ByteSized 2.0 is here!
Today marks a important milestone in Bytesized history! Today we are upgrading Bytesized with all-new plans, a new layout and new features.
A fresh new design
Thanks to your support the Bytesized website has grown a lot over the last 17 months. As we have continued to add features and goodies, our old layout had begun to show its age. Things became more and more cluttered so we decided to scrap the layout and start from scratch. Today we launch the new site, with a new menu structure that better supports our content and looks a lot lighter and fresher. We are really excited about the upgrade, and we think you will be as well.
A new provider
Now that the obvious thing is out of the way let's get to the important bits. We feel that Bytesized's strong suit is our dedication to providing our members the best service we can. Over the past few months it became apparent that the weakest link in our support structure is our current hosting provider. It was clear that if we wanted to provide a better experience for the community then we were going to have to find a new host. That day has come. We are therefore proud to announce a new partnership with Leaseweb, the leading dedicated hosting provider in Europe.
LeaseWeb will provide us with better hardware, better routing, more options for future growth, and, most importantly, even better service which we will gladly pass on to you! This agreement is a huge step forward for the Bytesized community.
A limited time offer
We would like to move all of our customers to the new, improved service as quickly as possible. Therefore, we will be giving all of our current members a limited-time exclusive upgrade opportunity. Select members will be able to upgrade their plans and move to a superior LeaseWeb box at no extra charge for three months. We are offering it on a per-server basis. After the three month trial period ends, you will be able to continue on that plan for a small increase in pricing (detailed in the chart below) or drop to a lower tier if price is a more primary concern.
Gourmet Box: 300GB diskspace, first three months: €14, thereafter €15.
Double Binge Box: 600GB diskspace, first three months: €16, thereafter €18.
Sous Chef's Box: 900GB diskspace, first three months: €24, thereafter €27.
Chef's Suprise: 1.8TB diskspace, first three months: €46, thereafter €50.
Again, these plans are only available to current members and for a limited time. This offer at these prices will never be available for new members. Only members currently using our previous plans (Lunch Box, Dinner Box, Binge Box) are eligible.
If you are eligible for the upgrade you will receive an email and you will see the following message when you are logged in on our website. Just follow the instructions to reserve your spot. You can apply for an upgrade at anytime upto the 9th of June as we will start the first deployments around this date. When we are deploying the new accounts we will give priority to the bigger plans over the smaller ones. When you are deployed to one of the new servers you will receive a refund in credits for the amount of days left on your old plan. You can read about the whole procedure here.
Loyalty discounts
With the new plans we are also launching two new features that we feel will reward loyal members: Referral and Time-based discounts.
You will receive a 1% discount on all your invoices for each active member you referred to Bytesized. Note that your referrals should have an active box, otherwise they won't give you a discount. You can view your referrals here.
The other discount is based on the age of your active box. If your box is older then 6 months you will automatically receive a 5% discount, when your box is a year old this will be increased to 10%. These discounts only apply to the new plans and will not work on our old plans. Both type of discounts stack so in an ideal situation you could get up to 20% discount on your boxes. These discounts are not set in stone and we might need to adjust them in the future.
We are very excited about the new plans, servers and provider and we really hope you guys love it as well. Because in the end everything we do is to give you guys a better experience.
The Bytesized Team
Here is a little mini-f.a.q., feel free to leave questions in the comments.
Why is my server not eligible?
Server eligibility is based on server renew date with server.lu. Once current round of upgrades finishes we will probably offer the same possibility to other users.
Will you be transfering my data from the old box to the new one?
No, all your data will be lost when we deploy you to one of our new servers. Moving all those accounts is just to big of task and will severely slow down this transition.
I don't see the message that I'm eligible for the new plans!
We are not moving everybody at the same time, once the first batch of servers are moved we will start the process again. Just sit tight and keep your eye on the site news and blog for updates.
Do the new servers still come with unlimited bandwidth?
Yes, servers are on 100Mbit unmetered line .
I've had my old plan for over six months, I want to move but wouldn't I start all over again for my time-discount?
No, when you upgrade to our new plans we will copy you deployment date from your old account over to the new one. The time based discount starts working right away if you apply.
If everybody gets deployed at the same time, wouldn't that result in slower servers since everybody is playing with their new toys at the same time.
Yes, I'm afraid that is a real risk. We have bought a large batch of servers so we are spreading the accounts as equally as possible very likely that during the first week the server will feel slower then you are used to. Don't worry though this problem will solve itself over time.
What's the hardware like?
