HelioHost is raising funds to purchase a new server!
Summary of thank you gifts (see below for details):
- $5 = +1000 MB on existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $10 = +2000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $15 = +3000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $20 = +4000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $25 = +5000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $30 = +6000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account.
- $35 = Early beta access to new Java and JSP hosting server before it is publicly available.
- $40 = +1000 MB on existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
- $45 = +2000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
- $50 = +3000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
- $55 = +4000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
- $60 = +5000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
- $65+ = +6000 MB (to a max of 7000 MB) on an existing Morty, Tommy, or Johnny account, plus early beta access to new Java server.
In 2005, Ashoat, who was 14 years old at the time, came up with the ridiculous idea of giving away web hosting for free. He purchased the domain heliohost.org and a reseller plan, but it wasn't too long before there were so many people wanting to host their website for free on HelioHost that Ashoat had to buy a server to support them all. He named that first server Stevie. HelioHost now has several more servers, but Stevie is special because he was the first. We used that server as long as we could, but it eventually became too old to do anything useful anymore, so we unplugged it. We are going to hand poor old Stevie over to the recyclers soon, but that doesn't have to be the end for him...
2025 is HelioHost's 20-year anniversary, and what better way to celebrate this milestone than by reflecting on where we came from, and taking the next step towards where we are going. We can keep the spirit of Stevie alive to carry on his purpose even after his metal, copper, and silicon have all been melted down, by raising funds for a new server and naming it Stevie.
The old Stevie had 8 GB of memory, and the new Stevie will have 192 GB of memory. The old Stevie had a Core2 Quad with 4 CPU cores, and the new Stevie will have dual Xeon Golds with 36 total CPU cores. The old Stevie had a single 500 GB hard drive, and the new Stevie will have over 10,560 GB of drives in raid arrays including SSD drives. That's quite an upgrade!
Another piece of exciting news is we're going to be adding free Java and JSP hosting to our lineup again soon. If you've been around for a while you might remember that HelioHost used to have support for Java until 2021 when we switched to Plesk. There have been so many other higher priority things to get fixed over the last few years, but the time for free Java hosting to return has finally arrived. We will be using the money we raise from this fundraiser to set up a new server where we can test free Java hosting. Anyone who donates $35 or more will receive an invite to help beta test the new Java hosting before it is publicly available. Due to the uncertainty of how long this fundraiser will take to complete we can't give any concrete ETA right now as to when you will be able to help beta test our new Java server, but we will keep you updated as the time gets closer, and email you when we're ready for your help testing out the new features.
Our primary purpose, and our mission as a non-profit, is to provide free hosting, but as you can probably imagine free hosting is very popular. Our free plan is so crowded right now that the uptime has dropped to 95.83% and signups continue to fill in less than a second most days. The only solution to this issue is we need more server space for free accounts. This fundraiser will directly address that issue by allowing us to set up a new free hosting server which should allow us to provide at least twice as many free accounts as we can currently support.
The current storage limit for Morty, Tommy, and Johnny is 6000 MB, but starting with this fundraiser we are increasing the limit to 7000 MB. Anyone who donates $5 or more will have their storage increased by 1000 MB per $5 to a maximum of 7000 MB. This storage space increase is good for the life of the account, so you just need to donate once, and you will continue to have increased storage as long as HelioHost still exists.
Our VPS service is also very popular, and our VPS hosting service is so good that some of our customers have been with us since 2018 without canceling. Therefore the space we have to build new VPS is dwindling. We aren't 100% full right now, but we're getting close. We would like to avoid having a VPS waitlist again like we have sometimes been forced to do in the past. This fundraiser will directly address this issue as well because a portion of the memory and hard drive space on Stevie will be set aside to make room for new VPS customers.
Finally our free plan had a major crash back in July and some people even lost portions of their data. We agree completely with everyone involved that it was a horrible situation, and we want to make sure that never happens again. This fundraiser will directly address that issue as well by making sure that we have all of our servers, even the free ones, on redundant raid arrays with reliable hard drive health monitoring. We will be purchasing additional spare hard drives to have ready in our cabinet in case our health monitoring begins to show a problem. That way we can continue to have great uptime in the future, without any data loss whatsoever.
Please don't let Stevie be forgotten. It will only take you a minute to give us a gift to help us achieve this goal. The money you donate is tax-deductible, and any amount big or small helps get us a step closer. Thank you so much!