the instance that i'm typing from is being hosted in someone's cupboard with some pretty off-the-shelf parts. i'v probably got enough parts for something similar laying around my house. if instances stay to low populations and the workload is distributed amongst all of them, it's not actually stressing the system all that much at all.

that being said, as soon as the aussie zone sysadmin asks for financial assistance, i'll be putting my hand into my pocket. again, if enough people do that then it's not much of a cost at all