I've been debating this for days now and I am about to make an investment and work overtime to afford it.

I do web design and have a dozen domains parked and some are hosted and fully paid for almost a year and still empty/non published.

I wanted to co-locate a 1U Rack for 150/month 10Gig transfer per month.

It's local and only 15-20 minutes from where I live.

I am looking into Cobalt Raq 4 (the 1200$ or so) or the Netra 1X or X1 by SUN which is under $1000 but has more power than the COBALT.

My main concern is that by designing the sites "inexpensively" but charge them for 6 months contract or a full year will pay my 150/month and maybe my raq.

I only have 10 clients right now but I cannot afford to get more unless I can provide what they ask for.

Cobalt Raq gets #10 on their control panel and the ease of confuring server as a USER/CLIENT and as a ADMINISTRATOR / Root User.

I also read 100s of threads and sites about CPanels, CPanel. Plesk, HostGui and Ensim. I can easily build a 1U rack from work with wholesale parts (+10% employee) and get me a nice raq that can host 30-50 sites instead of 10-15 on the Cobalt Raq 4, for 1/2 price or less running RedHat 7.x OS.

My main concern is maintenance. As I am designing, printing, graphic design, I hate to waste time in Admin work.

Any suggestions appreciated. I already talked to my company to call few places and see if their vendors sell any Cobalt Raqs..

Ou, if you have any vendors that you know of that sell Cobalt for less than cobalt.com let me know. I even looked on Ebay.

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web/print/graphic/multimedia

10-15 sites? How busy are these sites?

I currently have 3 RaQ4's (2 i and 1 r) they currently host 220 - 40 - 80 domains each with no problems at all!

The Netra and the "white box" Servers are gonna take a LOAD more admin time than the RaQ's, while the RaQ's aren't nobrainers they are a site more easy to operate.

What I see you describing, I'd say grab a RaQ, the control panels you m ention are nearly all gonna cost you bundle of cash that has to be added to the TCO In the long run I think you'd probably end up happier with the RaQ.

Originally posted by EnigmaBiz
I've been debating this for days now and I am about to make an investment and work overtime to afford it.

I do web design and have a dozen domains parked and some are hosted and fully paid for almost a year and still empty/non published.

I wanted to co-locate a 1U Rack for 150/month 10Gig transfer per month.

It's local and only 15-20 minutes from where I live.

I am looking into Cobalt Raq 4 (the 1200$ or so) or the Netra 1X or X1 by SUN which is under $1000 but has more power than the COBALT.

My main concern is that by designing the sites "inexpensively" but charge them for 6 months contract or a full year will pay my 150/month and maybe my raq.

I only have 10 clients right now but I cannot afford to get more unless I can provide what they ask for.

Cobalt Raq gets #10 on their control panel and the ease of confuring server as a USER/CLIENT and as a ADMINISTRATOR / Root User.

I also read 100s of threads and sites about CPanels, CPanel. Plesk, HostGui and Ensim. I can easily build a 1U rack from work with wholesale parts (+10% employee) and get me a nice raq that can host 30-50 sites instead of 10-15 on the Cobalt Raq 4, for 1/2 price or less running RedHat 7.x OS.

My main concern is maintenance. As I am designing, printing, graphic design, I hate to waste time in Admin work.

Any suggestions appreciated. I already talked to my company to call few places and see if their vendors sell any Cobalt Raqs..

Ou, if you have any vendors that you know of that sell Cobalt for less than cobalt.com let me know. I even looked on Ebay.

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web/print/graphic/multimedia

You are right. I am looking into hosting mostly 25 sites and I am in heaven. I usually focus on web design and try to sell space afterwards.

I cannot afford learning command shell now and buying Plesk or other CPanel for my users where Cobalt comes with it. I will make sure everything is updated security wise and not get hit with SYN Floods or whatever Cobalt stories are out there.

Right now I have to decide between RackShack.net and ServerRack.Net.

There is a price difference and also setup fee. ServerRack.net seemes to have setup fees hidden or cannot see them unless I email them or call them. For the price of RackShack.Net I can get a Raq4 at ServerRack compared to a Raq3 @ RackShack.

Next week baby... :D

go for Netra X1.. I have one and I think its great!.. especially lights out management :)

Originally posted by vselvara
go for Netra X1.. I have one and I think its great!.. especially lights out management :)

I also looked into the Dell PowerEdge 1550 one, about 1200 or so.

I might just build one from pricewatch.com and add all the goodies myself. Netra is kinda forcing you to SPARC, if I remember correctly.

If you dont mind running Solaris, then the netra would be a good solution. Think about sitting in your office with a Netra X1 in the datacenter hooked up to a terminal server.. You could sit in your office and re-install solaris if you really had to.. Thats the main reason I went for the Netra X1.. Dont even need to have the server on a reboot switch ;).

I agree with vselvara. The Lights Out Management is the best part about the Netra. Remote console has saved us a few visits to the data center and kept downtime on the server very low.

But, you need to know what you're doing. Solaris isn't for the weak-hearted. It's slightly different than Linux. If you're a good Unix admin (command line of course), you shouldn't have much of a problem. If not, go with the Raq. It has a handy CP and you'll have an easier time administrating your server.

I wish all servers had LOM. The Dell 1550s have console redirection to its serial port which I have yet to play with. Not nearly as good as LOM, but hopefully it'll be the next best thing. :)

Originally posted by EnigmaBiz
For the price of RackShack.Net I can get a Raq4 at ServerRack compared to a Raq3 @ RackShack.

Next week baby... :D Think you have that backwards.. RS does not even offer 3's anymore..

For what you are talking about.. go with the rackshack 4i.. you will be happier than trying to run a netra or colocating and buying your server...


Shortz

Originally posted by shortfork
Think you have that backwards.. RS does not even offer 3's anymore..

For what you are talking about.. go with the rackshack 4i.. you will be happier than trying to run a netra or colocating and buying your server...


Shortz

Screw that... I will never lease another line... unlesss I got personal friends that are in the business recommend them. I am being extra nice to serverrack.net but now I am wasting money paying for professional testings and such to figure out what the hell is up. I called Mike up to ask him for a quote how much is to buy the darn cobalt 4 and have it shipped to my house and have it co-located with VitalStreams but no answer for 2-3 days now.

For those interested in serverrack.net here is one of many speed tests:

http://www.dslreports.com/monitored/pp/65.170.79.187