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  1. #1
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    Jul 2006
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    Thumbs up For Hosting, Is a really powerful server really required?

    Hi Folks,

    Thought id get a discussion going.

    You see alot of shared and reseller hosts boasting they have Core2Quad/Xeon 5530 X7xxx, Phenom Quad Cores etc etc running RAID10 disk arrays with 1TB of storage and 8GB of DDR2 ECC FB RAM etc

    My question to you is, for running a small shared/reseller hosting business where you dont plan on putting alot of customers on a server, is all this power really neccesary? Would an Atom 330 or Pentium 4 (S775) or Core2Duo with 2GB of RAM and say 160GB in a RAID1 array not suffice most reasonable providers.

    Do you think it puts a customer off if you say you only have a Pentium 4 or a Core2Duo or an Atom 330?

    What are your views on this. My view is that as long as your running Linux with cPanel/Directadmin, have around 2GB of RAM available and dont plan on putting loads of customers on one box that a Atom/P4/Core2 would suffice nicely and do just as good a job.

    Get discussing and I look forward to reading your views

  2. #2
    As far as what hardware is needed, that depends entirely on each individual site and the resources those sites take.
    One site could use 8 GB and hog up a quad core if one so desired.

    You don't have to tell your customers what hardware you have, I don't see a lot of webhosts doing that.. But in theory the lesser resources you have the lesser resources your clients can use.
    If you have the budget and it's economically viable, buying good hardware and putting fewer customers on them will leave you with satisfied customers that can run more stuff.
    Maybe then you can charge a little more as well, and promote yourself as premium non over-selling host..

    If I were you I would try to get the best hardware you could, and adjust your webhosting plans accordingly so that you make a profit..
    You'll just have to go with it though and adjust customer resources as you see them being used. Once you get a customer that gets greedy, you will have to find a fair share for him and everyone else..

    Edit: Sites like medialayer.com promote themselves as application hosters, where the speed of php and mysql etc is very important.
    Not all customers are interested in that, but many are. You should find out if you want to be a premium medialayer type of host or more like dreamhost.
    Last edited by coax; 07-19-2009 at 06:07 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
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    1,080
    Those are good points. Maybe I havent looked alot then as hosts ive seen like to boast they have Quad cores with 8GB+ of RAM.

    The way ive always looked at it is dont go overboard with one server, cluster a few smaller ones together and spread customers out and as you say if you find a customer being a bit greedy move him to another server maybe.

    Thanks for your view Coax, I look forward to other peoples views.

  4. #4
    Quad Core + 8GB is a pretty good setup, and much cheaper than setting up Dual Quad + 16GB in most cases. Anything lower than that, and you're probably not looking to host many websites or are still a small host.

    RAID-10 should be a standard, as it can withstand up to 2 drive failures, under certain conditions, though I honestly don't know why you would wait until the 2nd drive fails to swap them out.

    You can also start out with a reseller account or with a VPS.

    Regarding putting off the customer: if you were to say you had Quad Core and it was only an Atom that would be false advertising and you would lose customers.
    478east
    High Bandwidth Servers
    Custom Hosting Solutions

  5. #5
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    Jul 2006
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    Ive always seen RAID 1 as being an ok method of drive protection, I know its no substitue for maintaining backups, which to be ohnest any host should with such a low cost for offsite storage with say BQBackup or RSYNCPalace it works out at $0.06/GB or something small like that, if you cant afford that then your in the wrong place.

    Ive always seen or thought the best way to start would be a VPS or a small dedicated server such as a Pentium 4 or Core2Duo with 2GB RAM and RAID1 protected drives with offsite storage.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
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    Dallas, TX
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    Quote Originally Posted by keywolf View Post
    Ive always seen RAID 1 as being an ok method of drive protection, I know its no substitue for maintaining backups, which to be ohnest any host should with such a low cost for offsite storage with say BQBackup or RSYNCPalace it works out at $0.06/GB or something small like that, if you cant afford that then your in the wrong place.

    Ive always seen or thought the best way to start would be a VPS or a small dedicated server such as a Pentium 4 or Core2Duo with 2GB RAM and RAID1 protected drives with offsite storage.
    Spot on!



    As for backups you can use R1Soft, it's a bit expensive but is super reliable. You'll get better performance out of a VPS if the small dedi is a p4. Now with a Core2duo, depending which model, you might get better performance out of that over a VPS.



    It's so inexpensive to buy servers and the price difference from a core2duo to a core2quad/quad xeon is minimal. You should have a look at Singlehop, JaguarPC, and Limestone networks.

    You'll get a huge performance increase by going RAID 10, but because your starting out RAID 1 should be fine and non-noticeable.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    1,080
    Thanks Jacob , Yeah R1Soft is super reliable like you say just a bit costly for a startup, but a business really has no excuse for not setting up nightly cpbackup's in say cPanel and FTP'ing them to offsite storage with RSYNCPalace or BQBackup.

    Even RAID10 is no replacement for good offsite backups.

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