Enterprise level components, more disks to spread disk input/out, and a faster cpu!
What if I don't want to move, I love my server as it is.
Because we need to cancel a whole lot of servers we might be forced to move you, and your data, to a server we are not canceling.
I still have a question! I'm going to mail you!
Please don't! If all of you start emailing me I will have to answer the same questions over and over again, please ask it here in the comments so other members can benefit from it as well :)
May 24th, 2011 - 13:54
no email, no message for upgrade… T_T
May 24th, 2011 - 14:57
Patience young padawan! Everybody will get the offer, some just sooner then others :)
May 24th, 2011 - 14:58
that means your server is not available for upgrade yet, just a little bit more patience :)
May 24th, 2011 - 15:25
First of all, thanks for all the detailed information you are giving out to make the process as transparent as possible for the customers.
Maybe you could provide an example of how a possible transfer would look like?
For example (this is how I see it anyway):
Now (member for more than 6 months):
110GB Lunchbox at 13,50€ + VAT = 16,07€ per month
After the transfer (for the first 3 months):
300GB Gourmet Box at 14,00€ + VAT – 5% (time-based discount) = 15,96€ per month
After the first three months:
300GB Gourmet Box at 15,00€ + VAT – 5% (time-based discount) = 17,10€ per month
Is this correct?
Also, I didn’t get an email, but got the upgrade button, so that’s fine. Just to let you guys know..
May 24th, 2011 - 15:58
They are almost correct! Vat is calculated after all discounts are applied.
So first three months would be 15.82 and after the first three months: 16.95!
We haven’t send out the mass email yet, we are still fixing all kinds of little quirks in the new layout! :)
May 24th, 2011 - 15:59
Yes, that is correct( if your math is right :P). Mail will be sent when transfer to new server starts.
June 1st, 2011 - 09:43
Just a reminder to non-Europeans. We don’t get charged the VAT.
So the Gourmet Box will be a flat 14 Euro and then 15 Euro after 3 months Then if you are eligible get the 5% loyalty bonus.
So looking at 14.25 Euro. Not bad, for 75c we get 190Gb more space.
Nice work
June 1st, 2011 - 10:13
Just to correct you a bit: non-EU members don’t pay taxes too. There is a (small) part of Europe that is not in EU :P
June 1st, 2011 - 13:17
Fair call :)
Don’t want to upset the Swiss in any way do I :)
May 24th, 2011 - 16:33
OK thankfully this is still awaiting moderation… LOL I re-read again, and understand that it doesnt upgrade until we get the new servers, so I completed the upgrade request, and saw the option for utorrent there, both questions answered Thanks guys!!
May 24th, 2011 - 17:53
I see the upgrade link on my Dashboard but haven’t yet received any mail.
If I select to upgrade, how much do I have until my old seedbox stops working?
May 24th, 2011 - 18:37
Please read the wiki article about the procedure, your answer is in there :) http://wiki.bytesized-hosting.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrade_Procedure
May 24th, 2011 - 20:45
OK, so I was a member a month or so ago but cancelled. If I sign up now, I’m offered the old boxes. What will happen then? At some point in the near future I’ll be moved or the new boxes are old being offered to existing customers?
May 24th, 2011 - 21:27
These special offers are for members with active service only. Sorry :)
May 25th, 2011 - 06:04
Sorry, I understand the special offers are. But, if I order an older server which is no-longer going to exist, what would I end up with?
May 25th, 2011 - 07:49
We are only deploying on servers that are not marked to be cancelled. You will get your chance eventually but this might take a few months or weeks, it’s too uncertain to tell you at this moment.
May 24th, 2011 - 22:50
I feel like Fry right now…”shut up and take my money”. Patiently waiting for that upgrade link
May 24th, 2011 - 22:56
Hey, new site looks nice, going to miss the darker skin a bit though. :)
Good deals, you’d be mad NOT to do it I reckon.
Simple question, and I think I already know the answer. (sorry).
My accounts due for renewel on the 6th or so, so flow chart equals:
Apply now > Pay old acc on 6th as usual > Deploy new account on about the 12th or so > Invoices generated when new box is deployed (1 credit, 1 debit) > credits get redeemed on 12th (or so), of the following month.
Am I understanding that right?
Only asking, for I am but a humble carers pensioner, and to get the other 20 euros (funny money), for 1 month will require planning on my part, as my ppal is usually terminally empty.
If what I’ve written above is right, I’m be in like flynn buddy. Looking forward to it.
Thanks for your time. And good job. As usual.
