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Dedicated server upgrade policy

Moore’s law means that our server components are only getting faster and cheaper, and we’re able to upgrade our server specifications often. Generally that means that we can offer a higher-spec server for the same price we charged 8-12 months ago.

We want to give customers the best for their money; however our pricing works on a 12-month model (even if you pay monthly, we’re down on the deal for a few months) so you may need to have been with Bytemark to qualify for a free upgrade. Otherwise we may need to ask for further payment or a setup fee.

So this page describes both the technical considerations for upgrades, and a description of how we charge for them.

Method 1: Upgrade by migration

Whatever the circumstances, you can always ask for your dedicated server to be upgraded by us building a second server, and arranging a time to migrate its contents.

This is charged for as a new server installation, but has the advantage of requiring the least down time as we can arrange for the old server to be running up until the last minute.

We will always need to build you a new server if your server hardware is too old to accommodate a particular upgrade (e.g. a Sempron 2400 can’t have its processor upgraded any further) but for customers paying monthly we can offer:

• a 50% discount on the setup fee after 1 year of service
• no setup fee at all if you’ve had your server 2 years or more

Method 2: In-place upgrades

We can do most upgrades in-place, simply replacing your server’s CPU, memory or hard drive with an equivalent of higher specification. Bytemark staff will let you know at the time you place your order if this isn’t possible with your particular server.

Once you’ve ordered an upgrade, we will simply arrange a time to take your server down to change the relevant part – you should allow for around 1-2 hours of down time (though most happen more quickly than this).

In-place hard drive upgrades are different because your data needs to be copied off the old drives, and on to the new which is an inherently slow process. Generally we would advise allowing 20 minutes of down time for every gigabyte of data on your drive, plus a further 1-2 hours for each job.

How much does an in-place upgrade cost?

There are three components of the cost:

Firstly you will always pay the difference in price between your old package and new based on your current billing arrangement. So e.g. you go from paying £60 to £70 per month to upgrade from 512MB to 2GB of RAM.

If you would like an upgrade at the same price point (e.g. from an Athlon 3200 to a 3800), we will do this for no extra monthly charge, but only after the server is a year old.

For customers paying annually who want to upgrade mid-way through their term, you will be refunded according to the refund schedule (see below) and have a new annual subscription set up, starting from when your system was upgraded.

Secondly, if you pay monthly, we will also charge the difference in the setup fee. So if you paid a £100 setup fee and wanted to upgrade to a package which had a £150 setup fee, we will charge £50.

Thirdly, regardless of payment method, we will charge a £50 upgrade fee to cover our time in scheduling the maintenance to your machine, and physically performing the upgrade.

We will waive this fee when:

1. you are ordering an upgrade to a higher price point, and your server is more than a year old; or
2. under all circumstances for servers that are over two years old.

Refund schedule

For customers paying annually who want to upgrade mid-way through their term, we refund your subscription in one of two ways:

1. If your server is less than a year old, we recalculate your annual fee as if you had been paying monthly, i.e. we refund the unused portion of your rental minus the extra month and setup fee.
2. For servers over a year old, we simply refund your fee on a pro-rata basis

So for example: if you pay £660 for a year of service, and then upgrade in month 6 of 12, we will refund only £170 (after taking into account the additional £100 setup and £60 monthly fee, both of which are waived when calculating annual prices).

However if you upgraded after 18 months (having paid for two full years), we would refund the full £330 that was left on your subscription in your second year, which is far better value.

How to order your upgrade

If you don’t have time to work out the price, or just aren’t sure about your upgrade options, you can always ask our support team for a quote or advice on how to proceed.