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  1. #1

    How much would it cost me to become my own host

    I have developed a forum. I don't want it to be dependent on any commercial interest, so I want to at least look into how much it will cost to set up and become my own host.

    an education is what I need to decide.

    I am a neophyte to the hosting/forum world

  2. #2
    I'm confused by your question. Are you asking on how to have your own hosting or are you simply looking for a hosting company to host your forum?

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by vivianrollins View Post
    I'm confused by your question. Are you asking on how to have your own hosting or are you simply looking for a hosting company to host your forum?
    my own hosting, if at all affordable

  4. #4
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    The best way to start out if you have doubts but still want to would be to resell I guess. I wouldn't bother if you are having doubts though. Your customers will not like it if you just up and close. Maybe try a company like hostgator or something
    █ █ █

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Jesse_613 View Post
    The best way to start out if you have doubts but still want to would be to resell I guess. I wouldn't bother if you are having doubts though. Your customers will not like it if you just up and close.
    I am confused by your statements - what's resell, what's up and close

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    I have developed a forum. I don't want it to be dependent on any commercial interest, so I want to at least look into how much it will cost to set up and become my own host.

    an education is what I need to decide.

    I am a neophyte to the hosting/forum world
    I'm not sure what your goal is but to accomplish because unless you build your own internet backbone and facilities you're always going to rely on some company in some way to have your site online.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    I'm not sure what your goal is but to accomplish because unless you build your own internet backbone and facilities you're always going to rely on some company in some way to have your site online.
    I'm thinking that all I need is the disk space, forum software, and servers

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    I'm thinking that all I need is the disk space, forum software, and servers
    You would need a facility, networking uplinks, power, cooling, servers, racks, etc...

    I mean you can colocate a server somewhere if you want but what is the difference between that and having a leased dedicated server somewhere as far as the provider goes and your particular goals.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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  9. #9
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    my own hosting, if at all affordable
    Affordable would depend on your definition of "host" and on your overall budget. There are hosts simply have a dedicated server managed it themselves, and resell shared hosting from that. Others get a fully managed dedicated server, because their tech skills are not good enough or they don't want to waste time on that. There are hosts that buy a reseller account and sell from that.

    Typically though, it doesn't make sense to learn a new skill that is secondary to your main goal, so a fully managed service (dedicated or VPS), or shared/reseller hosting would be your best bets.

    Now, if you want to host at home on your PC, the general advice would be that it's not worth it, not monetarily (the energy costs alone typically take care of that), not quality/security wise (a home is nowhere near the environment of a proper data center), not time-wise (learning the skills properly is not a 10 hours job).

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    You would need a facility, networking uplinks, power, cooling, servers, racks, etc...

    I mean you can colocate a server somewhere if you want but what is the difference between that and having a leased dedicated server somewhere as far as the provider goes and your particular goals.
    Depending on the cost, I think I could locate it in my home; have the perfect area for it, and the likely required power

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    Depending on the cost, I think I could locate it in my home; have the perfect area for it, and the likely required power
    Go for it, let us all know how that works out for you...
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by ldcdc View Post
    Affordable would depend on your definition of "host" and on your overall budget. There are hosts simply have a dedicated server managed it themselves, and resell shared hosting from that. Others get a fully managed dedicated server, because their tech skills are not good enough or they don't want to waste time on that. There are hosts that buy a reseller account and sell from that.

    Typically though, it doesn't make sense to learn a new skill that is secondary to your main goal, so a fully managed service (dedicated or VPS), or shared/reseller hosting would be your best bets.

    Now, if you want to host at home on your PC, the general advice would be that it's not worth it, not monetarily (the energy costs alone typically take care of that), not quality/security wise (a home is nowhere near the environment of a proper data center), not time-wise (learning the skills properly is not a 10 hours job).
    there won't be any reselling, or advertising

    I'm familiar with data centers - 35 years in aerospace working with telemetry data

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    Go for it, let us all know how that works out for you...
    you haven't provided me with any substantive information regarding costs

    that's what I m looking for to help make the decision

    I'm not looking for anyone to try to sell me something

    or to ridicule honest questions

  14. #14
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    there won't be any reselling, or advertising
    I wasn't saying there would be, I was just giving definitions of "host".

