Mircea Chirea's questions

I need to keep the production app settings section outside of Web.config; I don't want keys and other secret information to be kept inside source code repository. However, if I edit the app settings with IIS Mananger it changes the Web.config, which will be overwritten at the next deployment.

How can I keep those settings outside of the Web.config that comes with the application on deployment? For example, this is somehow done by Azure Web Sites - the app settings you configure in the portal are not stored in Web.config - that can be confirmed by downloading the file via FTP. How is it done?

What are the pros and cons of using an SSD as the only drive in a workstation instead of an array of several HDDs or a fast 10k/15k HDD?

To be more specific, Intel X25-M 80GB with Windows 7 x86-64 installed for use in developer/designer workstations, using a NAS, SAN or file server for storage of large files and the SSD for the source code.

Two I can think of right now:

Pros:

• Cheaper - you don't pay for additional HDDs

Cons

• Less space - you don't have the space of HDDs

NetGear's ReadyNAS 2100 has 4 disk slots and costs $2000 with no disks. That seems a bit too expensive for just 4 disk slots.

Dell has good network storage solutions too. PowerVault NX3000 has 6 disk slots, so that's an improvement. However, it costs $3500; the NX3100 doubles the number of disks at double the price. Just in case I'm looking at the wrong hardware for lots of storage, the trusty PowerVault MD3000i SAN has a good 15 drives, but it starts at $7000.

While you can argue about support from Dell, Netgear or HP or any other company being serious, it's still pretty damn expensive to get those drives RAID'ed together in a box and served via iSCSI. There's a much cheaper option: build it yourself. Backblaze has built it's own box, housing 45 (that's forty five) SATA drives for a little under $8000, including the drives themselves. That's at least 10 times cheaper than current offers from Dell, Sun, HP, etc.

Why is NAS (or SAN - still storage attached to a network) so expensive? After all, it's main function is to house a number of HDDs, create a RAID array and serve them over a protocol like iSCSI; nearly everything else is just colored bubbles (AKA marketing terms).

So far I see a HUGE majority of hosts provide only Linux shared hosting, providing Windows only to VPS (or even to only dedicated servers). Why is it so? While Windows is a lot more expensive than Linux (though it depends on a lot of factors, not just initial and support license cost), it also provides ASP.NET, IIS and of course, Microsoft SQL Server. I know in the past it might have been because of cPanel being Linux only but now they have a Windows version.

But still, why is Linux predominantly used on shared hosting? PHP works on both systems. IIS can be (and probably is) faster. MySQL runs on both systems as well. cPanel has a Windows version. Python, Perl, Ruby, all run on Windows as well. You even have MS SQL Server Express, which I find more superior than MySQL in both speed and features. Access is there for low usage requirements, as is SQLite (which is so great for quick small stuff). And with PowerShell you have a good alternative to the Unix shell.

EDIT: I am looking for common reasons, I realize each hosting company (and/or it's clients) may have different needs. This becomes very important when you get to VPS or Cloud which give you a full operating system to use.