Hi, folks.

One more question before my foray into dedicated hosting:

How much memory/drive space should I get for the server?


I've narrowed the choice down to two of the Red Hat servers from catalog.com:
1) Celeron 500, 128MB RAM, 10 GB EIDE HD - $219 per month
and
2) Celeron 600, 256MB RAM, 20 GB EIDE HD - $259 per month

There will be a mix of web sites on the server -- about 20-30 small ones (hopefully growing to 50-100 or more), plus a few that have some fairly CPU-intensive scripts (nothing outrageous, though), and one site with 4-5 GB of realaudio/realvideo files that currently gets about 10 GB/month of traffic on its current server.


So... Would it be overkill to go with the server with more RAM and bigger HD? It's only $40/month more, and if I chose to upgrade later it would end up being $80/month more (forever, I guess?).


Thanks again.
Rehan

My vote is for #2, but it is easier to decide when it isn't my money :)

It's not my money either, but since you asked. . .
If you already have one site that would consume 50% of the drive on plan #1 and you're counting on many more sites to host, then I'd say go with #2. The additional memory is a big factor too.

So 128 MB wouldn't be "enough"?

One of my sites is with phpwebhosting.com right now -- virtual hosting... (I think they're with DialtoneInternet.) The server I'm on has over 200 accounts, and 128 MB of memory; I don't know about the processor. I haven't had any CPU or memory related problems with my site there (although disk space and MySQL have been another story!).

128 MB seems to be good enough for 200 web sites, so would it not be okay for 100 sites plus a RealAudio download server?

I'd think it would be fine for now, but just because one server has 128 and works fine, it doesn't relate to your server and what you'll be running on it. You can always get the cheaper one and upgrade as needed.

Vote for #2.

No such thing as too much ram.

Seconded. The more RAM the better it will run, and it's worth the extra $40/month.

Thanks, guys.

I went with option #2...Not only for the RAM but also for the storage space. :-)

That was a better idea, its usually cheaper to lease a nicer system then to upgrade...