    I'm familiar with data centers - 35 years in aerospace working with telemetry data
    I'm familiar with cars. My father owned one ever since I was a kid. I've owned one for a while now. I'm not mechanic though. Are you a server administrator?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by ldcdc View Post
    I wasn't saying there would be, I was just giving definitions of "host".



    I'm familiar with cars. My father owned one ever since I was a kid. I've owned one for a while now. I'm not mechanic though. Are you a server administrator?
    nope, might have to rely on a friend for that

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    Depending on the cost, I think I could locate it in my home; have the perfect area for it, and the likely required power
    Well, people used to run BBS systems in their own homes.

    You probably only need one computer. Power for it will cost you $10 a month or more - which is more than the cost of a web hosting service.

    And the web hosting service will have a faster internet connection for sending data to users - 10 million bits a second or more, whereas most home internet connections are one tenth or less of that speed.

    So, your home server will cost more and likely provide slower service than a standard web hosting service.

    On the other hand, you can lay hands on it whenever you need to. And you won't experience slowdowns resulting from loads generated by other users of the hardware. And you won't have to deal with a service supplier for the computer.

  17. #17
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    Or do you want to own your own name server ?
    Chris, Developer/Programmer,
    https://www.chrisranjana.com/
    Php laravel developers, Node Python developers,
    AWS Certified | Python developers | Nodejs Developers | Devops

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by tim2718281 View Post
    Well, people used to run BBS systems in their own homes.

    You probably only need one computer. Power for it will cost you $10 a month or more - which is more than the cost of a web hosting service.

    And the web hosting service will have a faster internet connection for sending data to users - 10 million bits a second or more, whereas most home internet connections are one tenth or less of that speed.

    So, your home server will cost more and likely provide slower service than a standard web hosting service.

    On the other hand, you can lay hands on it whenever you need to. And you won't experience slowdowns resulting from loads generated by other users of the hardware. And you won't have to deal with a service supplier for the computer.
    Thank you Tim,

    I could have a dedicated cable d/l 50Mbps, u/l 10Mbps if that would suffice, and dedicated computer/server, with Terrabytes of storage

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by chrisranjana View Post
    Or do you want to own your own name server ?
    at the risk of sounding really stupid, what's a name server?

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    you haven't provided me with any substantive information regarding costs
    I needed to know more specifically as to how you wanted to go about doing it - as far as doing it from home your electricity will be around $10~30/month to run the server depending on the server itself. The internet - well call your local ISP and ask them about that (I don't know)... You will need a "business class" internet connection from your ISP for them to allow you to run a web server which is going to cost you more for the same speed as a consumer connection.

    You then will have to spend the time to configure the server, secure it, keep it secured, and keep it online. Your time is money and I guarantee you that you will spend more time doing this than you want/plan to - unless you really enjoy server administration you're going to fall into a hole.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    that's what I m looking for to help make the decision
    Personally - I would just lease a server from SoftLayer (I've been with them for over a year and a half, they are AMAZING) or you can buy a server and then colocate it somewhere which will save you some money in the long run but will cost quite a bit more up front.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    I'm not looking for anyone to try to sell me something
    I'm not trying to sell you anything.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    or to ridicule honest questions
    I'm not ridiculing you - I was serious - do give it a shot and let us all know how it works out for you. The only way that would be seen as ridicule is if you yourself felt that the idea was a little silly because I didn't say anything negative about it

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    nope, might have to rely on a friend for that
    Not the best thing in the world to do - what if the server crashes and your friend isn't available? Do you know what you need to know to bring it back online should something major happen? Do you know what you need to know to keep it online and secure?

