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Webspace Usage

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Webspace Usage

I recently received the following email from Plusnet

Dear Customer,

It has come to our attention that in the last 24 hours your website
has exceeded its webspace allowance.  Because your site has only
gone over the usage limit by a small amount, no action will be
taken.

Your website was using 3461 KB over its allocation in the last day.

You may be interested in upgrading to an account with a higher
webspace quota; details of the bandwidth allowances are available
on our website at the following URL:

http://www.plus.net/support/webspace/tips_and_info/webspace_faq.shtml#9

Please take precautions to ensure that the usage on your site is
reduced, as further infringements may result in your webspace being
restricted, or even removed.

Kind regards,

PlusNet Abuse Team

 

So I logged in to try and check my usage - see attached screen dump.

It indicates I have 250MB and am not using any disc spaceat all!

This is clearly wrong.

I've found some old threads dating back a to a few years ago where users have complained about a similar problem in the past.

It looks like the problem still exists.

 

Before Plusnet send out threatening emails like this, especially with a name like the 'Plusnet Abuse Team' (Is that a branch of The Spanish Inquistion?), it would be useful if...

1) Users were able to determine their current usage.

2) A gentle email was sent to notify when users are approaching their limit rather than waiting until they are over the limit and then threatening to remove their webspace.

 

 

 

 

 

15 REPLIES 15
Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Webspace Usage

Have you used it at all @briank?

If not it would point to their monitoring systems being broken, and you've used nothing hence the e-mail.
If so, then the usage page is broken registering nothing being in use.

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

Yes I am using my Webspace and may have easily exceeded the allowance without realising it.

250MB is a pretty small allowance now that storage costs have dropped over the years.

Many Free Web Hosting providers offer tens of GB of space.

 

Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Webspace Usage

Yes @briank

It's not much and sounds like your requirements have exceeded it now.

I've not used free web hosting providers, so I don't know what the catch is. I used to have a hosted VPS, which is probably more than what I needed at the time but it was good fun.

Are you just using it as a data store, or are you hosting a site?

I would be very careful, from storing data remotely. This is what has happened to me:

  1. One on-line backup company wiped my files after sending me a whinging e-mail that I hadn't synced it with my PC for a while. Well I didn't need to as I had no further data to add, so I didn't start their app for a while. They sent me an e-mail moaning that I hadn't synced it back to my computer and said "We are not a data archiving company". Errrm, yes I think you are, it is a bit like PlusNet saying we're not an internet service provider Crazy2 I was actually paying for that (lack of service).
  2. My VPS company. Couldn't log in, RDP was down. Raised a fault. The VPS was running Windows Server 2003, and was told they can't bring the VPS back as they don't support it anymore. Fair enough it is an old OS by now. Though I should have been notified in advance to say, "We're closing these machines down as they're end of life, you have 30 days". I was send a mass e-mail after it had happened, and I pay a year in advance. So £160 for another came out at the same time as my VPS went down. When I contacted them they said "We don't do VPS'es anymore, you can go to our sister company who will give you three months free". Then I think, "Well all very well me getting three months free, but that leaves me having paid for 9 months for a service you can't provide". They did refund me in the end, but that is surely not legal? (paying for a service they can't provide?).

If you don't mind the extra cost, I would use on-line backup but also have a means to make local ones whether it be CD-R, DVD-R or BD-R (which I use). Then I suppose you've got flash cards, SSD and external HD's.

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

I'm not using the Plusnet Webspace as a data store - it is used for my Photo Gallery website.

It's been going since 2004.

I keep adding new images as time goes by, so the usage gradually increases.

I have read that although Free Web Hosting can offer up to 250GB of space, they can be slow, unreliable, lack support and can inject advertising in ways you have no control over.

 

Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Webspace Usage

Ok fair enough @briank

I used to do something similar, there was some free PHP photo software I hosted once. Think it was called Gallery2? Though it would need a MySQL database to store the info for the files, but it meant you could make changes just logging in as an admin, and upload them/make changes from the web. No messing around FTP'ing, etc.

