Hi, my site was eating over 100 connections a second from an available 250.

Now, I know I need to co-locate or go dedicated, but I dunno the difference between the 2, what I should do etc.

please help;

Thanks all.

http://www.e-tones.co.uk

With a co located server you provide the server and send it to a host who will hook it up to their network. With a dedicated server you use the hosts hardware and network.
A dedicated server may be good for a new user because usually the host backs up the hardware, and installs software they are familiar with. Many times you can get a control panel too. However you do not own the server.

Hope that helps,
Tcoy~

Unless you're a skilled and capable server administrator, you're not ready to colocate. You can read more definitive reasons why on my site on a comparison of dedicated servers and colocated ones.

Hi, firstly thanks for taking the time to read and post.

Ok, I really am unsure about what to go for, dedicated server wise.

My site currently gets around 4000+ hits per day, this will likely increase to 10,000+ hits per day within 4 months.

The site is 80% driven from a MySQL database using both perl and PHP.

I am looking for maybe 60gbs of bandwidth.

What sort of hardware and pricing am I looking at?

Cheers, thanks again.

This is kinda OT but I just checked out your site. It's really well designed but for a few things. You might consider setting a default background color. My computer is set at #EEEEEE which is a slightly off-white/grey color so the background on your site retains this color, not white.

Also on my computer your footer text is set as white on white. Is that intentional? I'm refering to the following:

Currently 837 tones in Database, 3229 logos in Database and 5854 Registered Users. All Content is Copyright © e-tones.co.uk 2000

Seriously off topic I know as I didn't address a single question you aksed... sorry :)

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

Well Dedicated servers are all available with Hosting companies.
They come in following popular flavours: Win NT, Win 2000, Unix, Linux, RaQ.

But how much you can shell out depends on the next categorisation:
Your Own Server
Rented Server
Rent and Lease to Own Server(You buy cars that way. Don't you?

Co-Location means placing that server at the datacentre/NOC of Hosting company.
If you own that server, pay for Power,Airconditoning, Dust-proof environ, electronic security(motion sensor,etc.)Fire protection, Disaster proof, on-site service engineer, on-site spares, on-site tape-backup, on-site upgrades,supervision etc.

If hosting company owns a server you pay for services and hardware rent. Monthly, quarterly, six-monthly, yearly. The longer the more discounts you get.

Some providers give fixed bandwidth 50GB/month service and hourly emergency service also.
They also provided smaller fragments also for low traffic.

I hope most of your queries have been answered.
If you are still troubled. You can get me up during you night time at: ABhatnagar@SUPERB.NET