I have some questions about these 2 types of dedicated servers.

I'm looking at Catalog.com since they are getting such good reviews on here.

1. What is the difference between the Cobalt RaQ 3 that catalog.com has that they offer for $199.00 a month VS. Dedicated Red Hat Linux for $249.00 a month?

2. Which of these 2 dedicated servers is better? Pro's and cons?

3. Cobalt RaQ 3 doesnt say what type of processor it uses and the Red Hat Linux uses a celeron. Is a Celeron fast enough for a site getting 13 GB a month traffic that has a UBB board as well? Plus i'm looking at adding 3 or 4 other sites of mine on it as well.

4. Which of these servers is easier to use for a novice?

5. Is there any significance with the hard drive size? My biggest site is around 120 MB but will end up probably being 150MB

6. Can someone explain Bandwith? Meaning I seen somewhere about 128, 256 etc and I don't mean ram.

7. Anyone on here currently use either of the above dedicated servers if so what is your website address and experience is speed of loading of your site?


If theres anything anyone else that they can add that they think might be helpful feel free to add it.

Thanks

P.S.

Thanks to this forum because I was looking at burstnet.com and after reading the posts on here I will no way go with them. Also you might be interested that they are selling dedicated services on EBAY for a special of $125 vs. $195 regular price and that's how I found them in the first place.

Welcome Matrix! I happen to have a RaQ3 and I think for what you are going to be hosting and your traffic either will do fine. The RaQ3's have an AMD 300Mhz processor, which as you probably can guess, isn't the most robust processor out there. Either server though, would probably be fine.

The RaQ's have a CP that makes basic admin simple but I believe that Catalog installs Plesk on their servers so the Celeron one will be as easy to admin (basic stuff- I mean like adding accounts etc., pops, etc.). FOr both you'll want to do some homework on running a server and that goes with any server you lease.

For a 150MB site, hard drive isn't going to be your main concern. What does matter (especially with running UBB's) is that your server should have enough RAM to keep up. I don't suggest running the server with only 32 MB. Not sure what those two packages offer in terms of this, but you may want to increase it slightly (I'm guessing these servers come with 64-128MB of ram).

Bandwidth (128, 256) is basically the line speed, and I don't think Catalog limits you (caps) your speed. I believe that you'll be simply charged for a minimum amount plus anything over your plan. Bandwidth, lines, and the differences between how companies calculate this have been discussed here before, though I'm not sure which search words I'd use to find the threads. Ask specific questions, and we'll try to clarify.

My server isn't at Catalog, so I doubt that would be of much help...

Since you would be leasing the server with a 160MB disk and getting 100 or so GB of bandwidth - Why do they say 4 IP's? Why do these dedicated server co's limit the number of IP's?
Bub

Where is a good place to start reading up on using a dedicated server?

Which hosting company do you use for this site?

Matrix


Originally posted by Chicken
Welcome Matrix! I happen to have a RaQ3 and I think for what you are going to be hosting and your traffic either will do fine. The RaQ3's have an AMD 300Mhz processor, which as you probably can guess, isn't the most robust processor out there. Either server though, would probably be fine.

The RaQ's have a CP that makes basic admin simple but I believe that Catalog installs Plesk on their servers so the Celeron one will be as easy to admin (basic stuff- I mean like adding accounts etc., pops, etc.). FOr both you'll want to do some homework on running a server and that goes with any server you lease.

For a 150MB site, hard drive isn't going to be your main concern. What does matter (especially with running UBB's) is that your server should have enough RAM to keep up. I don't suggest running the server with only 32 MB. Not sure what those two packages offer in terms of this, but you may want to increase it slightly (I'm guessing these servers come with 64-128MB of ram).

Bandwidth (128, 256) is basically the line speed, and I don't think Catalog limits you (caps) your speed. I believe that you'll be simply charged for a minimum amount plus anything over your plan. Bandwidth, lines, and the differences between how companies calculate this have been discussed here before, though I'm not sure which search words I'd use to find the threads. Ask specific questions, and we'll try to clarify.

My server isn't at Catalog, so I doubt that would be of much help...

No, Idea but I was planning on using it for my main site plus maybe a few other sites.


Originally posted by Bub
Since you would be leasing the server with a 160MB disk and getting 100 or so GB of bandwidth - Why do they say 4 IP's? Why do these dedicated server co's limit the number of IP's?
Bub

Originally posted by Bub
Since you would be leasing the server with a 160MB disk and getting 100 or so GB of bandwidth - Why do they say 4 IP's? Why do these dedicated server co's limit the number of IP's?
Bub

Because, you really only need ONE IP address to run the server, even with many domains hosted on it. Add one more if you want to run DNS on the server itself. So the others could be for two addl. dedicated IP sites, or for a secure cert. (which needs a dedcated IP address), or...

Originally posted by Matrix
Where is a good place to start reading up on using a dedicated server?

Which hosting company do you use for this site?

Matrix

A good place to start reading up... hmmm, well one of our members, Duster, has a site called http://techcellence.net/ that he's been working on to help newbies on server admin. It might be a good starting point.

When you say, "Which hosting company do you use for this site?", realize that *I* don't own this site and only remember this when someone brings up this question. It is hosted as a virtual account (shared) by hostmatters.com (not on a dedicated server quite yet, but I believe it is heading there in the future).

Chicken is right on why you get 4 IPs. Two are immediately assigned the broadcast and net id. The other two are available to you to start hosting on. Most companies will sell you more IPs as you need them should you need them. A lot of people are doing named based hosting reducing the need to get more IPs.

One more dumb question on this - If you use a NameServer IP such as NS.Tall-people-hosting.com, does that mean that you can have 50 or so, sites with their own IP's pathed below that and still be considered 1 IP?
Bub

THose 50 or so sites would have to have the same IP as the name server if I understand what you are saying.