May 26th, 2011 - 09:23
Yes you are pretty much right. If you pay on the 6th and deploy you on the 12th, those six days will be taken of the euro sum and the rest will be added as credit. Just add the difference for the new box and you are good to go :)
May 25th, 2011 - 07:19
Hello,
I’m on the lunch-box plan and ive been for the past 11 days, If i upgrade to Gourmet Box do i have to pay extra money?
May 25th, 2011 - 07:50
You will have to pay 50 cent more when the servers get delivered in a few weeks time.
May 25th, 2011 - 08:16
So all i would be paying is an extra 50 cents for an extra 3 months? Whats with the refund policy?
Don’t you refund how many days my plan has left and then i pay the 14 euro?
So if i upgrade to the new servers the Gourmet box, i will only be charged an extra 50 cents?
Thanks :)
May 25th, 2011 - 13:46
Can a referral be someone who had signed for the OVH plan?
May 25th, 2011 - 14:10
Yes, it doesn’t matter which plan they are using as long as it is active and they used your referral link when they signed up.
May 25th, 2011 - 19:49
accidentally requestet two deployments, didn’t see the box indicating my first request. hope this doesnt cause any trouble, sorry
May 25th, 2011 - 20:02
If you give me your account name I will cancel one of them to make sure it all works out :)
May 25th, 2011 - 20:06
Where does this leave the little old Snack Box users? I really liked the price point of €8.5 a month and I’ve never really come close to maxing out my space. Is the only upgrade option closest in price the Gourmet box?
May 25th, 2011 - 20:17
Yes, I’m afraid we have too much space to give smaller boxes. It would inflate the amount of users needed per server too much. Once this whole move is over we might make a tinyplan around the 8 euro mark with a bandwidth limit though. But for now we focus all our attention on the problem before us.
May 26th, 2011 - 14:10
I never thought about the fact a smaller box would equal more users. So that makes perfect sense.
I’ve really enjoyed the service and experience here at Bytesized, so I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Now I got to find more stuff to fill all that space up.
May 26th, 2011 - 15:03
You can keep your slot if you want it, we are not forcing anyone to move if they don’t want :)
May 25th, 2011 - 20:09
Looks like a great offer.
I have a simple question, will the new boxes be the same in terms of setup and will we be able to access and change some stuff.
e.g. being able to do simple stuff like changing clients and versions
May 25th, 2011 - 20:19
The server setup is very similiar but run on a newer Ubuntu version and is better managed. All the stuff you are used to on servers is there plus a few extras. You can still change accounts, have ssh access etc.
May 25th, 2011 - 20:20
Thanks
New box here I come :)
May 25th, 2011 - 20:20
I am active, my account was marked to be canceled in about a month because i was going to be out of traveling. How can i change or uncancel the account. I chose the upgrade link and have request in, will this stop my cancellation from happening as i don’t see an option to uncancel? Thanks for the great new price structure.
May 25th, 2011 - 20:23
It should not be a problem you cancelled your account, it was still active when we announced the plans so you are eligible to upgrade.
May 26th, 2011 - 03:58
Thanks, glad to keep giving you money, and getting much more space. :)
May 25th, 2011 - 21:50
Hi,
Will you allow more trackers too now, or will the policy stay the same (right now it is NO public trackers)?
May 25th, 2011 - 22:13
No public trackers will stay in force as long as bytesized exists under this management. Sorry, but that is too much of a risk :)
May 25th, 2011 - 22:34
OK, I understand, not that big a deal, I use my box mostly for what.cd anyway.
However, is there no secure way at all to seed some things to Demonoid that any of you know of? Note that a torrent does not HAVE to use the Demonoid tracker in order to post it on the site, it will just appear as ‘external’. But you still need to have some kind of tracker, else people won’t be able to download at all, duh!. Never have been able to figure out how to do this… :)
Ow and yes, I will upgrade for sure! Damn fine offer guys, thanks!
May 25th, 2011 - 23:50
No. And in any case, once the torrent has gone through the demonoid upload site, it’s modified to have demonoids tracker on it. We also don’t allow public trackers, period. Private sites don’t allow their torrents to be mixed with public sites (except maybe, like, gay-torrents or something) so there really isn’t an argument here.
May 25th, 2011 - 22:07
I have the upgrade offer but the price will be much higher. I am paying 11 now and it will go up to 15- cant I just stay with what I have now? I have been a loyal customer for well over a year and would hate to have to leave because of the price increase. I am not interested in more space. Thanks for the reply!
