Do you guys buy dedicated servers or do you colocate

Thanks
~Chris

I bought a server from surpasshosting.

Colo is usually more expensive and most times your are responsible for the hardware. If you lease or rent a dedicated box, it is usually a little more cost effective. Not to mention, they usually have free hardware replacement.

We have around 100 servers and we rent our servers. We used to colo, but it just makes more sense for us to rent.

Why? Because we're not stuck with depreciated/worthless equipment in a couple of years and any hardware replacement is not done at our expense. Plus, we work with excellent datacenters that provide remote hands, when needed, at little or no cost to us. Basically, its a big fat package deal with very little headaches.

--Tina

We do both. Co-locating is only economical for those with bigger quantities of servers, therefore I can see why most people won't.

We colo all our equipments and it works great for us

We do both. Co-locating is only economical for those with bigger quantities of servers, therefore I can see why most people won't.

There are reasons to do things, in business, that aren't necessarily about saving money.

--Tina

If you're just starting out (and possibly long after that, too), try to focus on what you can/must do to make your business a success. Most small businesses (including hosts) fail not because of hardware arrangements, but because of lack of customers. So, my recommendation is to lease servers and spend your time marketing.

We co-locate becuase of the enterprise hardware we run. If we were leasing dedicated servers we would be running at around $800/month per box from most of the big dedicated providers.

Going the co-location route also gives us a far greater degree of control over the environment and also allows us to hand pick every brand and model of component we use etc. It is personal choice though and one model doesn't fit all.

- Chris

We co-locate and also have dedicated servers. However, if you are just starting out as a web hosting company, it is usually better to go for a dedicated server and that too a managed one. Otherwise things could get a little complicated initially. Marketing is very important in the initial phase of your business.

We have our own suite in the DC which is a 5 minute walk from our office.

Based on Dell's pricing it's more cost effective to buy/lease through them the server specs we use (dual processor, quad core, lots of RAM, SCSI RAID5 etc).

The goal is to colocate one day for sure. However, right now, that's just not feasible because of the associated costs and risks. The biggest thing for me is having the hardware on hand with something eventually goes wrong. With renting servers, the provider is not only responsible for the shape of the hardware, but also has those parts on hand. There is just too much that could go wrong if you're having to overnight parts in when something breaks.

We co-locate becuase of the enterprise hardware we run. If we were leasing dedicated servers we would be running at around $800/month per box from most of the big dedicated providers.

Going the co-location route also gives us a far greater degree of control over the environment and also allows us to hand pick every brand and model of component we use etc. It is personal choice though and one model doesn't fit all.

- Chris

Totally agree here..

We colocate our servers primarily due to the reason Chris mentioned above..

We are picky about what goes in our servers. From the technologies used, all the way to vendors we use. We want to have control over that. We thus don't depend on the provider to release the technologies we can use, but we are free to pick and choose at will exactly what we want.

Totally agree here..

We colocate our servers primarily due to the reason Chris mentioned above..

We are picky about what goes in our servers. From the technologies used, all the way to vendors we use. We want to have control over that. We thus don't depend on the provider to release the technologies we can use, but we are free to pick and choose at will exactly what we want.

Most reliable providers should be able to provide you with whatever equipment you need. If you're going to go with a <edit> budget </edit> provider like LayeredTech, etc., then you might be locked into 'out of the box' solutions. We've never had a problem getting exactly the equipment we need from the providers we currently work with.

--Tina

thats for the input everyone