I don't know much about RaQs, so I am looking for answers. Why do people pay so much foir some raqs, when you can get the same or better specs at a lower price from other vendors? Is there something that special? It seems you can but two P4 2ghxz for the same price as a 1ghz Raq?

thats for the simplicity of the controlpanel.

small quiet and you dont need a huge processor...

The "premium" is for the control panel (ease of use for admins and end users) and pre-integration of everything - no finding/compiling/tweaking apps to work together.

As always, if you don't think it's worth it, then it probably isn't for you, and you should buy something else.

Depends, I went with the RaQ because it was simple to use and built without the chunks not needed for web hosting. Comes with ChilliSoft ASP if I need to use it and also the fact that all RaQs in the same series are built the same way and makes it easy to troubleshoot and explain problems and get solution.

And and if there are PKG, they are simply a breeze to install.

Remember all these are important if you are a newbie such as I. Of course once you outgrowth that stage, you could move on to 'harder' things ;)

I had a RaQ2, RaQ3, and RaQ4i and although I thought they were a dream come true....I hadn't met CPanel yet. ;) For simple tasks or a few sites they work "well" -- I haven't tried any of the newer models though, can't speak for those.

Raqs are great for Newbies..........
They are great for simple website hosting.

If you pile a load of high traffic sites on them with tons my mysql connections open and parsing vai php they are far underpowered little nuggets.

But when you have errors on raqs, its not funny anymore, especially since its backend is a postgresql DB.
As they are running customized versions of old redhat 6.2 i think.
I have a worse time managing raqs when problems occur than normal white boxes with linux on them.

Nevertheless if you just got started in this industry. You should start off with them so save trouble. Unlike normal dualie white boxes which you can build (if powerful enough) 500 websites+, the raqs can max out in terms of cpu/ram usage if you have 100 intense sites.

But then again do the calculation.

Buying a license of cpanel or plesk and build a more powerful server to get the bang for the buck, or pay more for a raq to make life simple but make less profit.

low power consumption, low heat generation, fairly secure, especially the raq2 with the mips cpu.

new to it all but have been using one RAQ4i for over a year. Very little problems, mostly with my learning , great to get it all up and running in a shot period of time.;)

I spent two years on a raq3 and recently traded it in for a couple fo cpanel boxes. The newer boxes are much more powerful and cpanel will do a lot more.... but I'll always remember my raq fondly. The control panel was simpler than cpanel, but less error prone, except for a couple of postgres hiccups that were not too hard to fix. Mostly, I guess I liked it because it seemed to me to be an easy and reliable box for me to learn about servers on.

Ive used raqs for over 5 years. Great machines for beginner websites / hosting. Ive burned out 3 of them in 5 years just due to processor usage. The cobalts cant handle any type of cpu usage whatsoever (such as php, cgi, mysql). If you have a site that gets 1000+ hits a day and uses any scripting Id move for a stronger machine.

They can't handle php, cgi and mysql? errrrr you must of been using some really badly coded scripts.

For 3 years solid i hosted a chatsite on a RAQ3 300mhz with 512mb ram and it was cgi and php based and it was fine even with 70 plus people logged in.

True the scripts were probably not the best. I ran, and still run, a site using infopops message board system. I get 20 - 200 people on there at any given time and at least 3 times daily the server gets overloaded and emails me a "the cpu has been heavily loaded" message. Thats "if" people are posting. If they just sit there and read the server is fine. I run the same script on 2 other standard unix boxes and it works, or appears to work, without issues. On a new raq4i now the overload is around "11" and clears itself out within a minute or 2 so Im not complaining.

Im just saying that based on all the cobalts I used...all had overload issues.