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  1. #1

    Keep my dedicated, or move down to a VPS?

    Hey all,

    I currently have a dedicated server @ Limestone Networks, and I'm trying to decide if I should bump down to a VPS. I currently host 5 Wordpress blogs, and a few other small sites. All together, my sites receive anywhere from 300-2000 visitors a day. However, I do have the occasional traffic spike up to 3-4k uniques per day as well. (good SEO practices pays off!)

    I used to run a large proxy network, in which require a high performance dedicated machine. Therefore, I picked up an awesome deal from Limetstone Networks back in February of this year. At my proxy network's peak, I had 90 sites/domains running, receiving 15-20,000 unique visitors a day, and was using about 50-65 GB a day.

    However, I have since sold all of my proxy sites, and I don't plan to get back into that game. (too much spam, etc)

    So now, I'm hosting these 7-8 sites, and have a server with reasonably high specs. My thoughts are to perhaps move down to a VPS, since Apache and MySQL don't need too many resources. It should also be noted that I manage my servers myself, all via command line and Webmin.

    Dedicated server specs:
    Intel Core2Quad Q9300
    8 GB DDR2 RAM
    750 GB SATA HD
    10 mbps unmetered connection
    CentOS 5.3 x64
    Price per month: $134.99


    As you can see, I'm paying $135 a month for this setup, and have continued to since June after I sold my network. I'm still making money from my current sites, but I realize that I could save roughly $1,000 per year by bumping down to a VPS.

    I've actually looked into HostGator's new VPS plans a bit. I had a shared account with them years ago, in which I had a great experience. (I would have an unmanaged VPS, no cPanel)

    I was looking at their Level-3 package, which has the following specs:
    ~1 Ghz Processor
    768 MB RAM
    30 GB Disk Space
    500 GB Bandwidth

    Current price of this package is $39.95. I've also looked at the new Burst.NET VPS', but it seems like Burst.NET has had some serious support issues. I really can't suffer any downtime, and that is one of the reasons why I love my dedicated setup so much. (no one touches it but me)

    Any insight to my 'situation'? If you were in my position, what would you do? Better yet, could I run these 5 Wordpress sites without issue on a VPS with 768 MB RAM?

    Thanks in advance,
    Ace

  2. #2
    Move to VPS

  3. #3
    It seems to me that if your Wordpress blogs are reasonably optimized (which I am sure they are), that a VPS would be more than sufficient. It seems like you no longer have the present need for a dedicated server that you used to.

    Note you may notice some lack of performance once moving to VPS.

    A better solution (about the same cost, maybe a little cheaper) would be to get a good reseller account and set your domains up under it as shared hosting accounts. This is great if you don't need anything special like ffmpeg that may not be offered by a shared hosting provider.

    This will give you the ability to save on costs while still providing performance boosts over most VPS solutions. Keep in mind that a shared account is usually on a high power server as well and in some cases can outperform a VPS.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    5,105
    In your position if it's not broke, don't fix it particularly if you can afford it.

    Stay with your dedicated unless you can't afford it.
    CloudNexus Technology Services
    Managed Services

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Coolraul View Post
    In your position if it's not broke, don't fix it particularly if you can afford it.

    Stay with your dedicated unless you can't afford it.
    Good point. I can certainly afford it, but it's making me think twice every time I send my monthly Paypal payment for the server...

    It's like having a Ferrari, but never driving it...

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    silicon and earthquakes
    Posts
    258
    On the other hand I am pretty sure you could spend that $100 a month on some other things. Why pay for something you are not using? Also, the deal is excellent now but the hardware is eventually going to get old and there will be better deals down the line. Move to VPS now, save that $100 a month and use it when you're ready to get a new one.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by rotoiti View Post
    On the other hand I am pretty sure you could spend that $100 a month on some other things. Why pay for something you are not using? Also, the deal is excellent now but the hardware is eventually going to get old and there will be better deals down the line. Move to VPS now, save that $100 a month and use it when you're ready to get a new one.
    Very true...

