Hi everyone.

I am a web designer who wishes to jump into the web hosting aspect on the business. I was looking at Rackshacks's promotion 99 bucks for the Raq4 Dedicated Server.
20GB and 150 GB on B/W.

I have a couple of questions.

Say I host

50 Accounts - 25 MB, 1 GB = 1250 MB, 50 GB
25 Accounts - 50 MB, 2.5 GB = 1250 MB, 50 GB
10 Accounts - 100MB, 5 GB =1000 MB, 50 GB

3500 MB OF DISK SPACE AND 150 GB Of BANDWIDTH.
Now, how will the service be? Can the server handle this?

Also, I currently have a virtual account with a web host, and I do not have an IP...Rackshack offer 4 IPs/$4 Month.

Would I need to buy 85 IP Addresses and pay 85 bucks a month or can i host sites without IPs? (Except for the main one provided for the server?)

As you guys can tell, I obviously am not a web hosting expert...

I also have an account with Tera-Byte.com and I think I don't have access to the .htaccess file...Can someone tell me why that is? Raq Servers don't allow the altering of .htaccess?

Also, can I manually install MySQL on the Tera-Byte account?

Okay, first of all, if you don't know a thing or 5 about Linux, don't get your own server. Secondly, if you decide to ignore this advice, don't get your server from rackshack. They have great prices and might be great if you know what you are doing, but if you don't, they won't help you.

Hey,

What I did first was went to Superb Internet and purchased one of their little shared servers. It comes with like 1 gig of space and a control panel that looks just like the RAQ control panel.

Then, when we decided to go with RAQ servers, we got our first one with communitech.net and rackspace.com. These guys provide awsome support, but the prices are very very high for RAQ servers.

The best thing about paying the extra dollars for bigger companies is that they will provide you with all the set up and things that you need to run the server. They can also provide some really good 24/7 support and fast backbones.

That is just personal experience, hopefully this will help you out alittle.

Jim

Aloha

jsut remember the old saying
if you think you are the smartest man at the table you will never learn anything..
OK enough

well I am no expert on Linux or unix by any means but I am comfortable with conf files etc...

I still want a easy admin interface like you will want you will get this kind of response form some people so be it
it is funny that they feel so threatened and can not answer your question
so here goes best of my ability

listen to Jim
get some place that will get 24/7 support or be ready to learn
I have been toying with a RaQ but do not like some features.
you can host all on 1 ip
I would use 1 to use for admin and do not put a site on it
use the other for your own site

you can host many sites on 1 ip very easy if you look at the RaQ demo

a raq can not handle massive sites but it sounds like what you want will be OK as long as you set limits etc.. be ready for people running things such as high traffic web boards using CGI such as infopoops


.htaccess is very easy to figure out it is a way of checking rights etc... in a dir or other to access it
go to
apache.org and type it in the search

I have not heard about not using htaccess in raqs that does not make sense but in some ways raq do not make sense

think of a RaQ as Yugo not the kind of car you want to have for yourself but you can let your friends drive it and rent it from you ;)

I have some clients that would be fine sharing a rack as there sites are small and static and do not draw much bandwith

so it may be hard to put your finger on if it will handle it
yes it will but make sure you let people know that they can not use it for super high cpu stuff etc...

but best of luck to you we all have to learn to walk sometime
I just choose not to do it over hot coals which you might be getting yourself into
take your time learn more first

get a swapable HD at home install Linux on it and play

I hope my reply is not too late.

U can try using CobaltRacks (www.cobaltrack.com) They offer an RaQ3 with 51GB of Transfer + 15.2 GB HDD + 128Meg RAM for $99 per month. I am not too sure about their customer support now, but when I had a server with them about a year ago, they were excellent! The server comes with 4 IPs - $1.00 extra per month for each additional IP - sold in blocks of 4 too, but there's no setup fee in comparison to RackShack.

I am quite sure you won't have much difficulty learning to use the RaQ - it is rather simple and straight forward. If you run into any problems, just get your host to reload the box. CobaltRacks used to do it for me free of charge - don't know about now, but heard that they revised their fees or something like that few months ago.

I use CobaltRacks and they are alright IF you are very good at administering a RAQ. Now, CobaltRacks techincal and customer support is not very good at times. The only guy who knows anything at CobaltRacks is Sam, and hes never avaible.

There were many times when the night guy, cobly, told me, (direct quote) "for $199/month we simply rent you the hardware, we do not provide indepth tech support."

So you see, I always had to contract out my tech support issues to either Cobalt Networks ($200/hour) or to someone on this board (prices fromo $15 to $75 a hour).

So you see, if you dont really know alot about the Cobalt RAQ server or linux...its not that good of an idea to go with these guys.

But, dont let me stop you....:)

Jim

I have a question regarding MySQL..
The 99 bucks a month, with no setup fee at colbaltrack.com appears as if it doesn't have MySQL...Can I manually install it? Or is that out of the question?

Thanks.

You can install anything you need to on the RAQ. CobaltRacks wont support it, and wont give any support or even talk about it, but you can still install it.

Jim

50 Accounts - 25 MB, 1 GB = 1250 MB, 50 GB
25 Accounts - 50 MB, 2.5 GB = 1250 MB, 50 GB
10 Accounts - 100MB, 5 GB =1000 MB, 50 GB

3500 MB OF DISK SPACE AND 150 GB Of BANDWIDTH.
Now, how will the service be? Can the server handle this?

I was just looking through the post and thought I might add something about this. If you promise your clients 1 GIG each, and each of them uses it. Your server will be out of its 150 bandwidth. Now, to back up your server, (normally about 2 GIG RAQ Files) you will need a reserve bandwidth. Also, any patches or programs (i.e. MySQL) will require some bandwidth to install.

Now, this is just in the worst case, considering that most people do not even use 50 MB of transfer per month!

Just something to keep in mind!

Jim

Originally posted by jimb
Now, this is just in the worst case, considering that most people do not even use 50 MB of transfer per month!

Yes, and since this is the case, it is pretty much a non-issue. As for CobaltRacks, they haven't done very well here. I'd search for comments and only say that it isn't where I'd personally sign up.

If you a newbie for Linux OS

You can Dedicated Cobalt at www.dialtoneinternet.net

They have a good support for technical and others....
I've been 1 years have their support for Cobalt Raq3 and very-very interesting to have work with them....:):)

Regards
Adhytia WS

So, I see that CobaltRacks is getting worse...

how much is your budget btw, big_smooth?