Expected Site Downtime through August 1st

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Jordan

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Great news! GTPlanet will be moving to a new, more powerful dedicated server within the next few days. With the continued growth of the site, along with the looming release of Gran Turismo 5, now is the time to perform such changes in infrastructure. Moving a site like GTPlanet is an intensive exercise, and I ask for your patience should other less urgent issues crop up between now and then. The bad news is, of course, that due to the "live" nature of our forums, they must be temporarily closed while we transfer the data to our new server. Once the forums have been transferred to the new machine, they will be re-opened, but there will be a delay amongst local DNS servers before they "point" our site address to our new location. To minimize your own downtime, move your own DNS servers to OpenDNS - an excellent (and free) DNS provider. I use OpenDNS myself, and will be manually refreshing their cache to point to our new server as quickly as possible. GTPlanet.org will remain unaffected, and I encourage you to keep an eye on the site should any complications arise.

With that said, I want to thank all of our GTPremium members and Der Alta, who has funded many of their subscriptions as prizes through various competitions. Real server hardware costs real money, and our latest move to a Dual-core Xeon server with 4GB of RAM and a 250GB RAID array would not be possible without your continued support! Thank you not only for helping me support this growing corner of the web, but also for the technical knowledge I continue to gain as our site grows in size. Wish me luck with the move, and we'll see you on the other side! :)
 
Yay, new bigger faster shinier toy! :D

Good luck with the move. As always, we appreciate your unwavering dedication to the site. :) Are you going to start the move today?
 
Thanks, Sage. I hope to begin transferring some static files today, but there is still much configuration and tweaking required on the new box before it will be ready to carry the load of the site.
 
Phew, thats alright I'm not here when this happens anyway. Glad to know that my Premium subscription is helping the community as well as everyone else's. Good luck Jordan!
 
So GTP will be faster, stronger, better than before. Jordan has the technology. :D

Sounds good Jordan, I hope all goes well. 👍
 
I hope the transfer goes smoothly, Jordan! 👍
 
Good to see Premium money going toward more than just rims :p
 
Good to know we gonna have a powerful GTP!!

BTW...sorry for the dumb question, the adress will be the same right, GTPlanet.net?!
 
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Hope everything goes well. Maybe I should get premium?
 
Nice to know Jordan! :)

I am still scared when you commented on the "color scheme" changes... :scared:
 
Can we expect some sort of IRC channel maybe? :D That would be nice.
 
What are the specs of the server thats now delivering this site to me? ;)
Our current server is a three year old HP DL140 with dual Xeons @ 2.4 Ghz, 2GB of RAM, and two hard drives (80 GB primary, 250 GB backup drive). Despite our backups, this is a dangerous configuration for such a rapidly changing site, as it completely depends on the health of that single drive. Our new server features two hot-swappable 250 GB drives in a RAID 1 array. If either drive fails, the server will continue to function without interruption. Some of you may remember when this very problem actually happened to us a while back...


Awesome. Will we expect faster page loads as well?
Pages will probably be generated faster, but I doubt it will result in a noticable difference in browsing speed. The primary goal of this upgrade is to create a more stable and scalable foundation for the site to function on.

Good to know we gonna have a powerful GTP!!

BTW...sorry for the dumb question, the adress will be the same right, GTPlanet.net?!
Yes, everything about the site will remain exactly the same after the server move.

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Hope everything goes well. Maybe I should get premium?
It certainly wouldn't hurt. :)
 
Hey that sounds fun Jordan. So where is this server? I mean, my cousin has a server in his closet for his buddies. Is it that sort of server--for gaming--or is it different?
 
Good luck, Jordan! Like Sage said previously, as always, we all appreciate the hard work you put into this website. Some of us consider it a second home. That would make you almost like a foster parent.

Scrap that, I cost too much food-wise. I'd feel bad. :D
 
I'm glad to see the money I put out, other GTPremium members put out, and Der Alta put out into use! 👍 Hope the move goes smoothly Jordan. :)
 
Hope the moving goes well 👍

For those few days the site is gonna be down, ill have nothing else to do on the net :(
 
I am glad that GTP is going to get even better.:) Mind you I hope it does not take to long as I will miss it even for a short space of time!
 
Sorry if this sounds dumb but how long would the move to the new server?I just can't sit here and do nothing.But a great job none the less.Hope the transition is smooth and faultless.Oh yeah,is gtplanet.org still running then?As for me,i could get some ideas on what to do....Myspace anyone? :)
 
Good luck with the move, Jordan. The current setup sounds ridiculously dangerous for a dedicated server. Kinda surprised we weren’t already using RAID 1, to be honest…

Scrap that, I cost too much food-wise. I'd feel bad. :D

You never seem to feel bad when you make me give you pizza! :crazy:
 
So, we're getting a new server and a new coat for GTP as well?


:drool: That's like a birthday present to me!........:indiff:


:dopey: Anyway! Good luck with the move Jordan, good to know where my money...Errr, I mean, Touring Mars' money goes to :D
 
I know absolutely nothing about what you are attempting here, other than to say that i think you are moving all the data from one box thing with flashy lights on, to another box thing with flashy lights on that has 2 big spinny things inside instead of one big spinny thing and a smaller backup spinny thing like we are currently using.
Im assuming that the 2 big spinny things will mean that my daily dose of GTP will continue uninterrupted for the forseeable future, and thats a good thing. So on that note i wish you luck.
I would help, but i live too far away.
Thanx for doing this though Jordan, we all 98,945 of us (at time of writing) really appreciate what you do here.
👍
How long does this sort of transition take in real terms. I know problems will arise, and their timescales cannot be anticipated, but roughly, on a scale of hours/days what are we looking at?
:irked:👍
 
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