Originally Posted by attroll (Post 1393332)

This is a very true comment. You get what you pay for with someone else managing you server.

I went through two cheap server management companies that were recommended from posts I read on other web sites. Some server management companies know just enough to get by or have long response times. You want a company that knows servers and all the ins and outs. You also want one with quick response times. When you have a problem with your server you do not want to have to wait 12 to 24 hours for them to look at it. The company I have now I have been very happy with for $65 a month. Granted you can find cheaper ones but like I said you get what you pay for. As Smitty also said you can find some that also cost just as much as your dedicated server. But keep one thing in mind. If you have a good company set your server up for you and if it was done right you should never had to have them mess with your server again for you unless you want something changed or you mess something up. So why pay someone a lot of money monthly when they are doing nothing except scanning your server for viruses for you and a few other things

Originally Posted by Zachery (Post 1393478)

Because when you're server goes down at 3 am on christmas I'm there fixing it.

System administration is a full time job, if you think a real system admin that you're paying top dollar for is just sitting around scanning for virirus and waiting for things to happen you're sorely mistaken.

Originally Posted by nyunyu (Post 1393439)

At first reading this thread title, I am interested of knowing which host does you big boards guys use. But more and more I read, the post arent anymore related to the title. Why not the mods delete or move these unrelated post to other thread?

Originally Posted by amcd (Post 1393506)

It's no use. People will only learn from their own mistakes. And in this case it is quite normal for a person who has not faced a disaster to think that he is being charged for nothing special.

At the same time, you must also appreciate that there are entities out there who are charging the best rates for sub-standard services. Therefore, some of these opinions may be justified.

I learned my lesson long ago and decided to spend my time learning stuff. And I don't regret it.

Originally Posted by attroll (Post 1393598)

Sorry I am guilty for taking this off track. I was just trying to state that you could own your own server and only pay for bandwidth rather them paying a high monthly price for a dedicated server.


Zachery

I was not insinuating that you sat around doing nothing. What I was trying to say was if the end user (people like me) do not mess around with there server settings then there is not much that will go wrong as long as then get a server management team that does what they are suppose to do. Paying hundreds of dollars for server management support is not required. Sometimes when you pay that much you are not getting any better support then what some of the lower priced companies give you. There are some companies that charge too much to do the same things as the lower priced company does. What it all boils down to is if you are paying $25 a month for server management support you get what you pay for. Which is most likely someone doing nothing or very little and getting paid for it. The person that is looking for a company to manage there server has to do there research.

When I started out I tried two companies that charged between $25 and $35 and did not know all the crap they stated they knew in their write-ups or they hired help that had little experience. The reason I know this is because I know a little about servers and when I was asking questions about some issues the answers they gave me were incorrect and they were trying to baffle me with crap.

Right now I have a great server management company and if my server goes down at 3 am on Christmas day, I know I have a support team that will be right on it.

Sorry I said that you sit around doing nothing. I worded that statement wrong. I know that a good team keeps everything up to date and does more then checking for viruses. I was just trying to say that you don?t have to pay over $100 for a good server management company.

Originally Posted by Zachery (Post 1394832)

You're not in the right class though either, I've been a system and network administrator for both private clients and coperations.

When I think big board now adays I think 3-5 servers.

Originally Posted by attroll (Post 1394846)

Sorry I did not mean this to turn into a debate. I was simply suggesting to one person that it is cheaper in the long run to purchase your own server rather then rent or lease a server and that is a fact. I am not going to debate this anymore.

Originally Posted by EricGT (Post 1408714)

If I were paying for my bandwidth by the GB, I would be living in a refrigerator box. Eric

Originally Posted by TECK (Post 1410302)

Haha, I like the way you put it. Are you using 95th percentile billing?
I like your current setup... Collocation is the way to go. But I'm interested how you deal with the bandwidth...
I'm facing similar issues, so I would like to know more about your billing method.

Originally Posted by EricGT (Post 1410317)

I'm not sure what 95th percentile billing is. I am paying a flat rate for the 10mbs pipe and for the cabinet. The throughput doesn't matter. If I max out the pipe though, my current setup isn't burtstable, which means some people are just going to hit a wall if I run out of bandwidth. Most colo ISP's will offer burstable capability on the connections they offer.

The facility I am in is very nice. I won't drop names, but there are some big fish hosting there. The security is like something out of a James Bond movie: Man traps, retina scans, sniffers capable of picking up the alcohol in a wet wipe, you name it. The place is great. Eric

Originally Posted by klaush (Post 1413366)

So if you live in Germany, i think Hetzner is one of your best choice.

The support is amazing and the pricing is o.k.!

www.hetzner.de

Originally Posted by attroll (Post 1390831)

I purchased my owner server and here are the specs:

2x INTEL XEON 5345 2.33GHZ 8MB QUAD CORE, This is 8 cores
4x 2048MB Memory giving me a total of 8GB of memory
4x 250GB hard drive setup as raid 10 = 500GB total usage
1x 250GB as a backup drive
1x 250GB a spare drive

I did a colo with this server through colo4dallas. In my opinion if you are going to keep a big board up and running it is cheaper to buy your own server and colo it. Renting or leasing a server is putting money into someone else’s pocket. Over a period of one year with the price you pay for using someone else’s dedicated server you could have purchased your own server. I am paying ? if not lower then what everyone else paying because I own my server. If you going to buy a server of your own get something expandable so it will grow with you.

Originally Posted by EricGT (Post 1408714)

I have a half-cabinet at a large co-lo facility. I am currently running seven servers on my network, four of which are directly related to the site's operation. the others are a firewall, backup server and mail server. I could do everything I am doing on two or three servers, but I like spreading things out.

Computing power wasn't the determining factor for me, when it came to making a hosting decision. My primary concern was bandwidth. I currently have a 10mbs pipe and I am using about 85% of it, at peak times. Of the two, computing power is a much cheaper commodity for a webhost to offer than bandwidth. In a colocated facility, I can contract the bandwidth directly from a big telecom provider and skip the middleman markup. I am averaging more than 60GB of data transfer a day, at this point. If I were paying for my bandwidth by the GB, I would be living in a refrigerator box. Eric

Originally Posted by FlyBoy73 (Post 1414070)

You're doing 60GB of bandwidth over the public network per day with GlockTalk?

Originally Posted by attroll (Post 1394846)

Sorry I did not mean this to turn into a debate. I was simply suggesting to one person that it is cheaper in the long run to purchase your own server rather then rent or lease a server and that is a fact. I am not going to debate this anymore.

Originally Posted by Zachery (Post 1415201)

I never noticed your response, however what happens when it comes to catastrophic server failure? Ram goes bad? HardDisk Crashes? You've got to drop ship new hardware to the colo facility, wait downtime, etc.

Originally Posted by Zachery (Post 1415201)

I never noticed your response, however what happens when it comes to catastrophic server failure? Ram goes bad? HardDisk Crashes? You've got to drop ship new hardware to the colo facility, wait downtime, etc.

Originally Posted by AWS (Post 1448860)

It's called unmanaged hosting and is the preferred way to get a dedicated server. It is much cheaper than paying for a full managed dedicated server.