I'd like to build a small server. Not looking for anything huge, just for some web hosting. A small number of sites. I am familiar with hardware and software, and have built many PCs, and am also quite familiar with most of the software. So, my question is..If building a linux web server. Can someone tell me everything I need. Hardware and Software. I am probably going to Co-Locate. But. I need to know what I am going to need.

Colocation costs add up, you are responsible for hardware/software and all server configuration and issues.

Do yourself a favor and go dedicated. ;)

Use Colocation only if you require special hardware configuration which is currently not available at the datacenter. It would be great if you are running several servers requiring probably 1/2 or 1 rack since you can share bandwidth almost all the servers without paying huge fees for it. But if it is 1 or 2 standard servers then there is no advantage to go colo with what Lifelesshost mentioned.

Wait Wait..ok. I always believed that CoLocating was when you had a server, and put it at a datacenter and used their connection and what not? Because that is what I need, because my cable provider doesn't allow servers to be connected to their connection..for bandwidth purposes obviously. Can someone explain please?

Yes, Colocation is putting your server in a datacenter and using their network but your hardware. Since it is your hardware, you are responsible to set it up, replace faulty components and managing the hardware locally or remotely.

Dedicated hosting is renting a server from the datacenter and using it on their network. You use their network and their server. The datacenter would be solely and wholly responsible for any hardware component replacement and updates. You just manage the server remotely throughout your contract.

The difference between dedicated hosting and colocation is the ownership of the hardware and thus the hardware maintenance responsibility.

Dedicated Hosting is cheaper because you do not need to worry about purchasing a hardware for that purpose and frees you from worrying about upgrading old and faulty hardware. Cheaper if your requirements are small.

Colo is good if you want full control over what hardware goes into the server and you like to do everything yourself. Cheaper if you need to add new hardware components since you pay one-off price instead of the monthly fees levied by the datacenter.

Ok, thanks alot for clearing that up. Give me about a day to look into dedicated hosting, and I'm sure I'll be back with more questions lol. Thanks again.

Feel free to browser around web hosters which offers both colocation and dedicated server offerings and see what they offer for each configuration. I am sure that while you are at it, you will want to look at the pricing issues.

Most of us which only have needs for a few servers would go with the dedicated server hosting path since it is a cheaper option but if you have probably something like 10 servers or more, colocation may be a good option and probably worth your time visiting the datacenter to do updates and so on on a regular basis.