It would be sad to see the end of the Bygone Era due to storage implications owing to a free site host - now more than ever, given that so much effort has gone into it, and interest (so far) has seemed to be great. Go North East must have also been interested in the Bygone Era, as in the mention we received on the "Enthusiast Area" on their website, it also mentions the Bygone Era. The site has also been mentioned on other blogs and websites too, which proves that the Bygone Era is known all across the Internet, from people across the full country.
At present, the exisiting files in the Bygone Era add up to double the size of the site's SQL database. The forum (attachments included) is very small in size in comparison to the files we're adding to the server in this way. Having said that, should our reach expand even further (which it is), this will inevitably grow in size. If we've reached our storage limitation on the server, we ought to act quickly though. It shouldn't affect us immediately, but will do in time. 15GB of files has already been proposed to be donated to the Bygone Era, and that's from one person alone. Should our reach expand, we have the potential of gaining more people who wish to share also.
I have taken the liberty of finding the host plan used by my very good friend who owns three (or more) websites - one of which I manage. The plan he uses allows for:
- 50,000MB Storage.
- Unlimited Bandwidth.
- 5 Parked Domains.
- 5 Addon Domains.
This costs $5.00/month. This host's best value is given when you buy in bulks of two to three years at a time. This works out at approximately £120 for three years. Though this seems an expensive outlay in the beginning, it is most definitely worth it. The host provider suggested to us by my friend cannot be recommended highly enough, he has used them for almost four years now and only ever had minor issues, which are to be expected with any hosting provider. In terms of value for money, I'm sure members of this community with any knowledge of website hosting will agree that it is just brilliant. My friend also noted the support was marvellous too - though our administration team (mainly Liam) are most definitely equipped to deal with any problems that occur at all.
Even still, we believe that this will not be enough. That will most likely just cover the files being proposed to be added to the Bygone Era in the 15GB batch I mentioned above. Should any further opportunities arise for files to be added - we just couldn't. Once we've paid for it, I don't believe we can go back either. Should we go for the best value payment, we need to make sure that we go for the most efficient plan also. We need enough storage space to ensure that we are covered for the whole three years, but we cannot expect anybody to pay an upfront fee of £120 just like that. In our current economy, it's almost impossible to pay such a fee upfront - and suggesting that a group of people whose primary age group is teen and early adults is a little silly.
As for donations, an upfront donation of £200 was given to the website I manage. This covered all websites that my friend owns for three to four years. I believe the hosting paid for by said member of that website is still ongoing, perhaps due to expire next year. I can't remember how this money was transferred, but the founder of the website was rather close with the guy who donated such a large sum of money. I don't believe there were any tax implications involved though...? No proof was given (other than the ongoing running of the website) that the money had gone into the maintenance of the website though.
