Seedbox Ideas - Ready-made vs DIY

[Moodkiller]

Looking for some input on the following ideas I have been having about seedboxes. For a basic outline, I would be looking for 500+ GB HDD space, any download/upload speed and support for both Public and Private trackers, those are musts, the rest can afterthoughts that narrow my choice down. The main use would be to keep private tracked torrents seeding 24/7 (so not necessarily high bandwidth torrents). The following is what I have been looking into:

 

Option 1 - Ready-made seedboxes

Some of the ones I have been looking at:

 

A. The Seedbox Company - SB-50 which offers a 740GB HDD, 50Mbps upload, unlimited torrents, unmetered bandwidth and support for, I believe, Public and Private trackers for ~$16.64 NZD a month.

 

B. Box4Seed - Basic Box which offers a 650GB HDD, at least 200Mbps upload (not stated on their website but was confirmed and guaranteed in an email) unmetered traffic, unlimited torrents and support for Public and Private trackers for ~$12.44 NZD a month.

 

C. A dedicated server from Kimsufi (when replenishing has finished) - KS-1 which offers a 500GB HDD, 100Mbps  and no idea on the rest for ~$7.76 NZD a month.

 

Out of all of the above, I would choose Box4Seed due to it being cheap, everything is set up and I know what to expect. I would go with Kimsufi, but I have no idea when their server that I want will be up and running and I don't know what sort of torrents they support (Public and Private).

 

 

Option 2 - DIY Seedbox

The initial cost of this will be fairly high, however once I have paid the equivalent amount for a ready-made seedbox, I can at least keep this setup going and don't have to pay any more towards it (excluding electricity and internet costs). I was planning to purchase a Raspberry Pi (B Plus model) for $64 NZD and a 1TB external HDD for $84 NZD, bringing the total to around $149. This would be the equivalent to around 11 months of Box4seed useage, but like I said, if I wanted to to carry on using a ready-made seedbox, I would have to continue paying.

 

It should be noted that I am confident with setting up the Raspberry Pi as well turning it into a seedbox (there are enough tutorials now that anyone could do it). 

 

One downside for the DIY Seedbox would be speed,I would have to set the upload speed to 500KB/s during peak and 1200 KB/s (lines max) during off peak times which may become a problem If I have many active torrents seeding. Another would be privacy, I might end up deciding to pay for a VPN (the free ones offer shitty speed) for that little bit of extra security and anonymity... 

 

Lol but hence now my predicament, should I just go for a ready made seedbox that has both the speed and privacy already? I would be lying if I said that money wasn't an issue, however I am just looking at all my options.

 

Any extra information/suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[JohnFlower]

Get the Kimsufi if you can. The first two are VPS's, and in a seedbox environment, that is something you most certainly want to avoid.

[professa X]

Hmm. well i would wait for koby's own rentals he was talking about. But IMO i would do the my own server for my own education. I think you were interested in information technology right? Then it would be a good idea to set your own up for a short while maybe for some small torrents (manga) that you could seed for a while or set up a xdcc bot to boot. my opinion through cuz there is no expense for learning.

[Koby]

As JohnFlower pointed out; any ready-set Seedbox provider will be utter garbage. They're all VPN's or Shared Hosting which means you share overall speed with all other users. You should always go the dedicated server route and set things up yourself. If you don't know how to do it there are plenty of people out there willing to either help you learn or maybe even do it for you.

[Moodkiller]

Get the Kimsufi if you can. The first two are VPS's, and in a seedbox environment, that is something you most certainly want to avoid.

 

I didnt think it would be that bad. I could understand multiple users on the same server slowing its (as Koby mentioned it later) but I just had the idea in my head that it would be fine from a reputable company... Alright I will keep this in mind then. Do you know anything more about the amount of bandwidth Kimsuki offers? I might end up emailing them as I want to find out a few more details from them so no worries if you dont.  

 

 

Hmm. well i would wait for koby's own rentals he was talking about. But IMO i would do the my own server for my own education. I think you were interested in information technology right? Then it would be a good idea to set your own up for a short while maybe for some small torrents (manga) that you could seed for a while or set up a xdcc bot to boot. my opinion through cuz there is no expense for learning.

 

You pretty much told me what I wanted to hear! I am more keen about the Raspberry pay than paying a monthly fee for so server that I cant actually see. And yes you are correct, Im specializing in Networking in the IT field, so servers, admins, all of those. As I mentioned earlier, it will mainly ne to just keep the torrents 'seeding' 24/7, though they might actually not upload anything. Specially the private tracked ones. 

