I just came from Tophosts.com where I read this article (http://www.tophosts.com/pages/articles/dediart01.htm). If you guys don't mind, I want to know more about your own personal opinion about what's good and what's not with Dedicated Server and the same thing with Co-Location.

Thanks in advance for the replies. :)

Originally posted by Quill
this article (http://www.tophosts.com/pages/articles/dediart01.htm)The prices they quote in this nice article are a bit high, like: "$4,000 is needed to purchase a low-mid range server system". What kind of system is that, Cobalt RaQ XTR?

I recently acquired 9 (nine) 866 MHz Pentium III processor based 1U servers with 256 to 512 MB of RAM in each, 10 to 40 to 2x40 GB hard disks for a total sum of $5228 (that's $581 per server), including the shipment of 8 systems inside US and 1 system to UK. OK, those systems were "like new" from a fallen ISV I guess, but even if you want to go with completely new system, you still can get pretty neat $700-$800 1U boxes from places like online-spectrum.com or AcmeMicro.com.

However I see Chris Wade's point in the article. Co-location is not so cheap as it seems to be at first look. I now have 3 dedicated servers with RackShack and I hope to have 8 co-located servers with Affordable Colo, and I should say when I compare "instant setup" of dedicated servers with my co-location experience, it is far from pleasant. Nothing to do with Affordable Colo - actually, Charles Baker is very helpful - but I got all kinds of problems like:

- UPS could not deliver couple of systems ("can't find the adress" - and this is excuse UPS uses after they delivered 4 other systems to the same address :( );
- 2 systems were damaged in transit;
- Cisco switch is still somewhere in transit and we can't install the systems without the Cisco switch in place etc.

and this is only the beginning of my colocation nightmares I guess.

Co-location isn't a bad choice if you're experienced enough to know the ropes of server admin

Adam

If Colocation is really more expensive then Dedicated, then why there're people who still choose this kind of method instead of Dedicated? Apart from the total control of the server of course.

Originally posted by Quill
If Colocation is really more expensive then Dedicated, then why there're people who still choose this kind of method instead of Dedicated? Apart from the total control of the server of course.


At start, yeah colocation is more expensive.
In the long run, dedicated is more expensive.

Today you use $2000 to purchase a server and colocate it.

Rack space + bandwidth = monthly fee.

If you go with dedicated server, then

Rack space + bandwidth + lease of server = monthly fee.