[Hcoop-discuss] I need disk space

[ntk at hcoop.net]

First I would again like to address Terrence's concerns about the quotas
by saying that having quotas is simply essential for running a large
multiuser system.  We've had enough downtime already due to multi-user
issues, and without quotas it is simply too easy for a runaway script to
eat up all disk space and DoS everyone.

That said, I don't think any user who wants more space should have to
justify it.  You should just ask for it, and as long as there is extra,
unclaimed available space you should get a bigger quota.  It makes no
sense to talk about swapping it with users whose needs are less, just
because they are using less.  There's no need to reduce another user's
quota just because one user's quota is increased.

However, we will obviously need a policy soon regarding this, since we
have no policy right now other than "request more space if you need it." 
And basically, at some point we will need to charge users with outsize
disk usage extra.  There should be no need to pay for extra "accounts," we
can come up with a fair and equitable pricing scheme for paying extra to
add to your quota.  The reason this will be necessary, if it isn't
already, is that disk space is one limiting factor and if one user is
using half the disk space on the server that's a resource that otherwise
accomodate many other (paying) users.

I'm not sure what the exact state of disk space is right now, perhaps
there's not even a need to charge extra for an extra 5 gig right now.  But
the pricing should relate somehow to the typical user's disk usage, the
relative pricing charged by our hosting provider for larger drives (if
available), and the contention among users for the available disk space. 
I would like to hear opinions from the admins regarding this.  It would be
good to draw up a sensible policy that we could apply to everyone rather
than dealing with every quota request on an individual basis.

The same logic regarding disk space goes towards bandwidth as well, since
at some point we may start exceeding our free bandwidth.  However it would
be easier to price bandwidth (assuming we can compute total bandwidth
including non-apache bandwidth), since there's no limit to how much
bandwidth we can use in a month and we can apportion costs proportionately
as we did with abulafia.

-ntk

> Clinton Ebadi wrote:
>>
>> I think it would make more sense to allow users to pay for an extra
>> account if they want to increase their quotas. N accounts = N * quota
>> space. It would be like adding the virtual accounts that a few users
>> have for others right now.
>>
>> The increase in cost is so small that it shouldn't matter...
>>
>
> That makes the most sense.  It is much easier to track who pays for
> extra space than who gave up space, and therefore require a discount to
> compensate.
>
> Ryan