May 25th, 2011 - 22:14
Yes sure, we are not forcing anyone to switch :D If you want to stay with your plan, just ignore the notice on the dashboard :) It may happen that we will have to move you to a different server if you end up being the only one on it :)
May 25th, 2011 - 22:26
Thanks!!
May 25th, 2011 - 23:52
The short answer is no. You’re on one of our original plans from over a year ago, that should have been wiped out by now. There’s only maybe 5 people that still have these plans, and it’s nonsensical to want to pay 11eu for 100GB compared to 15eu for 300GB on a better provider.
May 26th, 2011 - 00:14
I just want to make sure I’m eligible for the upgrade and the discounted rate? I’ve been a member for a 1.5 years and am still grandfathered in at the original pricing. I only ask because my coworker who I referred has been a member for a little over 6 months and already received his upgrade notice and in the blog it states “Select members will be able to upgrade their plans and move to a superior LeaseWeb box at no extra charge for three months”. What determines who is selected?
One more question… My coworker who I mentioned above was referred by me before incentives and referral links were created. Any chance I can retroactively get him added as a referral? I can have him verify any information if necessary.
Thanks.
-K
May 26th, 2011 - 08:56
Hi Kemicall. For now, your server is not available for upgrade. Server is marked for upgrade depending on renewal date at server.lu. So no, it’s not personal and we do not select individual users :) As for retroactive referrals, Animazing is the one who decides but I don’t see why not(except that he is busy as hell atm :) ) :D I also must add that discounts are available only if transferred to the new plans.
May 26th, 2011 - 14:11
Are your servers renewed on a monthly basis from server.lu? Meaning should I expect to be offered to upgrade in a few weeks or a few months?
May 26th, 2011 - 15:01
We cannot really say at this moment Kemicall but all active users will have the same treatment(just that some will have an upgrade option later)…
May 26th, 2011 - 13:37
I really admire the seamless fashion in which this transition is being handled, great going Bytesized!
Two queries:
(1) Would Transmission be available as one of the clients? I am asking because it was not one of the options in the upgrade form, I selected Deluge but I would really want to keep working with Transmission…
(2) Would it not be possible for us to manually transfer the data (scp) from the old server to the new one once the account is deployed? This would be very helpful, I really don’t want to lose the data…
:-)
May 26th, 2011 - 14:57
Yes, Transimssion will be available(I think it already is an option once the box is up) :)
As for the second question: http://wiki.bytesized-hosting.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrade_Procedure (at the bottom)
May 26th, 2011 - 21:06
Transmission is available on a server-by-server basis. I don’t believe we install it by default anymore (although I haven’t looked at our deployment scripts), but it can be installed for you. As for transferring data, probably not. We would pretty much be cancelling the server on the same day that the new one would be rolled out on. You have time now to download all your stuff and re-upload it, but if we allowed people to move everything over, the server would be slammed and it wouldn’t be fun for anyone.
May 27th, 2011 - 06:22
Transmission will be installed by default again on the new server image :)
May 26th, 2011 - 18:15
Thanks for the reply, Maxlazio. Great to know that Transmission would continue to be available. Also, it’s infact after reading that part on the upgrade process that I got confused, I was worried because my account expires on the 15th and with the deployment of accounts being done from 12th, I have a rather small window to backup my files :-)
May 26th, 2011 - 21:44
So what would the Snackbox (50gb) beta box upgrade too. And would I have to pay more :<?
May 26th, 2011 - 22:41
Well yes Maxx, smallest option is 300GB slice and yes, there will be a price increase from Snackbox unfortunately :)
May 27th, 2011 - 06:22
But as always, you don’t have to upgrade, just flag your account with the “I dont want to upgrade” button :)
May 29th, 2011 - 15:30
I know that if I upgrade to a new box you can’t switch all of my shit over, but what if I do it? For instance I was thinking maybe I could download all of my folders that are connected to a given tracker and then just throw them up on the new server and if the torrent files are stored somewhere on the current server I could grab those and easily have the torrents restart on the new server. Is there any place I can find all of my .torrent files?
May 29th, 2011 - 17:21
That is an option and ofcourse you can do it. Only thing is, we cannot guarantee how many days will the boxes overlap as we mentioned in the last sentence of this wiki article( http://wiki.bytesized-hosting.com/wiki/index.php/Upgrade_Procedure)
May 30th, 2011 - 15:38
So… Any idea where my .torrent files are on the current server?
May 30th, 2011 - 15:46
Torrent files are inside a .session directory(it’s a hidden directory, that’s why it has dot in front of the name).
