Current State of Usenet Server Plants

[Beck38]

Astraweb (both US and EU) are a total mess, anyone reading the rather long thread on that would quickly come to that conclusion. Despite several on-going tickets, and their reply that 'things are fixed', I see no evidence of that. Basically, anything older than 2-3 weeks all the way back to 'day one' (Aug08 when most providers stopped rolling any binaries off) is hosed ('hosed' being the nzb requires more than 10-20% pars to 'fix').

In concentrating the last month or so on Astra, I tended to forget about Giganews. It's having some major problems as well, particularly the US (LA) plant, starting around 4-5 months back. The EU plant is doing MUCH better, so those who use the EU as the 'first fills' will find that it is close to or at 100% a good 3 years back. Then it drops off a cliff, right around Jan012 or thereabouts.

Those who use Blocknews as their primary (or secondary) fills will find that you can go back at least to Jan09 and find zero, and I mean ZERO, skips or fades. Really top flight. This is how Giganews used to be.

On Giganews, I continue to wonder why the throughput seems to waver, even if one is fairly close to the plant (LA), and doesn't seem to be related to the newsgroups. Giganews, of course, differentiates their 'plans' on how many days retention one has access to, and the amount of bit transfers. They may have their plant arranged so that the further back one attempts to download, the data is on a slower (but larger) part of the system. What is interesting is, if one downloads something old and it's slow, and then try to get the same thing again, most of the time the speed improves significantly. Their system may 'see' that the old data has been accessed, and transfers it to a 'fast buffer' that makes the second access go very fast.

This 'effect' happens a lot, but not always, so it's interesting.

Giganews has been informed of the Jan012 'cliff', and the problems with the US v. EU servers. We'll see if I get any (good) response.

But you can't go wrong with Blocknews. No matter what 'unlimited' plan you're on from whoever, it's money spent wisely.

[shaina]

Beck38

I agree with everything you said (very well put), again the problem is know one has the answer, or the providers do not post nor tell you the truth/ and I find it really strange that removing any excuses of speed issues, still questions the integrity of the bigger Usenet providers wording there service and saying how fabulous there retention is, and they can back that up by saying depending on what type of files you are trying to download/retrieve from a group is possible, but not what the majority of people that are using or the purpose of Usenet today as opposed to more of a long distance communication service or to transfer larger files to multiple people at once, hens a large email service with no restrictions of attached size files..
And being realistic.... Usenet is being posted on a server for everyone to access, now forgetting the people downloading them is not the laws biggest concern but the person uploading the pirated whatever it is.
I don't care where the access is to get the files off the servers, and you have said again what I said before, there is no reason why a offshore accounts can access more completion of the files and with proof that the files have not been removed/takedown, and larger Usenet providers should be able to get access as well, and even if there is a few errors, and can be repaired which would be a little bothersome, but at least the provider is working properly. I can live with that....
And Giga even having great customer service, being you get a live person to take your complaint, the ticket is sent to line repair or whatever, to me it has not been fixed for years now, but if you download daily on the things you really like or watch, which doesn't fall back into the issue of bad downloads until it gets into a few weeks on some uploads, and years on others.

The only one or way this can be answered, would be they test it themselves on isolated Binary Groups with the issue, and start on one end and see where it is failing...
Are they doing that is the question??? But people just can't use the excuse of takedowns and blame the wrong reason if the files can be accessed with another provider.....

We will just have to wait and see what happens, in the mean time if the provider you are using is not giving you the service you are paying for right now, cancel there ass!!!, and move on to the next one...

Again thanks again Beck for all the work/research you did, and I hope it pays off...

shay

[Beck38]

The one very interesting 'effect', Astraweb v Giganews, is if one is using JBinUp (with verification from the posting server). For those who haven't used it, the program checks whatever one sets as the verification (usually the server one is directly posting to, although it can be set to another server plant if one wants), but Astra seems to take several minutes (sometimes as long as 30+) to verify, even though one can set the header check verification time within JBinUp.

Giganews seems to verify within 3 minutes or so, which is the default setting. What that tells me is that data blocks being posted to Giganews get written pretty fast to the somewhere in the 'bulk storage' part of the server plant, and with Astraweb (both US and EU) it lingers somewhere in the system (that 30 minutes) before it's actually written and can be verified.

In fact, if one has a decently fast upload speed, in some cases that verification can take upwards of an hour or more on Astra.

All just a bit of wackiness, looking at one plant v. another. By the way, I haven't gotten any real response yet from Astra on their problems, and Giganews (of course) thinks that the 2-3% of missing blocks (from 2 weeks to 6 months+ is 'due to DMCA', their usual explanation when they really don't want to look at anything.

[shaina]

All just a bit of wackiness, looking at one plant v. another. By the way, I haven't gotten any real response yet from Astra on their problems, and Giganews (of course) thinks that the 2-3% of missing blocks (from 2 weeks to 6 months+ is 'due to DMCA', their usual explanation when they really don't want to look at anything.

Sounds like know one wants to take blame.....

If anybody is not getting the service they are looking for in the provider they are now using... Cancel there ass and move on to the next(I think I have said that before).

I think that is the only advice that makes sense considering there is no way to fix it yourself...

[Beck38]

I have started a review of several of the popular usenet server plants out there, and have found that most of them are having the same retention problems that both Astraweb and Giganews are having.

If I knew what s/w all these folks are running, I might make a bold prediction as to what is going on; the only plant so far that I still see no problems whatsoever on is Blocknews.

But I'm coming to the conclusion that all these problems may be an attack on those plants, and the operations teams of those plants don't have a reasonable ongoing testing program that would give them a heads up as to minor or even major problems.

