We have been on a 4 GB shared Linode since December 2022. This is fine for the most part, but we are paying close to $70 in Linodes plus backups, and it doesn’t feel worth it. If I upgrade to 8 GB, the costs explode to $116, and at that point, I may as well get a dedicated server with a lot of RAM and at least 1 TB SSD at that rate.
I have finally found a dedicated server with a Ryzen 5600X, 128 GB of RAM, and 1 TB SSD located in New Jersey, which I plan to split into 3 virtual machines. Sure, it’s a bit more expensive than any dedicated server at Hetzner. Still, I think it will do the job and give us much room to have up to 1000-1500 active users for each server, around the exact cost I’m paying right now. While Hetzner would be cheaper, they only have locations in Europe, and I need to have it in the US.
Note that the migration won’t happen overnight. The hypervisor, backups, and virtual servers are set up without the main software installed. Then, I will start moving things over, starting with Misskey/Sharkey at Sakurajima Social and Meilisearch. I will wait to see how things perform and then migrate the Mastodon server.
The move will be seamless: installing Mastodon/Sharkey on the server, exporting Postgres and Redis, importing it on the new server, starting the latest server, and updating the DNS records. There will be no difference on the new server except for better performance and not worrying about disk space.
That said, the Object Storage is the only thing that will stay on Linode, along with an email server for sending out emails only. I’m doing this to improve the service only for a little more. Money is not a concern as my financial situation is stable. I plan to cover the remaining costs out of pocket since I use the service, too. I intend to keep running the server long-term, which will help as we will have enough resources for any future wave of users.
After the move, it will cost $110.4 to run Sakurajima, a $31 increase. New break even (half of the monthly cost as I cover half plus anything not covered by donations) is $55.2 a month.
If you want to help support the server, the donation links are on the Costs page under the about menu. However, this is optional.
- Dedicated server (Ryzen 5600X, 128 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 5 IPS), $97
- Linode Object Storage – $5
- Linode 1 GB (Email) – $5
- Domain costs (main domains only)- $3.40
How everything will be backed up on the server:
Snapshots will be taken every day, up to 5 will be kept per server at a time. Every Sunday at midnight, a full backup of the VMs will be made and sent to the home server via S3 (Minio). This is done through Xen Orchestra (web management interface for xcp-ng).
If the server faces SSD failure, we can restore the virtual machines and the most recent database backup, meaning only a small percentage of data will get lost.
Migration Schedule:
- At 10 PM ET on Jan 26th, Sakurajima Social was migrated to the new server.
- February 2nd – If everything goes well, the Linode hosting Sakurajima Social will be imaged and deleted.
- February 3rd: set up a new email server. Migrate Animebot and AnimeNewsNetworkRSS bots to run on komari.chikorita157.com
- February 10th, 10 PM ET – Migrate Mastodon to the new server.
- February 17th – If everything goes well, image and delete the Mastodon Linode and the Linode for ElasticSearch.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.