Dedicated web hosting

[tsquared]

Can anyone here recommend a good web hosting service that provides a dedicated server for something less than your first-born child? I've contemplated shifting away from shared hosting but need to be mindful of cost.

Maybe a group of dads can get together and build a small datacenter. :)

[jeffb]

I'm not sure, but Remington a member of this site might be able to help...

[Don-Dad]

I think it's serverbeach that has reasonable prices. Do you know enough to maintain a dedicated server? I've seen unmanaged servers as low as $69 a month (that was a year or 2 ago) and managed servers usually run well over $200 a month. (Of course it depends what you want for power, hard drives, bandwidth, etc...

[Don-Dad]

Have you looked at VPS packages. You share a server with less people than shared hosting (in theory, some hosts still oversell them), that's what I use for this site.

[tsquared]

I think it's serverbeach that has reasonable prices. Do you know enough to maintain a dedicated server? I've seen unmanaged servers as low as $69 a month (that was a year or 2 ago) and managed servers usually run well over $200 a month. (Of course it depends what you want for power, hard drives, bandwidth, etc...

I think I heard of them at one point. I'll check it out.

I know a pretty decent amount, but mainly I don't want to have to fool with maintenance and stuff. I'd rather just bill hours. If the machine crashes or it needs patches applied or something, I want them to deal with it.

I don't know exactly what I need hardware-wise; I'm still working on it. But for accessing it, I primarily just want cPanel or an equivalent like I have through shared hosting now with the ability to go in and tinker with stuff as needed. (Though I think cPanel is a POS)

Essentially, I want pretty much the interface I have now with the ability to tinker beyond that and without all the freakin' yahoos killing the servers, preferably at a datacenter that isn't hosting a few billion other sites.

Have you looked at VPS packages. You share a server with less people than shared hosting (in theory, some hosts still oversell them), that's what I use for this site.

I've thought about this, too. Whatever I know about all this I either learned from managing a three-server cluster using Windows 2000 Server and IIS (which sucked even more than you would think) eons ago to shared web hosting through various companies. There's a bunch of stuff in the middle there that I sorta know, but probably just enough to shoot myself in the foot.

VPS falls under that stuff in the cracks I missed along the way. I'll look more into it now that you've suggested it. I glanced at info about it once a while back but didn't know whether it was worth giving thought to.

$10/month shared hosting is working OK for me right now, or more accurately, it's "acceptably slow". I'm working with someone on a site that could either be anywhere from a 'meh' commercial venture to something that implodes a shared server within a week.

When the shared hosts say I get umpteen TB (yes, 'T') of bandwidth a month, I know that's utter horse dung. I don't know what the practical limit is, though. It's possible we could get up into the tens of GBs a month reasonably quickly, but I don't know. Media-oriented, bandwidth-hungry sites are unchartered territory for me.

Thanks to everyone who has or does reply to my questions!

[Don-Dad]

I think I get 1000 gb of bandwidth every month. I use powervps.com. I like them but the last year or so it seems that I'm breaking my vps more often.

I also use httpme.cm, a reseller account ($35 a month), I think they just started offering vps packages. they have great support (email only) and very little downtime, been using them like 4 years now.

I have cpanel with both places.

I think you do have to pay extra for cpanel on dedicated servers (read some places only offer plesk)

the VPs might be the best way to start your new site, much cheaper than a full blown dedicated. If the site takes off, then you might have no choice but to get a dedicated box.

Take a look at theplanet.com too for dedicated, heard some good things about them (but they may not offer cpanel)

[tsquared]

the VPs might be the best way to start your new site, much cheaper than a full blown dedicated. If the site takes off, then you might have no choice but to get a dedicated box.

That sounds like great advice. That'll be my plan.

On a VPS provider, can you typically see your CPU and RAM usage/load? That seems like a very useful feature to have to see whether you need to beef up or throttle down to save money.

Dreamhost (one of the two shared hosts I use) offers VPS - though currently as invite-only - that lets you throttle how much processor and memory is dedicated to your account, on the fly and pretty much in real-time. You are charged basically for the settings you have it at multiplied by how long it's at that setting. So, if you need more juice, you throttle it up and pay for it during heavy usage and throttle it back down when usage is lighter to save money. That's a really neat idea and puts their prices in the very competitive range.

Unfortunately, Dreamhost is in the middle of taking a bloodbath because they mistakenly billed most of their customers a few hundred extra dollars each a couple of days ago and are getting reamed six ways from Sunday for it. Makes me a bit reluctant to get VPS from them, though their proprietary control panel is very good and otherwise I've had decent luck with them. Somehow I managed to avoid that billing error.

Thanks again. I'll keep y'all posted as to what I discover. If anyone else has more info, feel free to post. Thanks!

[Don-Dad]

I did read something about dreamhost over billing. In my control panel I have a few meters that indicate space and bandwidth usage.

Webhostingtalk.com is a good place to research hosts and find deals

[Remington]

I know someone who can give you your own server and maintain it at no extra cost. Their hosting is exceptional and response time is usually less than 20 minutes....

[Don-Dad]

how much they charge a month?

[Remington]

How much space you looking for?

[Don-Dad]

Well, say 40 gig, though it seems lots of packages have 80 gigs to start.

[Remington]

80 gigs would be very expensive... and so would 40

[Don-Dad]

Is this true dedicated hosting? I don't think I've seen dedicated with less than 40 gig hard drives. I just checked and theplanet and serverbeach offer nothing less than 80 gig drives.

[Remington]

Yeah let me shoot them an email and see what they have to say about it. :music1:

[Remington]

OK I was looking at the wrong page. Their beginner package is 80gig and it is $149 per month but they do all the maintenance and stuff on it.

The other benefit is they reply within 20 minutes probably 90% of the time. If not then within the hour.