I want to get a dedicated server to do web hosting and wanted your input on the below specs also what is the MAX accounts I should but on a system with the specs (No Adult sites)

800Mhz Pentium
256MB Gig Ram
60GB IDE Hard Drive
50 GB Transfer



Thanks
:confused:

again, the answer depends ... I once host a popular VB site (just one site) on a P3/733Mhz with 256MB memory. It does not do well for his dynamically generated pages even when the site is only doing around 50GB traffic. Server load causes some serious problems. Note, this is just one site (at that time, I did not know how to tweak apache/mysql as well).

On the other hand, I have a P3/733 with 512MB memory and it has roughly 200 accounts on it and pumping only around 20GB of transfer/month. Server load is around 0.5-1. Most of these sites are static sites ...

So ... there is no really "rule of thumb" to answer your question. But here is my suggestions:
1. Get a server that you can expand later, especially the memory (512MB or even 1-2GB if you can). Most of the time, more memory is more important than having faster Mhz CPU.
2. Then consider using 2 smaller drives instead of one (you will be surprised to know how much Disk I/O bottleneck will increase your server load). Having 2 smaller drives can actually benefit you so that you can have one drive to server http pages (/home) and the other to server mysql, all of your logs, etc ...
3. Get the highest CPU Mhz as you can afford. If possible, ask for server that is capable of dual CPU so that you can upgrade later.

Good luck ...

cheers,
:beer:

I have a p3 1ghz with 512ram pushing 3mbps right now, i know thats not alot but theres also roughly 80 virtual accounts on it w/o a single problem. It all depends on how you setup the server, i have another server thats a p3 933 with 512 ram running a freehost that pushes roughly 21mb/s and today went as high as 90mbps **that one hurt a little bit**. Once again, it all depends on how you configure apache, and what u do to the server, 50gigs of transfer per month is really nothing to worry about at all. MSG me on ICQ if you have any more questions.

Thanks for the reply

I still dont know what system to get because I want to host aroung 500 sites on the server though

Well, I think the question is: What kind of site are the 500 sites?

Peter

They will be small (Static) to mid-size sites ! ~ !

What specs should I be looking at?

Anythng bigger than mid size will go on another server.

Thanks
:)

bahres,

My suggestion is you get a basic server to start with [256mb ram and single pIII 866 or higher] and upgrade as the number of sites increase

I currently have a server on these specs but it can expand to 4GB RAM and 3 more hard disks and I currently have only 21 static sites... my cut off is to upgrade to 512 when the number reaches 60+ and take it from there

Just make sure that your hardware is of high quality and you have lots of room to expand

500 [mostly] static sites should be manageable by 512MB RAM with a PIII and 40GB IDE if they dont get too much traffic- if your traffic increases you just increase the RAM and you will be good enough to handle quite a load [ofcourse a lot depends on Apache set up] I am using FreeBSD 4.4 and djbdns which in my opinion is a lot better than Linux and BIND

Good luck
Balaji