Rented Dedicated or My Own?
- Thread starter Zagor
- Start date
webfreak08
New member
That would do it in my book.
Since you are not a system administrator, you should look into a dedicated server solution with at least "bare-bones" management.
webfreak08
New member
Do you have the infrastructure at your house to even consider hosting files? What if the power went out? What if there's a flood? Earthquake? An ISP that will allow it?
It depends on the nature of your site and the availability of whoever will take care of the server. I suppose I was a bit too hard and fast in my first reply. There really isn't a hard and fast rule.
You need to think about your situation and the relevant costs in making one decision over another and whether one alternative becomes more appealing over the other.
It depends on the nature of your site and the availability of whoever will take care of the server. I suppose I was a bit too hard and fast in my first reply. There really isn't a hard and fast rule.
You need to think about your situation and the relevant costs in making one decision over another and whether one alternative becomes more appealing over the other.
handsonhosting
New member
Even going with a Colo Solution and putting your own hardware there - make sure you never go on vacation and that you have additional hardware and replacement parts on standby so that when your server crashes at 1am, you're able to get to the data center and insert the new hardware or troubleshoot as needed.
Renting solves much of those problems as you can put it in someone elses hands to take care of.
Sounds crazy, but there's a reason we went from spending $7k/month on our own hardware colocated to spending over $19k/month on rented/leased hardware. Having others deal with that headache, not having to buy hardware for constant growth and having manpower available on site or close to site saves customers. Doesn't save money, but hosting is about customer service - making money is a side bonus right?
Renting solves much of those problems as you can put it in someone elses hands to take care of.
Sounds crazy, but there's a reason we went from spending $7k/month on our own hardware colocated to spending over $19k/month on rented/leased hardware. Having others deal with that headache, not having to buy hardware for constant growth and having manpower available on site or close to site saves customers. Doesn't save money, but hosting is about customer service - making money is a side bonus right?
webfreak08
New member
Right, the three replies above give you possible scenarios that you would have to deal with if you were to consider running a server yourself.
Here's an explicit scenario: You are hosting a non-mission-critical website with a server in order to gain experience in server/system administration. Your ISP allows it and you don't really care if the website has sub-optimal uptime or user experience.
vexxhost
New member
You need a UPS and electric generator to have a continuous power supply, also you need a redundant fast internet network, a clean and cool place, secure and at last servers are not like desktops, they are noisy, so if you can prepare all these thing, yes you can host your server at your office, if you have the technical know how.
handsonhosting
New member
Time, money and all things in between. If you have time, and your site is not mission critical and you're just doing it to learn, then run your own server (if your ISP allows it - that or you're going to have to colocate somewhere).
I would NEVER EVER EVER consider running sites from home. EVER. Colocate if you want to own your own hardware.
Maybe you're asking when do you decide to go from shared hosting to dedicated server?
Unless you have the infrastructure and the technical knowledge (or the money to hire in a person with that knowledge) - then you want to stick with rented servers and a management team.
I would NEVER EVER EVER consider running sites from home. EVER. Colocate if you want to own your own hardware.
Maybe you're asking when do you decide to go from shared hosting to dedicated server?
Unless you have the infrastructure and the technical knowledge (or the money to hire in a person with that knowledge) - then you want to stick with rented servers and a management team.
I don't think there is a breaking point - at least not if you're hosting commercial accounts (of any type). The risk of at-home power outages or overloads on your bandwidth far outweighs any benefits of converting from rental to at-home hosting. I know one of our major competitors lost power over this last weekend (12 hours) and we're fielding calls from their clients wanting to move here. Power outages will cause customer churn.
Only you can determine if the move would be financially feasible. We're not privy to your expenses or revenue. From a risk strategy, I don't ever foresee this a a good solution.
Only you can determine if the move would be financially feasible. We're not privy to your expenses or revenue. From a risk strategy, I don't ever foresee this a a good solution.
I would consider a couple of factors before hosting at home.
1. How often do you experience power outages at home? Could you set up a stable environment for your server?
2. How reliable is your single source internet provider?
3. How mission critical is your website, or data that you are hosting?
4. What are your future growth initiatives?
If you did have the capital to purchase your own server, I would always recommend a secure data center environment. But then again, that's what we do : )
SteadComJordan
New member
run a colocation off of you own box, makes the world easier
I just offered this response to a similar post. Maybe it is helpful for you as well?
