will be and details of each VPS.

Namecheap VPS 2 - Xen

1 Month Hosting: $49.95
cPanel: $11
Management $30.00

Total: $90.95

Details of VPS

500 GB Bandwidth
2 GB RAM (2 GB Burst)
60 GB Disk Space
2 CPU
Dedicated IP: 2


KnownHost VPS-3

1 Month Hosting $38.25 (discount code added)
cPanel: $5
Management: $0

Total: $43.25

Details of VPS

9000 GB Premium Bandwidth
3.25 GB RAM (Guaranteed RAM)
95 GB Disk Space
Equal Share CPU (16+)
Dedicated IP: 2


The bandwidth is important as much as CPU and RAM due to XLN chewing through it like a hungry caterpillar.
I don't think that 500GB a month will be enough near the end of the year due to the site growth. We have used over 300GB already since we have been backup. 50GB of it was from transferring the site files to the server.

KnownHost looks really good and the fact that they are managed (still have root access as well) is great. I don't feel like having an un-managed VPS as I have done it before and it tends to take up a lot of your time.
I'll lose what I've paid for the current host but as it's for the whole year I can use the hosting for personal projects.

If we go with the new webhost, we will have a bit of down time due to the transfer of files. It will be easier this time round due to the same control panel being used on this server and the other webhost.

Icyhot has not transferred the domain to me yet so I'll have to get him to sort the DNS out.

I'll get the donations open a bit later to start the ball rolling.
If we have enough, we can also pay quarterly or yearly which will make the total a little cheaper.

 

At the moment it will be only hosting cost's ($43.25)
Once I have access to the xenforo website as a customer, there will be the software and add-on updates. It's those cost's I'm unsure of at the moment. There will be the yearly cost of the domain but I'll cover that myself. I may cover most of the add-on updates as well.

If there is enough donations later on, then we could pay the hosting bill quarterly ($131.50) or even yearly ($510.00). There is a coupon code I can use which can give us a slight discount on those prices. The discount is for life even if we upgrade at a later date.

 

I have plans for normal advertising and possibly trying to get game company's interested in advertising on here too.
My priority is making sure XLN is running 100% before setting extra things up.

 

You don't need to have a PayPal account to pay. You should be able to choose credit or debit card as an option.

 

Thanks Drazic Least now theres a few months we are covered. That's less worrying I have to do