 

 

As JohnFlower pointed out; any ready-set Seedbox provider will be utter garbage. They're all VPN's or Shared Hosting which means you share overall speed with all other users. You should always go the dedicated server route and set things up yourself. If you don't know how to do it there are plenty of people out there willing to either help you learn or maybe even do it for you.

 

Alright, thanks for the advice. I have also being looking at Cloudatcost, namely their Developer 2 once off payment package for $70. tater7 made me aware of this plus the added idea of mapping something like zovo (~$40 a year for 12.8TB of storage) as an FTP storage device to the server and that becomes your HDD for the dedi. 

 

Also going back to what professa mentioned earlier, are you still willing to offer dedi's/seedboxes? If I remember correctly you said that it would be around $20 a month with 500GB?

[StaticX]

Get the Kimsufi if you can. The first two are VPS's, and in a seedbox environment, that is something you most certainly want to avoid.

I suppose you don't even use your credit card pin number since you want to be so anonymous. People will use Any method to gather info.

[JohnFlower]

Anonymous? You end up paying more due to insane amounts of tax if you stay anonymous. France has a 20% VAT which can be removed by proving your name and address. Not only that, but you would have to piss around with anonymous payments. Who has the time for that shit?

That said, one should only ever reveal their identity to reputable companies like OVH (lol). I wouldn't trust any of these VPS resellers, nor would I trust anyone using the same server I am.

Oh, and there's also the hardware usage, as Koby mentioned. Each VPS will have up to 10 users on a single hard drive. Not a great position to be in, considering the servers they use are normally low end stuff from OVH or Hetzner.

[Moodkiller]

That said, one should only ever reveal their identity to reputable companies like OVH (lol). I wouldn't trust any of these VPS resellers, nor would I trust anyone using the same server I am.

 

Are you lol'ing because Kimsufi uses OVH and you suggested that I go with them?? (http://www.kimsufi.com/uk/about-ks/). Kimsufi supports tax exemptions for individuals living outside of france, BUT you have to send them the following

A copy of your ID card or passport + proof of address ( of less than 3 months) : copy of a utility bill (gas, electric, phone, etc.), Bank statement or Official correspondence.

The bill should include your name and address as it appears on your KS account

 

Going on what you mentioned above, should I just leave this step out seen as they would pretty much have most of my personal info xD

 

Btw, what server are you using?

[JohnFlower]

Kimsufi is OVH. So you start is OVH. hubiC is OVH. All target different markets. Kimsufi servers are the ultra low end of OVH. So you start servers are entry-level, while OVH-direct servers are aimed more at enterprise.

I was laughing because calling OVH a reputable company is funny. Their history isn't exactly stellar and their practises are sometimes a bit iffy, but I do trust them.

I provided OVH with the required information for tax exemption. I'm a long term customer, so removing VAT has saved me quite a bit of dollar. For cheaper servers such as the KS-1, then sure, you wont save much by not paying VAT.

I have the mSP1 directly from OVH. It's the equivalent of an E3-SAT-3 from So you start.

[Moodkiller]

Oh I see. Huh, well I wish they had a reservation system whereby people could be added to the que for their KS-1 package. It seems like this "replenishing" of the servers has being going on for months according to their forums and if you just happen to be the lucky one who refreshes the webpage and one is available, then good on you. 

 

I was also recommended by my Cloud security provider lecturer to look at Amazon's free server option as well Microsoft's 'student/dreamspark' programmes where they can give you a server to testing and developing software. 

 

I dont know if I really want to trust these sort of companies with setting up a seedbox. 

 

Besides speeds being a downside, would there be any other difference between getting something from Kimsufi and going with the Raspberry Pi setup? 

 

Edit: We are getting closer, the KS-2 just became available.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Moodkiller

[Moodkiller]

Update:

I gave up waiting for Kimsufi to give me my dedi, 13th September is when I applied for it and as of this post (29 Oct) I still havent heard back from them. So I have decided to go the DIY route with a Raspberry Pi.

 

Its off to a 'great' start already, thank you courier guys, thank you!

Note: the damaged box and bent USB tower

 

Images:

 

 

 

 

Just waiting for the case, micro SD card and 1TB exteranal to arrive and then will start the setup.