May 30th, 2011 - 17:28
OK, sorry to draw this out. This is my last question. Because I didn’t have “Delete copy of torrent file on remove” checked in Deluge there are many, many torrent files in the session folder, most of them long gone from deluge. Is there any way to get rid of the torrents that aren’t currently running in deluge other than going through and manually deleting them (there are over 1,000)? I guess I’m wishing there is some sort of magical “Clear Cache” button or something.
May 31st, 2011 - 11:12
Yes. All currently active torrents are inside the ~/.config/deluge/state/ directory. Unfortunately, all torrents are named weirdly but that shouldn’t be an issue :)
May 30th, 2011 - 04:48
As a potential new customer these plans look awesome. Any idea what new account pricing would be once they are available to the public?
May 30th, 2011 - 08:58
Sorry diamondwolf, we really don’t know since we have our hands full at the moment :)
June 2nd, 2011 - 09:02
Hi guys, I switched over to the VPS beta a while back, and then let my regular dinner box expire.
I was wondering if there’s any way I can take advantage of these discounted rates? I’m still a member on the regular Bytesized site, I just don’t have a box there as my box is with the VPS service. With those new prices and storage allowances I’m seriously contemplating moving back to the traditional seedbox service though.
Cheers
June 2nd, 2011 - 09:04
I’m sure we can work something out, just know that there are new servers coming for the VPS users as well. The idea is that the VPS plans will be intergrated back into the main bytesized site and that they will benefit from the new discount system as well, plus new hardware upgrades similiar to what we are doing for BySH now :)
June 3rd, 2011 - 11:30
Ah well if there’s new stuff in the pipeline for us VPS users too, as well as integration back in with the original site, then that’s cool. I’m happy to wait! Would probably find it hard to go back to not having root access to be honest!
Cheers again for the awesome service, will keep my eyes peeled for VPS-related announcements.
June 4th, 2011 - 11:14
Hey Bytesized-Team :)
I got a question I think thats left unanswered : Where will the new servers/seedboxes be located? Netherlands/Germany/USA ; or will there be an option to choose?
Regards
June 5th, 2011 - 11:17
The servers are located in the Netherlands :)
June 5th, 2011 - 22:02
I requested a gourmet box on may 27th and it hasn’t gone through yet. Is there something I still need to do other then just be patient. Thanks for the awesome new box options!
June 5th, 2011 - 22:49
Let me repeat the important part of the blog for you: “You can apply for an upgrade at anytime upto the 9th of June as we will start the first deployments around this date”
June 6th, 2011 - 15:11
OK, so now I’m confused… I got an invite for the upgrade deals, I signed up for a Double Binge (have a small lunchbox now) but when I looked at my account today I see a “NO” under upgrade options!
I really need to know, can I upgrade from my Lunchbox on Hades or not? I don’t want to find out I have two boxes in a couple of weeks – and two invoices too, of course!
So please let me know ASAP so I can still cancel my request for that Double Binge should it turn out that I can NOT upgrade from the account I currently have, before everything gets completely messed up! Thanks!
June 6th, 2011 - 15:12
Could you supply your username so we can check it out? :)
June 6th, 2011 - 21:46
Thanks, but it’s already solved, I did get an upgrade this afternoon. :)
Now I need to get that damn Deluge desktop client working again, it won’t connect anymore.
June 6th, 2011 - 18:57
I just finished moving to my new box, and I have to say WOW, it seems really an improvement! Not only the GUI is a little different from my previous box, but the time the torrents need for hashing is 20 faster on my new box!! :D :D :D
So, now I’m thinking of cancelling my old box, since it expires in almost 20 days. A question I have (and I don’t know if it has been answered anywhere), is what happens to the data I have stored in my old box: are they completely wiped?
June 6th, 2011 - 19:20
When you cancel your old box you get a refund for the amount of time left on your old box’s cycle and we destroy all data permantely. So make sure you got everything you need from it :)
June 6th, 2011 - 19:54
I just needed to make sure for the permanent data destruction! Thanks, I think I have everything I need from the old box! :D
June 11th, 2011 - 15:25
Out of my own curiosity, I paid my invoice and applied for an upgrade, yet it now says I owe 14eu. Should i cancel my soter box?
June 11th, 2011 - 15:32
You don’t have to. The upgrade is actually a new account, so you have access to both accounts at the same time. When you are ready to give up your old box you can press the “Credit & Delete” button to get credits for the amount days left on your current cycle.
June 11th, 2011 - 16:24
Thanks Animazing! :)