Hi fellow subscribers, Below are two messages from Dr. Brian Leverich, the RootsWeb owner, discussing some costs for operating the RootsWeb server. As you may know, RootsWeb is funded through voluntary contributions from users like you and I. Please review the personal benefits derived from becoming an annual contributing RootsWeb Member, Sponsor or Donor and how the contributions are used at the following website: http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html I wish to extend my appreciation to those who have already made voluntary contributions by becoming either a RootsWeb Member, Sponsor or Donor. Those who have contributed to RootsWeb are encouraged to indicate your RootsWeb membership status in your signature line when posting queries or responses to the surname discussion list(s). The cost to operate RootsWeb in Fiscal Year ending July 1997 was about $60,000; and, FY98 is anticipated to cost about $150,000. Please take the time to read both of Brian's messages which are appended below. Thanks for your time and support. Jim Young List Moderator RootsWeb Donor ======================================== ======================================== Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:24:31 -0800 From: Brian Leverich <leverich@rootsweb.com> To: listowners@rootsweb.com, rootsweb-help@rootsweb.com cc: "Dr. Brian Leverich" <leverich@rootsweb.com> Message-Id: <199802111824.KAA06943@bl-5.rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: Cost of new search engine box Hi all - This is a question that was posed in private e-mail by a member of the RootsWeb Webmaster/Listowner community. I'm passing along the question and my answer to everyone because other folks might be wondering about this. Cheers, B. -- Your message was: > Brian Leverich wrote: > > > The new search engine box is under construction on my bench now. I > > can't accurately predict to the day, but if we don't have any > > further serious disruptions (the power failures last week were sort > > of the disruptions from Hell ... ) I expect we'll have searches up > > within a week. > > > What's the cost of something like this? > > I would like to make a contribution to RootsWeb and designate it toward the > cost of the new search engine box. > > I realize it's not just a matter of money and that your time is also hard > to come by. I hope my post about the search engine wasn't taken as > impatience or ungratefulness. ------------------ Hi - The prebuilt VArServer 3000 we have on order from VA Research will cost us $13,500. That server is planned to be used as the upgrade to the current www.rootsweb.com server. The old www.rootsweb.com will replace the current mailhub.rootsweb.com, which in turn will become a dedicated DNS/MX server: nothing ever goes to waste at RootsWeb. (: The handbuilt search engine server, which is slightly larger/faster than the VArServer 3000, has cost us about: Server case & heavy duty power supply $ 500.00 Motherboard $ 500.00 Pentium Pro 200 CPUs w 512KB caches[2] $ 1,000.00 128 MB EDO SIMMs[8] $ 3,200.00 RAID-5 caching disk controller $ 1,800.00 Seagate Barracuda 9 GB ultrawide SCSI drives[5] $ 4,500.00 Tape backup $ 500.00 IDE 4GB system drive $ 200.00 3COM 3C900 100Mb ethernet adapter $ 100.00 Video board $ 100.00 CDROM drive $ 100.00 Keyboard & mouse $ 100.00 Misc cables, mounting brackets, & such $ 100.00 ---------- $12,700.00 Any contribution you can make would, of course, be much appreciated. BTW, and folks don't often realize this, it really is *much* more a matter of money than my time because money can easily substitute for my time. VA Research servers cost about 15-20% more than the machines I can handbuild, but buying preconfigured machines saves oodles of my time. If RootsWeb ran at less of a loss, we'd always be buying prebuilt servers and using my time that was freed up to do more useful things like getting whizzier cgi-bin tools set up for the Webmasters and Listowners. Cheers, B. -- Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative http://www.rootsweb.com/ P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 leverich@rootsweb.com ============================== Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:18:06 -0800 From: Brian Leverich <leverich@rootsweb.com> To: purplevw@sl.net cc: listowners@rootsweb.com, "Dr. Brian Leverich" <leverich@rootsweb.com> Message-Id: <199802120018.QAA09024@bl-5.rootsweb.com> Subject: Re: Cost of new search engine box - etc -- Your message was: (from "purplevw@sl.net") > Ahh, this is a good time to ask my burning question. If I wanted to > send this message to my subscribers (about 1000 to 1500 now) is it: > > A good idea? ------------------ It's a good idea, *but certainly not at all an obligation*. Here's why it's a good idea. RootsWeb costs *real* money to operate -- about $60,000 in our fiscal year that ended in July 1997 and, with demand growing at about 15% per month, we expect to spend in the neighborhood of $150,000 this year. And that's just barely scraping by on servers and bandwidth. More income would let us buy more prebuilt servers, which would help us do things like get the archives back on line faster and add other whizziness for the Webmasters and Listowners. Also, more income would let us do what we *really* want to be doing, which is buying genealogical data and uploading it to the Web for everyone to freely use. Our experience has been that posts listmasters have passed on to their lists are our single best source of income. So it's great and we *much* appreciate it when listowners help us fundraise. BUT IT'S NOT AN OBLIGATION !!! No listowner has an obligation to even mention RootsWeb on their lists. Thanks to everyone for their support! If it weren't for RootsWeb's Members, Sponsors, and Donors, there wouldn't be a RootsWeb. -B -- Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative http://www.rootsweb.com/ P.O. Box 6798, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6798 leverich@rootsweb.com