    I'm gonna read some more reviews on the Burst.NET VPS's, since they really do seem to have great pricing. I want an unmanaged system, so for the price, I figure I can't really complain. I would just hate to experience a server crash or downtime...

    HostGator VPS's seem pretty legit now too, but they charge a bit more. Although, they definitely have their act together on the stability/support end.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    New Jersey
    Posts
    851
    I agree with both Coolraul and rotoiti. If this is really critical for you and you can afford it than you should continue with dedicated server or in another case if you can get same performance with the VPS by saving some dollars than your move is justified.

    It all comes down to how important this is and how much do you want to spend.
    24Shells in Business Since 2003 - AS55081
    Dedicated Servers, High Bandwidth Servers
    @24Shells - 24shells.net

  9. #9
    Why don't you contact limestone see if they will drop the price to lets say $99 if you keep the machine with them.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    England
    Posts
    198
    Quote Originally Posted by XFactorServers View Post
    Why don't you contact limestone see if they will drop the price to lets say $99 if you keep the machine with them.
    Its a good idea, the worst that they can say is No.
    Kind Regards
    Christopher Smith

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    431
    Quote Originally Posted by Acejam View Post
    Hey all,

    I currently have a dedicated server @ Limestone Networks, and I'm trying to decide if I should bump down to a VPS. I currently host 5 Wordpress blogs, and a few other small sites. All together, my sites receive anywhere from 300-2000 visitors a day. However, I do have the occasional traffic spike up to 3-4k uniques per day as well. (good SEO practices pays off!)
    Based on that I would say ditch the dedicated.

    My wordpress site gets 9000+ unique visitors a day when I do live streams. Its on shared hosting.

    A good vps of 512mb or over would be ideal, that way you can scale up if needed.
    PRESSD - Dynamic WordPress Hosting v2 is in BETA status, set to launch 1st q 2019.
    PRESSD is an OKTANE.COMPANY


  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    /root
    Posts
    23,991
    Quote Originally Posted by Acejam View Post
    Good point. I can certainly afford it, but it's making me think twice every time I send my monthly Paypal payment for the server...
    It can be worst if you keep on paying small payment and at the same time having more downtime and problem... right ?

    Specially 4 U
    Reseller Hosting: Boost Your Websites | Fully Managed KVM VPS: 3.20 - 5.00 Ghz, Pure Dedicated Power
    JoneSolutions.Com is on the net 24/7 providing stable and reliable web hosting solutions, server management and services since 2001
    Debian|Ubuntu|cPanel|DirectAdmin|Enhance|Webuzo|Acronis|Estela|BitNinja|Nginx

  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Vaduz/LI
    Posts
    2,778
    Why not just sell some Hosting on your Server?

    So you can keep the "Big" Server AND make some $ of it.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Zhang View Post
    Why not just sell some Hosting on your Server?

    So you can keep the "Big" Server AND make some $ of it.

    I thought about this, but I don't really want to put myself in a position where I need to be reliable/responsible for someone else's data.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Posts
    529
    This is kind of like the server I have with Softlayer now

    Barely peaks 20% CPU usage and 3/6GB of Ram, and about 5 mbps of 1 gbps.

    Xeon Quad Core @ 2.66 GHz
    _________________________

    I recently started using a CDN so network usage is much lower then usual.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    5,525
    1) Make sure you're getting a VM and not a VPS container, jailshell, or whatever.

    2) A dual core Atom with 1GB of RAM and a 320GB HDD uses 112W of power in our test. The same resource configuration in a VM cloud used 7W. Depends how much you're into reducing carbon footprint.

  17. #17
    How are dual core atom's rated in terms of performance?

    I see that Wholesale Internet had some dual core Atom's dedicated servers for around $59 per month. That included 2GB of RAM, and a 500 GB HDD. That's more than enough RAM and HDD, but I'm not sure how the dual-core atom processors are yet..thoughts?

