New ICMag Server Coming

Skip · Aug 7, 2012

We will be upgrading this old tired server soon. As you can see it's really slowed down today, no doubt due to the release of IC3. The Olympics are also hogging bandwidth to and from Europe as well.

The new server will cost more every month, so if any of you feel inclined to help out with the costs, you can donate to the site, or subscribe to ICMag (now only $50 a year).

Hopefully the new server will be much faster than the old one (that's at least 5 years old now!) We are overdue for the upgrade and need it more than ever.

I have a Plan B to add another server if the upgrade isn't sufficient.

Thanks to all who have been so patient with the lag times.

I'll announce when the move to the new server will happen. There will probably be some significant downtime. It will take at least 24 hrs to transfer the 1,000,000+ photos, but the site won't be down nearly so long.

mofeta · Aug 7, 2012

Good news.

I hope it is blazing fast.

Are you upgrading the bandwidth too?

Skip · Aug 7, 2012

We have unlimited bandwidth with a very fast pipeline. It's the webserver that is slow. The database server doesn't even sweat. It's the 1 million+ images and the big banners and now the IC3 downloads that are slowing us down. If we end up with another server that will the third one, and it would be an image server.

I noticed that many ppl trying to download the magazine are taking a very long time. If they're trying to download to a phone or using a dial-up type line, it goes slow and they time out eventually. We can't fix everyone's connection, only our server.

Skip · Aug 7, 2012

We have unlimited bandwidth with a very fast pipeline. It's the webserver that is slow. The database server doesn't even sweat. It's the 1 million+ images and the big banners and now the IC3 downloads that are slowing us down. If we end up with another server that will be the third one, and it would be an image server.

I noticed that many ppl trying to download the magazine are taking a very long time. If they're trying to download to a phone or using a dial-up type line, it goes slow and they time out eventually (slowing down the site even more). We can't fix everyone's connection, only our server.

Guest58392 · Aug 7, 2012

mofeta · Aug 7, 2012

Right on, right on!

Any chance that the new server will allow you to relax the rules on pics per post, posts viewed per page, small search terms, etc that you had to institute in the past few months?

Man, I am glad you came back!

fukndenny · Aug 7, 2012

I was wondering what was going on.

Seems very slow the last few days.

Glad to hear.

OrganicBuds · Aug 7, 2012

Does this mean the server will be fast enough so we don't have to re-size photos? I sure as hell hope so.

Skip · Aug 7, 2012

mofeta said:
Right on, right on!

Any chance that the new server will allow you to relax the rules on pics per post, posts viewed per page, small search terms, etc that you had to institute in the past few months?

Man, I am glad you came back!

OrganicBuds said:
Does this mean the server will be fast enough so we don't have to re-size photos? I sure as hell hope so.

That's the plan. I know how frustrating it's been for many of you dealing with uploading images. We may have to get a third server to enable these features again.

We appreciate those of you who have followed our instructions to lessen the load on the server in the meantime.

Traffic has picked up a lot since I came back and that has made things slower, although it's still not as busy as it once was. But back then the images were smaller and we didn't have nearly so many on the server as we do now.

b00m · Aug 8, 2012

Thanks for all the hard work that you and the rest of the ICMag Crew do Skip mate :good:

Very Much Appreciated
:smoke out:

gaiusmarius · Aug 8, 2012

i had 3 days of really slow browsing, like i never had before, not just 1 window in 20 took a while but every one. but today when i logged in everything is really fast again. not sure if it means anything, but its certainly a lot more fun like this.

yortbogey · Aug 8, 2012

ye@p... what ever happened when the server reset last night/this am....
must have worked... or sumthang
pages are popping up w/ a quickness........

thank U skip....

Skip · Aug 8, 2012

Yeah, I can't believe it myself. It looks like our hosting company may have rerouted our server, probably to avoid some bottleneck. I've asked them for an explanation...

I made some changes myself to the caching yesterday, but I doubt it would've made this much difference.

In any case, whoopee!

Blue Socks · Aug 8, 2012

Oh snap the server fund is actually going to be used for a server! Wow whoda thunk it!

qupee · Aug 8, 2012

Just dropped in to say thanks for working to keep the site operating well. I noticed the extreme lag the last couple days and was wondering what was going on.

And a thought from a web dev here - ever consider moving pics and whatnot off to a CDN like Amazon S3? Pay for just the space you need and no 24 hours to move them at the next server upgrade. Of course, I don't know if the forum software makes that easy or not.

catalyte · Aug 8, 2012

great news!

keep up the great work ICMAG IT

Hammerhead · Aug 8, 2012

the server fund is to help pay for the bandwidth not just the hardware. If we did not have such generous members ICMAG might not be what it is today.

I don't want my cannabis pics stored on Amazon. I would be very surprised if they even allowed that. Cannabis is Illegal....

megayields · Aug 8, 2012

IF my next harvest is not taken over by PM (it won't) I will try and contribute to the cause!

Skip · Aug 9, 2012

Hammerhead said:
the server fund is to help pay for the bandwidth not just the hardware. If we did not have such generous members ICMAG might not be what it is today.

I don't want my cannabis pics stored on Amazon. I would be very surprised if they even allowed that. Cannabis is Illegal....

Never trust the cloud for any sensitive data. Amazon is a US company so it's data is open to all LEOs. They just need to ask (no legal docs needed anymore). So they know the IP#s you upload from, and if you include EXIF and geolocation data on your images, you might as well just call them up and invite them over... :0)

Blue Socks · Aug 9, 2012

I was just kidding guys, I love the fund. Glad everything is getting sorted out. Now if we could just get that other thing going...

New ICMag Server Coming

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