quick downloads

That would be too much of a load page, click, go to another site situation, we try to encourage user generated content and having a simple overview with a download link would not allow much feedback from the user.

 

At this point we're not even interested in getting a lot more visitors, especially not of the kind that clicks a link and leave. We already have plenty for what our connection can handle.

 

Currently we average at about 5500 - 6000 visitors a day, which means the connection is already spread pretty thin. We are always looking for ways to improve our service; but at this point that does not include making the site a one-click download site.

 

Ok, let me give you an explanation here, this is my field of specialism after all.

The stated speed of a standard ethernet network is 100 Megabits per second, which translates to a throughput of 12.5 MegaBytes per second. (8 bits = 1 byte, so 100 / 8 = 12.5) This is a theoretical maximum. According to this, 60 * 60 = 3,600 seconds in an hour, * 24 hours in a day gives 86,400 seconds in 24 hours. Multiply this by 12.5 gives us 1,080,000 MegaBytes, or just over 1TeraByte in a 24 hour period. This is what our server is theoretically capable of pushing in a day.

Now, let us examine why this will not happen:

An experiment carried out by myself and our linux guru (we're classmates at university) in a lab, with as near to perfect conditions as possible; achieved an average throughput of 11.55MegaBytes per second. If we put this through our previous formula, we get 86,400 * 11.55 = 997,920 MegaBytes per 24 hour period. Already we are below one TeraByte; and this is still under near perfect conditions (only 2 machines communicating, only 4 on the switch, one switch and no other hardware; cable lengths under 50meters) The latency (=delay) was exceptionally low.

In reality, the internet is far from perfect conditions. Your data goes through tens, if not hundreds of routers and switches, all which add latency and reduce your speed very slightly. There are different sized connections; it's not all 100MegaBits per second all the way, some faster, some slower. Some routes are more congested, others less congested. each 'packet' of data sent to you probably came via a different route to the previous one. This is the nature of the internet, it is what we call a 'best effort' network. Some of your data gets lost en route, and has to be retransmitted, reducing the speed further. On top of all that; there's distance. The maximum cable length for a 100MegaBit per second network is 100 meters. Anything longer, speed is degraded, error rate increases. this necessitates the use of repeater stations that rebuild the data packet and retransmit; but this adds more latency. Even Fiber, which is very commonly used for long distance communications, requires repeater stations every 2 Kilometers.

All this adds together to give us a realistic maximum monthly transfer limit of about 10TeraBytes a month (according to our datacenter techs, who have access to a lot of performance data). So, to be pushing between 100 and 200GigaBytes per day, we're doing pretty damn well.

(conversions to help: 8 bits = 1 Byte, 1024Bytes = 1KiloByte, 1024KiloBytes = 1MegaByte, 1024MegaBytes = 1GigaByte, 1024GigaBytes = 1TeraByte, so 1Megabit = 1,204,000bits (a bit is the smallest unit of data in common use)

If you want to know more about how the internet works in non-technical terms, I strongly suggest you download the video from http://www.warriorsofthe.net and watch it.

 

yes the forum and website are on the same server, we can't afford more than one at present.

I've just finished my second year of a BSc in Networks and am also half way through my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate), so networks really are my field