Rundown:

Unless I'm wrong, there are really 4 major classes of providers:

Astraweb
Giganews
Highwinds
Independents

There are a lot of Highwinds providers, as they went on a buying spree a while back, and (maybe) are still continuing that. Retention on most everyone, except some of the newer independents, exceed 2000 days (back to at least early 2009) but completion rates are the real problem.

Astraweb - completion drops off a cliff after 30-60 days, gets really bad around 1300+ (basically unrecoverable, >50% block errors). Older posts >1000 days to the maximum retention are somewhat recoverable, IF the amount of pars posted is more than 5% (10-20% helps). But it's not steady.

Giganews - Newer posts a bit better than Astraweb, particularly the EU server is doing much better than the US one. But by the time you get back to 1200+ days or so, the error rate evens out and by the time your at 1350+ days, the error rate on both plants rises to over 50%.

Supernews - The 'cheap' Giganews runs no better than the 'high priced spread'. Same problems.

Usenet-News - One of the oldest original plants, bought out by Highwinds a few years ago, was originally in Phoenix but was moved to 'Telecom Row' in eastern Virginia/DC. Like most Highwinds providers, does only block accounts. Binary check back to 1900+ days on 'known good' postings reveals ZERO errors. Blocks are NON-Expiring (I have some dating back over 15 years!)

Unsenetserver (UNS) - Another Highwinds plant, only offers unlimited/recurring accounts, although one can buy a 'mini' 3day account. Binary check to 1900+ days is 100%. Unless one has >100Mb/s, the 10 connections is more than enough from anywhere in the US (I tested at 6000 miles away, and had no problems 'swamping' my connection).

Blocknews - More Highwinds. Block accounts only. Binary check to 1900+ days is 100%. Again, blocks are NON-Expiring (I have some over 10 years old).


I know there are some newer providers coming out of the woodwork at present, both in the US and some older ones in the Netherlands that have been around for a while, but it will take a while for them to get their retention up.

As it stand right now, with all the problems Giga and Astra are having, UNS is the way to go for an unlimited/recurring account. If one wants to stick with the G/A, then the Highwinds block accounts at either Blocknews or Usenet-News is the way to go, but realize that it will get 'eaten' pretty fast with the big problems those plants are having.

[shaina]

Beck38...

Well I couldn't take it anymore....

I was curious, so I reactivated one of my Netherlands Usenet provider, and low and behold, everything Giganews could not download, it was all there with the other provider.

I went back over 2000 days plus and everything was all complete that I downloaded/wanted (weeds all seasons over 700 days old and was all completed with not one par file needed, couldn't get shit with Giganews), with no repairs needed.. The only downfall was the speed as you said, but like I said, if it takes me an extra 20 minutes for large downloads, I really don't care. Completion and getting what I want is far more important, than having speed and getting nothing but frustration and crap ..
And listening to DMCA takedowns or any other excuses, it goes to show you that the files are still there and can be accessed with the right provider...
I have not cancelled Giganews yet, because I am waiting for Sunday night, and all the HBO and PPV shows(all the older ones are there for the Netherlands provider tho), because of the rumors the Offshore accounts don't always get access to them, but after Sunday, I can tell you, even with the speed issue from the Netherlands, Giganews will be put on suspended mode for a while...

Thanks again for the updates and the monitoring/testing...

Shay

[MaxLoad]

Would anyone have some recommendations for Dutch servers? I was looking at usenet.nl today, but they don't their prices. I'm looking for a good balance between price and retention.

Thanks so much

[Beck38]

Giganews/US is getting worse and worse, as posted items are starting to degrade in as little as two weeks.

[shaina]

Giganews/US is getting worse and worse, as posted items are starting to degrade in as little as two weeks.

Beck38....

Looks like Giga can go on suspension for 2 months ..
The Netherlands group picked up everything I wanted (All PPV and HBO shows), with ease and no broken files..
Again, slower and not really utilizing my ISP speeds, but I will look the other way for completed files and a lot less aggravation .....

Shay

[Beck38]

I used to do a lot of work around the planet, and had an an account with RBS (Royal Bank Of Scotland), but gave it up when they got into mucho problems with the euro banking system (drugs, playing fast and loose with banking laws/regulations, you name it), so it's been quite a while since it was quick and easy to play around with the euro/dutch providers.

But with the 'free' test account on Newshosting (and a couple of the other Highwinds plants) I did some heavy reviewing. Upshot is about like I said, it's 100% back about as far as you like to go; but the 2600 days they claim is a bit much, I found that it really is about 1900+ or - a bit, so that resolves to around June 2010.

As I have nzb's going back to what I call 'day zero' (Aug2008) it's somewhat easy to figure out. The Newshosting 'Usenet Browser' seems to be designed by someone who knows what they were doing, is quite a bit more useful than Mino on Giganews.

So in the next few days I'll start closing out a few of the 'free' accounts but keep Newshosting.

Trans-Atlantic fiber systems have improved quite a lot in the past few years, the last couple I helped turn-up in 2003-2005 were part of a wave of construction that continues until today. Throughput to the EU plants (like Astra/Giga and others) run at about 50% speed of their US counterparts, but if the plant has a 'trans-warp conduit' going across the pond, it might do a lot better. What I don't like is, in the olden days, transfers would start and go fairly well, then halt in the middle of it. Whether that was due to the plant itself or the transmission link was always a good question (in all this testing I haven't seen that with the US providers that have an Amsterdam plant).

Oh well, I think things are pretty much stable with Newshosting, and continue to be pretty bad with Astra/Giga, so I'll put this testing on the long-term shelf for now, and start moving my aim toward 'mass posting'.