I'd imagine there would be a catch with ads though (that would do my head in).

I guess you can sign up for a free account, copy your site across and see if you get on with it.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Webspace Usage

@briank - You could always get a fixed IP (£5 One off cost) and host the site yourself, that way the capacity is up to you. The only downsides are that you'd need to update DNS to point your domain to your new fixed IP, but I'm sure this is doable, and if your site is busy suffer the loss of bandwidth to support the visitors.

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

I already have fixed IP and a registered co.uk domain name that points to my plusnet webspace.

To host the site myself I would need to have a local PC powered on all the time, which I don't want.

Also, even though I have FTTP,  I suspect upload speeds might be a bottleneck.

I don't want to pay for Web Hosting as it's only a hobby.

 

 

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

I think I read that it may be possible to use Google Drive to host a website.

Anyone tried it?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Webspace Usage

That’s fair comment @briank, but for what it’s worth (nothing) you could easily get away with a Raspberry Pi as the server. Also, in order to encounter a bottleneck on your or indeed any VSDL product you’d need to have a lot, and I mean a lot of concurrent connections, all downloading at the same time, but your web-stats would tell you the likelihood of this.

But if you’re site is that popular then maybe consider moving it to another host and absorbing the cost, after all it implies that people are interested in what you have to offer so why not feed that interest.

jelv
Seasoned Hero
Posts: 26,785
Thanks: 971
Fixes: 10
Registered: ‎10-04-2007

Re: Webspace Usage


@briank wrote:

I think I read that it may be possible to use Google Drive to host a website.

Anyone tried it?


How about a hybrid of that, website itself on Plusnet but linking to images on Google Drive or similar?

jelv (a.k.a Spoon Whittler)
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briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

hmmm - looks like using Google Drive to host a web site finished in 2016:-

https://lunarpages.com/end-road-google-drive-web-hosting-service/

 

pentwyn
Grafter
Posts: 41
Thanks: 6
Registered: ‎31-07-2007

Re: Webspace Usage

I had a similar email yesterday, but apparently I had exceeded the limit by 80MB, so they've "archived" my site, and told me to open a support ticket to get it restored.

I've checked the space used (51% of 250 MB) and also the traffic by looking at the webstats page (42MB out of the 250MB/day allocation for the 31st Dec).

I suspect a problem with their monitoring routine on the transition to 1st Jan 2018 (?).

I've opened a support ticket but no response yet.

I fully agree with your message that they are taking a very heavy handed and not at all customer friendly approach. 

 

Rhys

Alex
Community Veteran
Posts: 5,500
Thanks: 921
Fixes: 13
Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Webspace Usage

I agree with @Anonymous here, although there is a cost I would go for paid for hosting.

Or a VPS - cost me around £160 per year, but was nice to RDP into it and do what I want. Think the VM had around 50Gb of storage, of which you had around 38Gb free with the OS and all the other software you had on there. That had PHP and MySQL on it, so you could host what you wanted. I don't think that came with any transfer limits, so all you had to watch was the disk usage.

I'll only take another VPS out if I run another site. I was only using it for e-mail in the end (POP3) and a IT friend of mine told me why not use Exchange instead. So I changed my domains DNS and took out Microsoft Exchange hosting, which is what I am using now.

You seem to be taking quite an interest in running your site, as do people looking at it - so I would do the job properly if you don't mind the cost. If I were in your position, I would want to avoid a scenario where people start thinking "I am not looking at their site, it never works".

briank
Grafter
Posts: 64
Thanks: 7
Registered: ‎15-04-2010

Re: Webspace Usage

I am still unable to determine my current webspace usage - it still shows zero.

Anyone know how I raise this with Plusnet support?

I believe the 'raise ticket' process no longer exists.

I tried the 'online chat' a few times without success - it's always busy.