Hello Everyone:

I am very interested in having my own dedicated server similar in specs to Rackshack (the bandwidth allocation is unbeatable), and while Ensim seems helpful as a control panel, I do not know Linux whatsoever.

Additionally, I have some ASP coded applications in need of use (mostly for e-commerce), so I am thinking a Win2000 server might be better for me provided it has a nice control panel.

BTW, my objective is to host my own sites (around 40) to save on monthly hosting costs, and to go into the web hosting industry. I've seen some dedicated Windows 2000 servers at www.chicagowebs.com -- whom have a stellar rep -- but the price is very steep and bandwidth is low. This is the same reason a VPS isn't good for me, becuase one of my sites snags around 1/4 million hits per month alone.

High bandwidth, easy interface, reliable service & affordable pricing is what I need (probably asking too much!).

Your help is most appreciated. I'm glad I found this forum. It's an excellent resource for new guys getting started, such as myself.

Thanks so much!

Team Ghz

Well... some things to consider would be:

How much bandwidth are you using total now?

How much do you plan to use?

How much hard drive space do you use/are planning to use?

Are you willing to pay more for better bandwidth/tech support, or are you looking to pay less for more bandwidth?

---------------------

If you're going into the web-hosting industry:

How are you going to bill people?

Are you going to get incorporated? (liability)

What makes your service special?

Dear Revelation:

Thanx for the reply.

I am using around 100 GB/mo now for my sites. With more projects added, that can easily double.

Plan to use no more than 300GB/mo. That's plenty including enough for cushioning.

HDD space is around 250MB or so.

Budget is tight right now (took a hard hit on the Street post 9-11), so as long as their control panel is effecient and the support is respectable, I'd rather get more bandwidth (near the 300GB/mo range) at a cheaper price instead of premium services across the board.

Billing my would-be clients is done automatically through some apps I've had custom built for me (in ASP). It's a decent admin system -- I've seen better though -- for a start up company.

Legal stuff already taken care of.

Service will not be much different than many other hosts out there. That is fine for me right now, because my main objective is to have a great hosting platform for my own stuff. Additional third party clients will be a work in progress...proverbial icing on the cake, perhaps, and to recoup my investment loss.

Thank you,

Team Ghz

Team,

I think you need to think more about this. It sounds to me that you are not a very technical person. Dedicated servers do require considerable technique skill. And control panels are hard to come by for windows server.

I think the question you need to ask yourself is: do I want to learn more about server administration and networking? This is important because you are running your business on it(I have a server also, but since I am using it to learn, I can mess it up and no problem).

Assuming you have decided to invest the time to learn server administration, your options are still limited. There is not a host comes to my mind that seems to satisify all your needs.

In general, you should look for a host with good support. There aren't many dedicated host who provide windows server, even less are those who have good support.

Off my head, I can recommend a few that you might try,

I host my linux server with multipleimage.com. I am very satisfied with their service and support, and I think Tim at multipleimage.com has some good pricing on window server license.

Jeff at server host does offer some bandwidth deal similar to rachshack, not sure if he offers windows server though. He recently had an offer in the ad forum, so check it out.

It will be good if you can give a range for your burget. My advice above assumes a $200-$300 range. Let me know if you have other questions.

You can also post a request in the ad forum, and hosts will contact you with their offers.

Peter

Forgot to mention, that you also need a control panel. There are basically three: hostingcontroller, h-sphere, and ensim.

Speaking of ensim, hosts that use ensim ServerXchange might have windows server. Although I am not sure any(remarkable hosting doesn't seems to currently offer dedicated servers)

Peter

Well there are some custom control panels as well.

Crystaltech.com has one, which was not working very good when I had a box with them a year and a half ago, but now I think their CP is pretty ok.

I could really recommend Crystaltech, they have good support.

I also think Communitech.net has a custom control panel.

There is an offer by affordableservers.net in the ad forum. They seems to offer windows server. You might want to check them out.

I have no experience with them.

Peter

If all you want is a w2k recommendation, then take a close look at www.rackmy.com ;)

Rackmy.com looks nice to me.

Except the price is too steep. The default transfer was only 10GB, and addon cost $4 per GB.

Peter

Do a search here on rackmy.... Most I've seen say that they are excellent. And i've talked to them in chat before and they are very friendly :-)

I think rackmy.com probably is excellent(no prior experience, but it looks that way).

However, Team is looking for something similar to rackshack. That's 300GB per month. Using rackmy.com's pricing, that would be $1200 per month plus server.

I wouldn't recommend rackmy.com for this particular case.

Peter