5 ms·

Ask HN: Where can I host a 1TB DB relatively cheaply?

I have a 1TB DB that will grow over time and have been looking for a host that is relatively cheap. Everything I see is hosting with SSD so getting 1TB and larger is somewhat expensive. Are there any (cheap) HDD hosts out there?

newsmania 9y ago
Hosthatch has a 1 TB hdd vps plan for $20. I’ve used them before and they were ok. They had a network outage but fixed it.
siquick 9y ago
Digital Ocean is $105USD for 1TB, not sure how this compares to others?
- anothernameiluv 9y ago
  Yeah, that's just a bit too much $ for what I need. I've been looking at Linode, Scaleway, Vultr, Digital Ocean but they are a bit too pricey. This isn't a mission critical DB and doesn't have to be SSD speeds.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    You can get a spinny storage node at vult for like 10 or 20 bones a month. Be warned the node has almost no ram. I ran this for about a year. Queries took a good 5 minutes but was a very cheap way to archive data. No durability though if the disk bites it you lose.
  - bfrog 9y ago
    Linode did just start offering extensible block storage at $0.10/GB/Mo so in your case not exactly cheap, $120/mo or so minimum basically for anything sensible. AWS EBS is cheaper, $0.045/GB/Mo for their HDD option. Though again, still atleast ~$70/mo for something sensible (decent ec2 instance and ebs storage). Google is only slightly cheaper, $0.040/GB/Mo. Realistically the cheapest option is probably renting a physical machine thats a bit older as others have suggested. If its not a true database that needs block storage, and just flat files, S3 is always hard to beat.
nreece 9y ago
Delimiter has inexpensive storage VPS plans: https://www.delimiter.com/storage-vps/ https://www.delimiter.com/storage-vps/
- BrianT 9y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. [Disclosure - I work for Delimiter]
badestrand 9y ago
As others have noted, most "traditional" dedicated server hosters should have good offers. Hetzner in Germany for example has 8 TB HDD with 32 GB RAM and a i7-6700 Quad-Core for ~55 USD per month. edit: US hosters seem to be quite a bit more expensive. Does anyone know why there is such a difference?
- adventured 9y ago
  Simply put, they can command it. US GDP per capita is ~1/3 higher than in Germany, as is the median income. It's why companies like Softlayer or Rackspace, with relatively high prices, built such substantial businesses in the dedicated space years ago: US businesses could afford it. The underlying cost structure is also more challenging in the US for most dedicated hosts. Building a data center in the US, as with most infrastructure, costs more than it does in Germany. When you account for the higher cost of infrastructure and the higher productivity (economic output), a $80 Hetzner server becomes a $120 or $140 server in the US. It's the same reason housing in Australia is so expensive (their incomes have skyrocketed over the last 15 years), or why the cost of living is so high in Switzerland (very high incomes). If you cut US GDP per capita from ~$57k-$60k down to $28,000 (just as an example) - dedicated hosts in the US would not be able to command the same high prices, the market would not bear that.
  - king_phil 9y ago
    What difference does it make? The price is the price is the price.
    - devdoomari 9y ago
      as a user? some milliseconds of latency maybe?
  - dx034 9y ago
    That doesn't explain why OVH can offer servers in Canada for about the same price (via soyoustart.com or OVH). Electricity in Quebec is cheap but parts of the US are similar (OR, WA). Perhaps many US companies don't trust European providers so that they have to win on price?
ktta 9y ago
https://www.time4vps.eu/storage-servers/ https://www.time4vps.eu/storage-servers/ They aren't the most reputed but aren't sketchy either. You're not going to get cheaper than this. If you are sure that you'll use to for a while, then go for the annual/biennial plans. They really bring down the monthly price.
- balladeer 9y ago
  Also, I recently saw a post on LET that after October 4 they are bumping their VPS prices up. Been a happy customer for last 3+ years. Just my second online backup of encrypted personal data (first is CrashPlan). But at this price they don’t backup their severs and even though they have been around for really a long time I’ll hesitate to do something on production there. Good with support tickets and all.
wetha 9y ago
AWS. t2.Micro instance = $15 monthly. EBS Cold HDD 1 TB = $26 monthly. With the free tier, the T2 instance is free the first year. Plus, all the cloudy goodness of EBS Snapshots for backup and easy scalability.
jaequery 9y ago
unless you are just storing logs or your app dont really care about performance, id always advise to run your databases on SSD
- dx034 9y ago
  Why? For simple queries with medium load, SSD is not necessary at all. Esp if you don't do much writing and reading at the same time. HDD is still 5-10x cheaper.
BrianT 9y ago
[Disclosure - I work for Delimiter] @nreece suggested our StorageVPS. Delimiter's storage VPS are HDD based but NVMe accelerated. We run ZFS with the ZIL/Cache on the NVMe. The storage performance is great, but CPU isn't overly generous. They are optimised to get data to/from disk. I would recommend you look at our Cloud Compute product. Its based on Cloudstack, highly distributed Ceph backend - HDD with NVMe fronting the disks. It uses Cloudstack's advanced networking so you have a router/firewall by default as well as internal networking should you want to have more than just the DB locally. https://cc.delimiter.com/cart/cloud-resource-pool/ https://cc.delimiter.com/cart/cloud-resource-pool/ A 1TB Ceph disk with 1GB RAM, 1 CPU will cost you $20.40/month I am not sure what DB you are running but even if boost that up to 4GB RAM, 2 CPUs, 1TB Disk that is $34.62/month Dedicated cores on the CPUs, 10Gbps uplink. We have a variety of customers running MongoDB clusters, MySQL/MariaDB, Couchbase and so on. Internal networks lets you keep the cluster network private. Just punch through the firewall for the ports you need publicly accessible or even limit the source address to stop non-authorised users. If you want to give it a test, then just mail me on sales@delimiter.com and I'll get you a 30 day trial. -- Another option could be a cheap dedicated - we have some Dual E5420, 16GB RAM, 1TB Disk or 2 x 500GB for $200/year
- r3muxd 9y ago
  Aren't you the people that null-routed a Eve online guild?
mad182 9y ago
https://www.hetzner.com/ https://www.hetzner.com/
aaronheid 9y ago
Vpsdime 2000 GB Storage VPS is $28/month. But better ask them if they allow it for your purposes
mproud 9y ago
Do you need to be fast at all? Do you need to run persistent apps? Because if not, traditional hosting often has near limitless storage for less than $100 a year (think Dreamhost, Bluehost, 1&1, etc.)
hndamien 9y ago
Sia might be a good option - https://blog.sia.tech/ https://blog.sia.tech/ $0.48 per TB per month
EKSolutions 9y ago
I use a service called Kimsufi quite some. They offer cheap Dedicated Servers with up to 2TB of storage. Very reliable and trustable too since they're owned by OVH.
- dx034 9y ago
  Their soyoustart.com server range is also worth checking out. More powerful servers than Kimsufi. Price/value is extremely good as long as you don't mind managing your own server. A dedicated machine with 16GB ram and 1-2TB HDD will cost you $25-30/month.
thrownaway954 9y ago
Out of curiosity... What DB platform and OS are you using?
- corobo 9y ago
  In addition to those questions lets stop beating up bushes - whats your budget @op All you're getting right now are vague suggestions and hugely varying price points. If we knew the budget we could more easily recommend something

