Hello all,

I am in the middle of starting a small web hosting and design firm, I am probably going to field a server with the following specs

dual PIII
1GB ram
2 X 36GB SCSI drives
Plesk control panel
0.5MBs dedicated line

will buy this and colocate


now, is that a good setup, or should I go with 2 smaller servers either LINUX or RaQs,..

with this setup, how many domains could I host, assume e-comm sites and not personal photo sites etc..

thank you

john

I think it is a good setup.. probably only thing that would be limiting would be your bandwidth.. still, I'd say around 200 sites wouldn't be a problem with the hardware you have..

good luck!
raqworld

should I go with 2 smaller servers either LINUX or RaQs,..


The question about RAQ or not is something you really need to think about righjt now. It is no problems to get two small Linux machines and when you hit the roof either upgrade hardware or move everyting to bigger servers, however if you go with the RAQ:s upgrade possibilities are limited.

Also, the RAQ:s are special machines and you risk having two different sets of control panels to offer your clients ( and support ) and entire server types ( for you to administer ) if you choose to begin with RAQs and later want some other machines as well.

Hello, :D

thank you both for the insight,.

I was attracted a little to the little Cobalt RaQs but decided that they would be hard to upgrade,

let me ask a follow up,

how do small startups offer "goodies" like shopping carts, free design software, etc.. like MIVA, etc..

unless you buy 1000s of licences at a time, what sort of "cheap" shopping carts can you offer, and how important is that?

thanks again,

john :cartman:

There are alot of free or cheap scripts out there.. I would look at the normal places for scripts to find one you like.

http://www.cgi-resources.com
http://www.aspcode.net
http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com

These are just a few I could think off..
laterz,
raqworld

http://www.hotscripts.com is another good one

You were right, when considered 2 computers, however, would recommend to by both of them as powerful as possible. The first computer can be a primary dns, control panel, mail and web server and the second will be sql and secondary dns.

Why i recommend this way? Because it is cpu power, not disk space that will be the first limit that hit you. running sql on a secondary machine will free a lot of resources to your main
server.

Mr. Anatole,

Would the dual CPUs get dragged down that quickly? this is why I am not going with a single CPU box,

How many domains would it take to load down a dual CPU machine? lets assume that they are using shopping carts and banner rotators using MySQL etc.. when would I begin to "hit the wall" and consider the 2nd machine?


also, with the dual CPU box, will a simple RedHat web-server install utilize multiple CPUs or do I have to "modify the Kernel" then recompile,

thank you,

John :cartman:

I think those server specs will last you quite a while. People do seem a little over zealous when it comes to servers, considering what they do. By the time most people would fill a server that powerful to breaking point, you're going to run into a few other issues.

Now having said that, if you plan on running large shopping carts, and forums, having these make up the bulk of the accounts then sure that power might be quite handy. We have a 800mhz single CPU with 512 RAM that's showing a load currently that forcasts we can put 800 accounts on it (not that we will)

Bigger is better? Sure why not.. it's not *needed* in a lot of cases though

Greg Moore

Thank you guys,.


Raqworld, netsolutions, Aspcode.net, Anatole and Akashik


I appreciate it,

john :D

good luck to ya!

laterz,
raqworld