Downloadable distribution : Bandwidth and Bittorrent oh my!

[aegidian]

I'm just a hobby programmer and my pockets aren't deep. So when my webspace providers kill my site because a game I just updated gets 500 downloads it engenders mixed feelings:

:D "Great!" I say, "My game's really popular."

:mad: "Rats!" I say, "Now I need more bandwidth to host it on."

With JewelToy (http://www.aegidian.org/jeweltoy/), which was only about 3.5Mb, I ended up having to redirect downloads from aegidian.org and host the files on mac.com and demon.co.uk to spread the load.

I'm trying to find ways to get a solution to this problem before my next popular game (which is likely to be 20Mb wide) hits VersionTracker and MacUpdate (or, ghu-forfend, Slashdot).

So what I want to hear about is folks' experiences distributing stuff using the web. Is BitTorrent the way to go? Is there anywhere that'll host a popular 20Mb file for free?

[Jake]

Try wbws.net , if you tell them that all you need is a server for mostly downloading files, the would probably give you 20GB a month for 5 bucks a month.

And no, DO NOT go with bittorrent unless you need to send out 100MB to 100000 users.

[aegidian]

DO NOT go with bittorrent unless you need to send out 100MB to 100000 users.

Could you say why?

[Jake]

Because the user has to have bittorrent, so there goes at least 50-75% of the users who will just choose another easier game off versiontracker

[geezusfreeek]

Also, bittorrent is blocked on many company and university firewalls (like my dorms).

[skyhawk]

Also, bittorrent is blocked on many company and university firewalls (like my dorms).
yeah... that really pisses me off.

[Carlos Camacho]

A dedicated server cost $99 a month. THat gets you 800GB of transfer. Get 10 developers to go in on the server. Not each developer releases games at the same time, so everyone should be more than happy with sharing 800GB.

Cheers,

[Danlab]

i found this one
never try it.. but it think i go to host my next game on this server

http://www.ctn1.net/offres.php?lg=fr

[Max]

Too bad you guys donít live where I am. Extreme high speed Internet with unlimited bandwidth for $40 a month. Many of my friends host their web sites and bit torrent files on their computer because itís so easy and cheap.

[Carlos Camacho]

What is extreme highspeeds?

[Max]

What is extreme highspeeds?

Extreme high speed -> 5.1Mbps cable connection with ultra low latency (ping?) and optimized for online gaming. (my ISP says that, not me) Download at 450Kb/s and upload at 150kb/s. Not bad.

[aegidian]

I just released Oolite with downloads coming from my mac.com site and a spymac.net site. I also set up a separate Bittorrent download linked from the game's homepage and as another alternate download link from versiontracker.

The Bitttorrent file's tracker (and seed downloader) is on a personal server of mine, so I can get some reasonable statistics on how much this option was used. I'll try to let you know after 24hours, 1 week and 1 month.

[aegidian]

VersionTracker quoting 948 downloads, Macupdate quoting 758 downloads, my BT tracker showing 104 downloads.

948+758 = 1706 downloads of 17.9 Mb in 24 hours, or a total of 30.5 Gb of bandwidth!

That would have been ten times the standard amount of bandwidth cheap hosting offers per month in the UK. And more than the monthly allowance on many US based sites. It's fortunate mac.com don't limit bandwidth at all.

BT provided a nice alternative, particularly for dial-up users, but was dresponsible for less than 7% of downloads.

(It looks like Carlos was right about hosting on a dedicated server, I'd be up for $15 of the $99 per month, who'd join me?)

[KenD]

I'd like to find an affordable solution to this too. With over 500 Gb transfer per month it can get costly. A dedictaed server could actually be the best alternative in the long run if it can be had for less than $100 a month. 800 Gb transfer a month might be enough.

Any recommendations for such a site?

KenD

[aegidian]

2517 downloads, 136 of them by Bittorrent.

That's a significant 5.4%

Fortunately I've now had a fan offer me some space on a dedicated server, so I should have all the bandwidth I need for v1.1

[madmacgames]

I'd like to find an affordable solution to this too. With over 500 Gb transfer per month it can get costly. A dedictaed server could actually be the best alternative in the long run if it can be had for less than $100 a month. 800 Gb transfer a month might be enough.

Any recommendations for such a site?

KenD

Here's a couple datacenters offering dedicated servers for under $100/month

managed.com has dedicated servers for less than $100/month with 1000Gb monthly transfer. This is who we use, though it is a completely unmamaged solution, so you'd have to setup the accounts and everything yourself (cPanel can be added for $20/month which makes this pretty easy). All the datacenter does is make sure the network stays up and fixes any problems that occur with the network.

servermatrix.com also has dedicated servers for less than $100/month with ~1000Gb transfer (it changes what the offer new customers so I'm not sure what it currently is). Again, this is an unmanaged solution aside from network management. And again can get cPanel or Plesk for $20/month extra.

[KenD]

I have to admit I don't know much about this server stuff. When it's unmanaged, what does that mean exactly? What do I have to do to actually be able to use the server?
Is the server "working" when I get it, in other words, can I ftp to it, etc?
What would I need to do on my own as far as setting up the server to make it ready for file hosting so people can dowload from it?

KenD

[Josh]

I imagine unmanaged means that you are in complete control over the server. The nice thing about these is that you can install software in your own time, and you can customize your server to meet your specific needs. The downsides are that it is completely up to you to keep up to date with security updates, OS updates, etc. You mush have some knowledge of the OS being used, and you are in charge of backing up.