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    5,525
    Check cpubenchmark.net

  19. #19
    Its going to boil down to what you can afford / keep affording vs what vps you can get, as well as what vps performance you except. Some people are usually disappointed going from dedicated to vps, as they don't gauge the performance correctly and the vps is usually a huge downgrade for them. I'd say stick to your dedicated unless you can find a vps that will give you the same performance at a lower cost than the dedicated.
    Keith Mitchell,Dedicated & Virtual Server Engineer,Hosting.com
    Check out my Technical Blog - Keithdmitchell.com

  20. #20
    In either case you certainly don't need to pay 135 for such traffic/setup..
    I host 8 sites where 4 are wordpress sites on my 29 euro leaseweb server and load is usually at 0.1 or so with ram usage being around 300.
    All the sites together get about 4000 unique visitors per month and 150,000 page views, and I don't even use any caching of wp.

  21. #21
    Personally, I'd drop down to a VPS. $100 extra per month is money in your pocket.

    Take a look at www.intovps.com - you seem to know what you're doing so unmanaged will be fine.

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Karachi, Pakistan
    Posts
    1,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Acejam View Post
    Hey all,

    I currently have a dedicated server @ Limestone Networks, and I'm trying to decide if I should bump down to a VPS. I currently host 5 Wordpress blogs, and a few other small sites. All together, my sites receive anywhere from 300-2000 visitors a day. However, I do have the occasional traffic spike up to 3-4k uniques per day as well. (good SEO practices pays off!)

    I used to run a large proxy network, in which require a high performance dedicated machine. Therefore, I picked up an awesome deal from Limetstone Networks back in February of this year. At my proxy network's peak, I had 90 sites/domains running, receiving 15-20,000 unique visitors a day, and was using about 50-65 GB a day.

    However, I have since sold all of my proxy sites, and I don't plan to get back into that game. (too much spam, etc)

    So now, I'm hosting these 7-8 sites, and have a server with reasonably high specs. My thoughts are to perhaps move down to a VPS, since Apache and MySQL don't need too many resources. It should also be noted that I manage my servers myself, all via command line and Webmin.

    Dedicated server specs:
    Intel Core2Quad Q9300
    8 GB DDR2 RAM
    750 GB SATA HD
    10 mbps unmetered connection
    CentOS 5.3 x64
    Price per month: $134.99


    As you can see, I'm paying $135 a month for this setup, and have continued to since June after I sold my network. I'm still making money from my current sites, but I realize that I could save roughly $1,000 per year by bumping down to a VPS.

    I've actually looked into HostGator's new VPS plans a bit. I had a shared account with them years ago, in which I had a great experience. (I would have an unmanaged VPS, no cPanel)

    I was looking at their Level-3 package, which has the following specs:
    ~1 Ghz Processor
    768 MB RAM
    30 GB Disk Space
    500 GB Bandwidth

    Current price of this package is $39.95. I've also looked at the new Burst.NET VPS', but it seems like Burst.NET has had some serious support issues. I really can't suffer any downtime, and that is one of the reasons why I love my dedicated setup so much. (no one touches it but me)

    Any insight to my 'situation'? If you were in my position, what would you do? Better yet, could I run these 5 Wordpress sites without issue on a VPS with 768 MB RAM?

    Thanks in advance,
    Ace
    Forget dedis or VPS. Go for shared hosting.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by SeedBit View Post
    Personally, I'd drop down to a VPS. $100 extra per month is money in your pocket.

    Take a look at www.intovps.com - you seem to know what you're doing so unmanaged will be fine.
    Their 1GB VPS setup looks pretty nice. Although their domain name was created in August of 2008, so they seem pretty new.

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Acejam View Post
    Their 1GB VPS setup looks pretty nice. Although their domain name was created in August of 2008, so they seem pretty new.
    Their site is also down right now too...

  25. #25
    Just an update to this thread:

    I'm looking into trying out Linode. Right now, I'm looking at their 360 and 540 plans, and trying to decide between the two. It seems that with even "smaller" amounts of RAM, users are having excellent performance results with their service. (with halfway decent optimization of Apache, etc)

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