I'm shopping for a dedicated host and one common issue I see is memory.

Most providers offer 256MB SDRAM memory upgrades for $30-$40 setup fee + $15-$20 per month.

C'mon, 250MB SDRAM cost $40. How can they rip off customers having them pay an additional $15-$20 per month? Do they think their customers are stupid?

I don't mind paying for upgrades, not even a premium over the street prices for their work in installing it etc, but after a year that $40 buck memory upgrade cost me $280. It just aint right!

Well, this has been discussed before. Not sure how you'd search for the discussion. To sum up, it was discussed that although ram is inexpensive, there are other costs associated with the upgrade (besides installation costs).

madsere,

I believe that the reason why some hosts charge an additional monthly fee for RAM upgrades is so that they can provide hardware guarantees and/or have spare parts to replace in the event any existing RAM fails.

Cheers :)

here is one such discussion:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17029


while i do not agree with monthly costs on something like memory, when the costs are relatively low it isn't such a bad thing because it serves as an insurance policy against failure.... though i have no problem with the fact that memory upgrades are being offered above market value of memory... remember that most servers require low profile memory which is far more expensive and you have to include the installation by the provider... it seems only fair that they charge more than what it would cost to pick up a chip for your own computer.

Originally posted by madsere
I'm shopping for a dedicated host and one common issue I see is memory.

Most providers offer 256MB SDRAM memory upgrades for $30-$40 setup fee + $15-$20 per month.

C'mon, 250MB SDRAM cost $40. How can they rip off customers having them pay an additional $15-$20 per month? Do they think their customers are stupid?

I don't mind paying for upgrades, not even a premium over the street prices for their work in installing it etc, but after a year that $40 buck memory upgrade cost me $280. It just aint right!

Your numbers are a little off. You are thinking of the normal ram you would stick in your PC I believe. I recently bought a few sticks of 256MB ram from crucial which have really cheap prices and they cost over $100 each due to the fact the were registered.

Originally posted by JeremyL


Your numbers are a little off. You are thinking of the normal ram you would stick in your PC I believe. I recently bought a few sticks of 256MB ram from crucial which have really cheap prices and they cost over $100 each due to the fact the were registered.

Actually, his numbers aren't off. Crucial.com is currently selling 256 megs of ECC Registered PC133 CL2 RAM for $45, and shipping is free for the next few days. You might need special low-profile memory for some servers, but many can use that $45 stick.

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.asp?imodule=CT32M72S4R7E

Yep, snagged one of those sticks. Think it was just over $41.

wishing my p4 took pc133 instead of pc800 :( big price jump.

Another item to consider is that since they (hopefully) keep extra stock on hand in case anything fails you'll probably be paying "last month's" prices. You should certainly expect to see some time lag after retail prices drop before their prices follow.