building our repository (builder)

[kraileth]

From a price/performance point of view, the Canadian hoster is the winner:
https://www.soyoustart.com/ca/en/offers/e5-sat-2.xml

There's no doubt that this is the better machine to start with. But if we opt for that one then we won't have SSDs if I read correctly (do we need those if we have the double amount of RAM?).

[ASX]

From a price/performance point of view, the Canadian hoster is the winner:
https://www.soyoustart.com/ca/en/offers/e5-sat-2.xml

There's no doubt that this is the better machine to start with.

I (we really, me and Eric) aren't 100% sure this would be the better machine, we both wrote "we are splitted". And for good reasons: we both recognize the value of your proposal and the added benefits.

But if we opt for that one then we won't have SSDs if I read correctly (do we need those if we have the double amount of RAM?).

Correct. SSDs aren't a strict requirement, but they contribute to achieve better performance, especially considering that more RAM would allow more builders in parallel and thus would require more concurrent disk I/O.

We would not, (and in fact we aren't) restrict the evaluation to the machine specs only. The choice now has to be made beside the machine specs, and we have to consider that your company/your boss has already provided us the other server (the EU mirror).

Considering all, I put my vote on you, your boss, and your server proposal.

My past professional experience tell me that I always had better results with people/companies I was able to talk with.
Eric will decide anyway, not me.

[ericbsd]

Just to answer about the issue of price these server are not they are old OVH servers and electricity in Quebec province is haft of the value of the electric cost of my province.

But they don't pay much for servers of they have pay somthing it company under OVH umbrella.

Basically those​ server are haft price of the OVH one.

What your​ boss offer is similar to OVH price I get that we can expend with ssd and SWAP, at that price it is better then OVH. Plus instant access is big plus.

My big question here is if we pay for ssd and drive can we get it at the same price? I have no problem to pay for extra drive.

[ASX]

kraileth had already stated this in his proposal, that answer your question:

The only thing that we should probably buy separately is an SSD (do we actually need it mirrored and buy two? Isn't it primarily used for a fast caching drive that stores replaceable files and redundancy is optional?). I can add that or any more drives any weekday.

[ericbsd]

OH yea

[ericbsd]

kraileth I say we go for your boss offer!

Is it possible install FreeBSD in one SSD and having a full SSD for SWAP it is just an idea? Is there any value of doing that?

[ericbsd]

I guess it is better to build a relationship with a company and having people that can fix problem right away then waiting hours for troubleshooting from a company like soyoustart.

[ASX]

kraileth I say we go for your boss offer!

Great!

Is it possible install FreeBSD in one SSD and having a full SSD for SWAP it is just an idea? Is there any value of doing that?

Of course yes, it is possible, but please wait a bit more, I going to post a disks layout proposal and explaining the reasons behind, just be patient another couple of hours.

I guess it is better to build a relationship with a company and having people that can fix problem right away then waiting hours for troubleshooting from a company like soyoustart.

Yes, certainly is in my experience.

[ericbsd]

Building relationships right now GhostBSD need that more​ than anything else.

[kraileth]

Yes, it's 70 EUR for that server. We can basically extend it however we please, there won't be any change in price for that. Depending on what kind of server it is, we usually charge a one-time fee for hardware upgrade and such tasks. However I can do it myself in my free time either during break or before/after work. So there wouldn't be any charge for that.

In theory we could also replace the board with something that can take more than 32GB RAM - I just don't think it's necessary or a good idea right now. But it's really that: We can use that server for that price. If we decide to put in different components that should generally not be that much of a problem. In fact we could even buy a server ourselves and just do the housing here at the DC. Considering how much of a discount this offer included, I'd expect that this would probably cut the monthly price down to 50 EUR or something. But servers are expensive and hardware can always fail. In addition to the price, that's one more reason why I personally wouldn't bother providing our own server (plus it would be total overkill for a project of this size - but who knows what the future has in store for us! ). Still that's an option that does always exist as well. We have a lot of flexibility here.