newsmania 9y ago

Hosthatch has a 1 TB hdd vps plan for $20. I’ve used them before and they were ok. They had a network outage but fixed it.

siquick 9y ago

Digital Ocean is $105USD for 1TB, not sure how this compares to others?

anothernameiluv 9y ago
Yeah, that's just a bit too much $ for what I need. I've been looking at Linode, Scaleway, Vultr, Digital Ocean but they are a bit too pricey. This isn't a mission critical DB and doesn't have to be SSD speeds.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  You can get a spinny storage node at vult for like 10 or 20 bones a month. Be warned the node has almost no ram. I ran this for about a year. Queries took a good 5 minutes but was a very cheap way to archive data. No durability though if the disk bites it you lose.
- bfrog 9y ago
  Linode did just start offering extensible block storage at $0.10/GB/Mo so in your case not exactly cheap, $120/mo or so minimum basically for anything sensible. AWS EBS is cheaper, $0.045/GB/Mo for their HDD option. Though again, still atleast ~$70/mo for something sensible (decent ec2 instance and ebs storage). Google is only slightly cheaper, $0.040/GB/Mo. Realistically the cheapest option is probably renting a physical machine thats a bit older as others have suggested. If its not a true database that needs block storage, and just flat files, S3 is always hard to beat.

nreece 9y ago

Delimiter has inexpensive storage VPS plans: https://www.delimiter.com/storage-vps/ https://www.delimiter.com/storage-vps/

BrianT 9y ago
Thanks for the recommendation. [Disclosure - I work for Delimiter]

badestrand 9y ago

As others have noted, most "traditional" dedicated server hosters should have good offers. Hetzner in Germany for example has 8 TB HDD with 32 GB RAM and a i7-6700 Quad-Core for ~55 USD per month. edit: US hosters seem to be quite a bit more expensive. Does anyone know why there is such a difference?

