I'm considering colocating a server, because the cost looks to be comparable to what I'm paying to have my site hosted.

I've just begun looking.

I saw what I thought to be a good deal at http://servers.catalog.com/

but I decided to look further and found that there are a few colo's within driving distance of my home - and it will cost less than $100/month for 1u of space and 10 or 20 gigs of bandwidth.

1. What separates a good colo from a bad one? I'm assuming that most colo providers have redundant internet connections.

2. What are these providers going to tell me that will increase the price? All I'm expecting is an internet connection (a fast one), power resets, and space on a rack.

3. Can someone provide me with links to your preffered dns providers? How much should one expect to pay for that?

4. In my experience, I've run into some networking nincompoops who have blamed networking problems on applications, etc. Is it your general experience that network outages are few and far between at colo facilities, or are they relatively common at low cost providers.

5. Assuming that location isn't an issue (I'm in southern california) - what providers would you recommend. Here are my needs:
I would like to host 4-5 sites (including e-mail) on my server - all of them relatively low volume. (20 gigs data transfer will be more than I need)
I need full control of system configuration (my own personal power trip)
I want this to be as cheap as possible, but 1 site is my primary business, and uptime is important (as this will be our mail server)
If I ever feel the need to post a picture of a naked woman on my server for my buddies to check out, I don't want to be breaking any rules.

6. Any reason that name-based resolution won't work? (i.e. do I have to fork over the dough for extra ip's)
If you can help me answer any of these questions, I'd much appreciate it.

1. What separates a good colo from a bad one? I'm assuming that most colo providers have redundant internet connections. You should choose a provider w/ multiple BGP routed connections from at least 2 different providers, 24/7 support, keep spare hardware onsite and one that you feel comfortable working with.

2. What are these providers going to tell me that will increase the price? All I'm expecting is an internet connection (a fast one), power resets, and space on a rack. Most colo providers offer power resets free of charge, others offer free basic Level 1 support. Most charge additional money for hardware replacements, OS reloads, etc. Just ask about these possible charges before you sign up so there are no surprises. :)

3. Can someone provide me with links to your preffered dns providers? How much should one expect to pay for that?If you are not going to run it yourself, your colo provider should be able to handle it for you.

4. In my experience, I've run into some networking nincompoops who have blamed networking problems on applications, etc. Is it your general experience that network outages are few and far between at colo facilities, or are they relatively common at low cost providers. The rule of thumb; you get what you pay for. Providers who offer "cheap" services usually do not have a quality & redundant network or have an over subscribed network. You can also ask the provider to prove to you that they have a BGP routed network. If they have a BGP routed network, find out if it prefers any one provider (if a provider is preferred in a BGP route, it's really only for redundancy and not speed).

6. Any reason that name-based resolution won't work? (i.e. do I have to fork over the dough for extra ip's) SSL will not bind to a name-based site, so it needs it's own IP address. There are a few other instances, but nothing major.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for your response!

I must say, that your web site seems to have more information about your services than most of the colo facilities that I have seen so far.

I was a little disappointed to see that you (rackmy.com) are located in the midwest, and not near me, but you bring up a good point about being centrally located.

Your company has instantly risen to the top of my list. Now... I have to figure out when my contract ends at hostpro... (on a side note - I left interland because of bad service, now they went and bought the company I left them for... grrr)

Does anybody have anything to say about www.rackmy.com ?