I don't get it, their specs are nowhere near as powerful as a regular server and they are more expensive, what purpose do they serve?

There are a few reasons: 1) you can get them cheap (often under $50 on Ebay, contradicting your point above); 2) the hardware has proven to be very reliable (except for the fans :-) ); and 3) Some like the simple and fairly intuitive GUI, optimized for simple hosting of multiple virtual sites.

Even a 1U PC server is twice the size (depth-wise), uses more power, and is typically at least $1000. However, for that you get a much faster CPU, etc. You can solve the GUI issues by running CentOS+BlueQuartz on the PC server.

Many/most commercial webhosting services are decommissioning their old Raqs, or just EOLing them as they fail. The remainder of us are keeping old boxes alive when time is less important than money, i.e. we either happen to have one already, or are "hobbyists".

All that having been said, a Raq4i with CentOS+BQ and RAID'ed disks is a simple, reliable, low-maintenance box (though not a fast one for compute-heavy tasks) that can easily serve 12-24 low-usage sites on a single IP.

We have 4 of them (mix of raq3 & 4) that we upgraded the cpu to a whopping 450 mhz. We use them for the low end sites (family sites, informational ones, etc) that don't need the major horsepower of a 'whitebox' server. The gui is easy to use (cent & bq via strongbolt install), and we get about 40 sites per box. And when it dies, as gnetwerker said, on ebay, they are going for about $40. What's not to love?

what about sites like www.tera-byte.com that are leasing then for $199/month for the new Raqs, how do they make sales?

Compaired to the pricing of bandwidth for having your own box co-located, its a steal... I see they have 500gb of bw with that... if co-lo with them its $825 just for the bandwidth. Of course, you do get to use your own newer/faster server. Their virtual servers are 100gb for $55... so 5x55 (to get same amount of bw as the raq) is $275... so the raq is still a deal compared to that. Do I think it's a good deal over all? No, not really.

We charge $20/month for a 15gb site with no bandwidth restrictions. The raqs are perfect for that.

They are also fantastic for the small user who has a cable modem and wants to host his company's website or a home site. Easy to use. They don't use much power. They run cool. They have a small footprint.

Plus if you co-lo you can place them back to back :) Saves a ton of space.
Also when you get it you will just love it :) Can't say why... but I just can't bare to dump them...

Got almost 20 of these little blues ( RaQ3/4/550 mixed ). Yes they are slower and we have decommissioned them some months ago and are re-conditioning them to serve as backups, testing and maybe even a remote SSH box.

Even pumped DirectAdmin into a few.

But why wouldn't you just rent a managed server (Probably a mid-range AMD X2) for around $200 a month from somewhere like Wired0tree? Instead of getting the RAQ from tera-byte? You get a far more powerful server and management for the same price.

because some people have alot of customers on the RaQ4 os and they want to keep them there so they don't have to teach them about the 550/bluequartz, ensim, pleask, cpanel, etc gui.

They don't want to take their customers from a simple to use gui to a confusing gui.

It's simple, Easy to recover from, easy to restore, the hardware is inexpensive and the os and updates are FREE.

Also.. I have seen RaQ4's with over 250 sites on them and I have to say I'm not surprized to hear that the strongbolt systems can only do "about 40 sites per box"

Well Zeffie, it's only 40 or so sites per box because we give out quite a bit of space to each domain. I'm sure if we limited it a lot more, we could squeeze all onto one box with no problem.

I wouldn't want to see you move all your customers to a Strongbolt box to test this by any means...

dropped/closed

No, I think I am going to try it. I will just make a box as a back up and see how it all works out. I will report my findings here.

I don't get it, their specs are nowhere near as powerful as a regular server and they are more expensive, what purpose do they serve?


I ran my whole business on cobalt raqs for almost 5 years.
They are very solid and I rarely had any problems. Thats hardware and software!

I actually still have 3 or 4 of them in service.

Only problem with them now is they are limited in power and ability. Sites that need more speed and space will find them slow and un expandable.

You can still use them for the small mom and pop type websites.

I mean these days for well under $1000 you can build a nice server with an unlimited Direct Admin lic.

But with guys like zeffie around from zeffie.com, cobalts will continue to run nicely!

pk