Just for some real world examples using numbers I can speak to....
Say you take a dedicated server, Intel Dual-core 3.4Ghz / 2GB RAM / 1 TB SATA hard drive - $139/mo. You keep the server for 12 months, so at the end of a year you have paid $1,668.
If you know where to look, you can put together a system like that pretty reasonably. So we'll say it costs $300 to purchase the system (we're actually getting them a little cheaper, but YMMV). Colo on that server will run $69/mo (power, space and bandwidth). Again, we'll say you keep the server running for 12 months. This means that at the end of the year you've paid $1,128.
Given the above numbers, you save $540 by going colocated over the course of a year.
Some people are more comfortable leasing the equipment since that way if something goes wrong, the provider is responsible. There are several ways to look at that. The first is, well of course that is true! And from a convenience standpoint, maybe it makes sense in your case to pay more for that benefit. Of course, with the money that you're saving, if the server completely tanks, it's likely you could buy another one and have it either installed same day or overnighted and still come out ahead, financially.
Just a matter of taking what's important to you and making your decision based on that.
Just for some real world examples using numbers I can speak to....
Say you take a dedicated server, Intel Dual-core 3.4Ghz / 2GB RAM / 1 TB SATA hard drive - $139/mo. You keep the server for 12 months, so at the end of a year you have paid $1,668.
If you know where to look, you can put together a system like that pretty reasonably. So we'll say it costs $300 to purchase the system (we're actually getting them a little cheaper, but YMMV). Colo on that server will run $69/mo (power, space and bandwidth). Again, we'll say you keep the server running for 12 months. This means that at the end of the year you've paid $1,128.
Given the above numbers, you save $540 by going colocated over the course of a year.
Some people are more comfortable leasing the equipment since that way if something goes wrong, the provider is responsible. There are several ways to look at that. The first is, well of course that is true! And from a convenience standpoint, maybe it makes sense in your case to pay more for that benefit. Of course, with the money that you're saving, if the server completely tanks, it's likely you could buy another one and have it either installed same day or overnighted and still come out ahead, financially.
Just a matter of taking what's important to you and making your decision based on that.
Then again, with colocated equipment, emergency support can run from $50-$250/hr. And there are accounting pros and cons to each (how it's expensed) - just depends on your business model.
handsonhosting
New member
$300 for that system? WOW.
If you're doing that, I advise buying TWO of these as you're going to want to have hardware on hand at the data center should something go wrong so you can swap out hardware.
There's much more to hosting a server than just plugging a machine into a network. Having an emergency plan and backup hardware on hand for when the server failes (and it will fail) are all necessary. This is part of what a $139/month price would pay for.
If you're doing that, I advise buying TWO of these as you're going to want to have hardware on hand at the data center should something go wrong so you can swap out hardware.
There's much more to hosting a server than just plugging a machine into a network. Having an emergency plan and backup hardware on hand for when the server failes (and it will fail) are all necessary. This is part of what a $139/month price would pay for.
I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that price.
Good point Conor- having backup hardware on hand at the data center would sure expedite the recovery process.
CaroNetTanya
New member
Yes, in case that everything will be ok with the Hardware, but if you want to resetup OS, then in most DC you'll need to pay additional 75-100$ per hour for admin time
.if something happened on your server, you need to contact DC and pay for admin time mentioned sum of money, and who knows how much time they will need to resolve your problem. If something happened with Hardware ... you'll need to pay for the new one, and this is extra money.
So I think that it will cost you more.. as in such cases you can have a lot of downtime
.And check the dedicated server, yes you will pay extra money... but, if you need to re-install OS... it's free... something happened, just make a ticket and support will help you to resolve the problem for free. If something happened with the Hardware ... with the dedicated solution this hardware will be changed for free.
So as for me dedicated solution is the best if you want to have 1-10 servers. But of course if you willing to have 15+ servers, then the best way wil be to go to colo and rent the whole RACK, but APC reboot and KVM/IP... hire some sys-admin who will be able to check the server and if necessary, repair it via KVM/IP. OF course in case if Hardware will fail... you'll need to buy the new one.
Cheers.
I totally agree with Steve, and since you aren't an admin of any sort, some sort of management might need to be in order. Also, most ISP's really frown on hosting content for the web from home.
HivelocityJJ
UNMETERED SPECIALIST
From a personal standpoint, I wouldn't host a server at my house. A lot of ISPs wouldn't be too pleased with the idea either.
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