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    I could have a dedicated cable d/l 50Mbps, u/l 10Mbps if that would suffice, and dedicated computer/server, with Terrabytes of storage
    A cable line will work but what if your cable goes down (it happens from time to time) - do you have a redundant networking connection such as you would have at a data center facility? Also your download speed is near meaningless - your server could be pushing 100mbps out sustained and only be using 1~10mbps incoming the whole time.

    As for a computer/server with terabytes of data - go for it, the more drives you run the more it's going to cost to power and the more likely something is to fail.

    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    at the risk of sounding really stupid, what's a name server?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nameserver
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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  21. #21
    if it would work, I could buy a Mac Pro, with 2 1 Terabyte drives. order hi-speed cable; that would allow me to continue forum development

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    if it would work, I could buy a Mac Pro, with 2 1 Terabyte drives. order hi-speed cable; that would allow me to continue forum development
    Sure, it would work - but have you taken into account all of the issues I raised in my latest response?
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    Thank you Tim,

    I could have a dedicated cable d/l 50Mbps, u/l 10Mbps if that would suffice ...
    10mbps would "suffice"; bear in mind though that a single user downloadinmg a large file from your server would fully occupy 10mbps for several seconds ... a 100-million byte file would occupy the link for 100 seconds.

    That's not necessarily a problem ... other users can continue to use the server. It just means that at busy times, users will notice that large file downloads go slower, and overall responsiveness gets a bit sluggish.

    But maybe there will be no large downloads from your server.

    Still, unless your forum software allows searching of large amounts of data, it's likely that the internet speed will be the limiting factor in speed of service to users.

    You appreciate that the load depends entirely on the content of the web pages; still, in very general terms, a 10mbps link should allow 10 pages per second. Assuming that demand varies through the day, so allowing a peak:average ratio of 4:1, you would be OK for about a quarter of a million page views per day.

    (A standard home connection would support maybe one-tenth of that, or 25,000 page views a day ... you appreciate this is like stating how long is a piece of string, but I find it helps to talk in concrete numbers.)

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    I needed to know more specifically as to how you wanted to go about doing it - as far as doing it from home your electricity will be around $10~30/month to run the server depending on the server itself. The internet - well call your local ISP and ask them about that (I don't know)... You will need a "business class" internet connection from your ISP for them to allow you to run a web server which is going to cost you more for the same speed as a consumer connection.

    You then will have to spend the time to configure the server, secure it, keep it secured, and keep it online. Your time is money and I guarantee you that you will spend more time doing this than you want/plan to - unless you really enjoy server administration you're going to fall into a hole.

    Personally - I would just lease a server from SoftLayer (I've been with them for over a year and a half, they are AMAZING) or you can buy a server and then colocate it somewhere which will save you some money in the long run but will cost quite a bit more up front.

    I'm not trying to sell you anything.

    I'm not ridiculing you - I was serious - do give it a shot and let us all know how it works out for you. The only way that would be seen as ridicule is if you yourself felt that the idea was a little silly because I didn't say anything negative about it

    Not the best thing in the world to do - what if the server crashes and your friend isn't available? Do you know what you need to know to bring it back online should something major happen? Do you know what you need to know to keep it online and secure?

    A cable line will work but what if your cable goes down (it happens from time to time) - do you have a redundant networking connection such as you would have at a data center facility? Also your download speed is near meaningless - your server could be pushing 100mbps out sustained and only be using 1~10mbps incoming the whole time.

    As for a computer/server with terabytes of data - go for it, the more drives you run the more it's going to cost to power and the more likely something is to fail.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nameserver
    thanks Mike,, that's a lot to digest

    whatever I do, I need to be able to easily upsize as required as the forum grows

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buzzm1 View Post
    thanks Mike,, that's a lot to digest

    whatever I do, I need to be able to easily upsize as required as the forum grows
    What I posted is only the very tiniest tip of the iceberg, trust me - you don't want to get into hosting your own server from home unless it's purely a hobby and you are doing it as a learning experience when it comes to managing servers.

    For anything you really want to be available and online you should place a server at a data center or lease one.
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