adventured 9y ago
Simply put, they can command it. US GDP per capita is ~1/3 higher than in Germany, as is the median income. It's why companies like Softlayer or Rackspace, with relatively high prices, built such substantial businesses in the dedicated space years ago: US businesses could afford it. The underlying cost structure is also more challenging in the US for most dedicated hosts. Building a data center in the US, as with most infrastructure, costs more than it does in Germany. When you account for the higher cost of infrastructure and the higher productivity (economic output), a $80 Hetzner server becomes a $120 or $140 server in the US. It's the same reason housing in Australia is so expensive (their incomes have skyrocketed over the last 15 years), or why the cost of living is so high in Switzerland (very high incomes). If you cut US GDP per capita from ~$57k-$60k down to $28,000 (just as an example) - dedicated hosts in the US would not be able to command the same high prices, the market would not bear that.
- king_phil 9y ago
  What difference does it make? The price is the price is the price.
  - devdoomari 9y ago
    as a user? some milliseconds of latency maybe?
- dx034 9y ago
  That doesn't explain why OVH can offer servers in Canada for about the same price (via soyoustart.com or OVH). Electricity in Quebec is cheap but parts of the US are similar (OR, WA). Perhaps many US companies don't trust European providers so that they have to win on price?

ktta 9y ago

https://www.time4vps.eu/storage-servers/ https://www.time4vps.eu/storage-servers/ They aren't the most reputed but aren't sketchy either. You're not going to get cheaper than this. If you are sure that you'll use to for a while, then go for the annual/biennial plans. They really bring down the monthly price.

balladeer 9y ago
Also, I recently saw a post on LET that after October 4 they are bumping their VPS prices up. Been a happy customer for last 3+ years. Just my second online backup of encrypted personal data (first is CrashPlan). But at this price they don’t backup their severs and even though they have been around for really a long time I’ll hesitate to do something on production there. Good with support tickets and all.

wetha 9y ago

AWS. t2.Micro instance = $15 monthly. EBS Cold HDD 1 TB = $26 monthly. With the free tier, the T2 instance is free the first year. Plus, all the cloudy goodness of EBS Snapshots for backup and easy scalability.

jaequery 9y ago

unless you are just storing logs or your app dont really care about performance, id always advise to run your databases on SSD

dx034 9y ago
Why? For simple queries with medium load, SSD is not necessary at all. Esp if you don't do much writing and reading at the same time. HDD is still 5-10x cheaper.

BrianT 9y ago

[Disclosure - I work for Delimiter] @nreece suggested our StorageVPS. Delimiter's storage VPS are HDD based but NVMe accelerated. We run ZFS with the ZIL/Cache on the NVMe. The storage performance is great, but CPU isn't overly generous. They are optimised to get data to/from disk. I would recommend you look at our Cloud Compute product. Its based on Cloudstack, highly distributed Ceph backend - HDD with NVMe fronting the disks. It uses Cloudstack's advanced networking so you have a router/firewall by default as well as internal networking should you want to have more than just the DB locally. https://cc.delimiter.com/cart/cloud-resource-pool/ https://cc.delimiter.com/cart/cloud-resource-pool/ A 1TB Ceph disk with 1GB RAM, 1 CPU will cost you $20.40/month I am not sure what DB you are running but even if boost that up to 4GB RAM, 2 CPUs, 1TB Disk that is $34.62/month Dedicated cores on the CPUs, 10Gbps uplink. We have a variety of customers running MongoDB clusters, MySQL/MariaDB, Couchbase and so on. Internal networks lets you keep the cluster network private. Just punch through the firewall for the ports you need publicly accessible or even limit the source address to stop non-authorised users. If you want to give it a test, then just mail me on sales@delimiter.com and I'll get you a 30 day trial. -- Another option could be a cheap dedicated - we have some Dual E5420, 16GB RAM, 1TB Disk or 2 x 500GB for $200/year

r3muxd 9y ago
Aren't you the people that null-routed a Eve online guild?

mad182 9y ago

https://www.hetzner.com/ https://www.hetzner.com/

aaronheid 9y ago

Vpsdime 2000 GB Storage VPS is $28/month. But better ask them if they allow it for your purposes

mproud 9y ago

Do you need to be fast at all? Do you need to run persistent apps? Because if not, traditional hosting often has near limitless storage for less than $100 a year (think Dreamhost, Bluehost, 1&1, etc.)

hndamien 9y ago

Sia might be a good option - https://blog.sia.tech/ https://blog.sia.tech/ $0.48 per TB per month

EKSolutions 9y ago

I use a service called Kimsufi quite some. They offer cheap Dedicated Servers with up to 2TB of storage. Very reliable and trustable too since they're owned by OVH.

dx034 9y ago
Their soyoustart.com server range is also worth checking out. More powerful servers than Kimsufi. Price/value is extremely good as long as you don't mind managing your own server. A dedicated machine with 16GB ram and 1-2TB HDD will cost you $25-30/month.

thrownaway954 9y ago

Out of curiosity... What DB platform and OS are you using?

corobo 9y ago
In addition to those questions lets stop beating up bushes - whats your budget @op All you're getting right now are vague suggestions and hugely varying price points. If we knew the budget we could more easily recommend something