Hey there

I'm tempted by Linode and have been looking at the offerings and the ts&cs. I notice that there's no particular mention of whether it's allowed to use a Linode server for personal storage, though there is a catch-all "don't use it for anything that might hurt anything or that is illegal" (perfectly fair). Basically I would want to use it for:
- Personal email / webmail
- A couple of small community forums (very small, like about 10 active users each and maybe a few posts a day)
- Owncloud based personal cloud storage
- Some light Web+FTP storage/usage (nothing illegal or intended for mass distribution)
- Rehosting images so I can hotlink them when chatting on forums without upsetting anyone (I'd rather not use free image hosts - most 'free' services simply paid for in personal data and browsing habits and I've learned to value privacy as of late)

Though it's a few applications, it's all light usage stuff that is unlikely to be going on in parallel to any great degree, so I'm not worried that it can handle it. (It's overkill. But I'm a nerd, I like a Linux server with full control). It's more: are these things allowed?

Reason I ask is that most other hosts with such reasonable pricing disallow using their servers for - well, pretty much anything, but especially storage for personal cloud drives, backups etc. My current host (Dreamhost) for example require a purchase of their S3 based product in addition to the hosting if you want to use it for anything like that. They are reputed to turn a blind eye if you don't hammer it, but are also rather slow in my experience. I just tried to download some of my own data (on a VPS!) and am getting the usual abysmal 700KB/s transfer rates... on a line capable of 5.5MB/s...

Theirs is "unlimited" disk and bandwidth (yeah I know), yours is 48GB+2TB, which is still pretty good if it means the difference between "barely works" and "works well"

Those things are fine with Linode. However the disk space is limited so if you've got a lot of big files you want to store in owncloud you might want a cheap dedicated box with slow sata disks. Not great for performance put perfectly adequate for a handful of users using owncloud.

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Okay, thanks for the info!

I'll have a ponder on the space. I'm sure 48GB is plenty for now, but I remember some guy once saying the same about 640K. Not sure where to look for mass online storage - S3 based data hosting is rather expensive! Indeed all I really need for the owncloud stuff is a cheap SATA drive on the internet somewhere.

Google Drive is now $10 a month for 1 TB. They are holding back on a Linux client though, maybe they think straight Linux is a competitor to their Android cash cow. I wouldn't use a 3rd party client, it would have access to the entire Google account I would think.

ovh and hetzner have some dirt cheap dedicated boxes, remember you get what you pay for if it's just for personal stuff then they'll be fine. It's amazing how quickly you can fill up 48GB.

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How to ask for help
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2. Post any errors
3. Post relevant logs.
4. Don't hide details i.e. your domain, it just makes things harder
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Great stuff, Google Drive is looking like a good solution for the light storage between friends issue, meaning I no longer have to use valuable VPS space for that.

How do you mean by dedicated boxes... usually dedicated servers are super expensive? They have some nice shared hosting deals though. I could certainly consider that avenue for personal Owncloud storage if it's possible to encrypt, as I'd be hoping to do here. (Not for illegal reasons, just security/privacy)

You can get a dedicated server for not much more than a VPS I have one that costs £40/month which is ~$60. You can encrypt using owncloud, it has an encryption module or you could use something like luks. The encryption is server side though not as good as client side.

_________________
Paid support
How to ask for help
1. Give details of your problem
2. Post any errors
3. Post relevant logs.
4. Don't hide details i.e. your domain, it just makes things harder
5. Be polite or you'll be eaten by a grue

Ah I see. I'm not really looking to spend more than about £20/month (which is where here was looking quite attractive at $20/month for the 1GB/48GB version)

Currently my Dropbox is 8GB. As you say, 48GB fills surprisingly fast, but as it's mostly just me using it (plus a couple of friends on a messageboard who are being asked to relocate some junk to their own servers or Google or something ) I don't think it'll bite me quickly enough to justify a dedicated server.

Decided to have a go, though I'm not sure why what was advertised as $20 charged my card $24.99. It's pretty close to 20% VAT, but 20*1.2=24.00...

Hello! It is $20/mo - but you were charged for the remainder of this month plus April. The dates on your invoice should reflect this.

Welcome aboard!
-Chris

It depends on the day of the month that you order. You now paid for all of April and 24Mar-31Mar, to fill up this month

Ah, fair enough. Thanks!

May be worth a warning on the sign up screen unless I simply missed it - it's no worry to me, but if I'd signed up on say the 2nd of the month for a high end server it would've hurt

It's there, you just missed it. Happens all the time...

-Chris

Worth noting that we only charge for the next month up front if you sign up at the end of the month: signing up on the 2nd would have invoiced you for less than the monthly cost, since it would have only billed from then through the end of the current month.

- Les

Understood! We users get a little blind in overexcitement