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07-07-2020, 08:08 PM #1Newbie
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Server Hosting Advice - Should I move?
Hello fellow Webhosters. I"m new here, but certainly not new to webhosting or forums Sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum, mods feel free to move it.
I own a small hosting company that runs on 1 rented dedicated server in a DC. For now, I'm not going to divulge any specifics on the companies I work with but nevertheless, I'm here seeking some advice on the costs for the server + support costs. I'm considering downsizing a bit, but am unsure of my options. I'm not sure if what I pay is too much or a good deal. I only use the sever as a web-server, nothing else. No mail or domain stuff. The 2 companies I use are very good at what they do. If the server goes offline, they put my server back online within minutes. I've had the server for a while. Had a few drives die, but since I run Raid 1, they just replace the drive and whammo back online. Had 1 power supply go once, recently
Here's some details
Costs:
Dedicated Server: $1900/yr (paid yearly)
Paid Support: Full Dedicated 24/hr server support: $50/mo (paid monthly)
Paid Support: Complete files system/databases daily backup (offsite): $30/mo (paid monthly)
All sites are WordPress. 85% of them are pretty static, little traffic. One site has the most
Server Specs
Intel Xeon E3-1275 v5 (4 Cores @ 3.60 GHz)
32 GB ram
CentOS Linux (64bit) 7.8.2003
Plesk Obsidian 18.0.27 (costs $15/mo)
Hardware RAID 1
4 drives:
Two 250GB SSDs (all databases are on SSDs)
Two 1TB Satas (all files are on satas)
30TB data plan
1 nic
static IP
Root and FTP access
Total Disk usage:
SSDs 178 GB
Satas: 450 GB
Total Traffic 130 GB/mo avg (June 2020)
Active domains 28
MySQL databases 35
Traffic Info from Plesk:
#1 site has 70 GB/mo in traffic (which I'm considering moving off the server - been online since 2003)
#2 site has 20 GB/mo in traffic
#3 site has 10 GB/mo in traffic
#4 site has 9 GB/mo in traffic
The rest are pretty static
Considering moving to something else depending on the cost details. I'd like to eliminate the $80/mo costs. Not sure if there are better options out there as in: VPS, Cloud, Shared, etc.
Looking for some positive advice
TIALast edited by iridium01; 07-07-2020 at 08:20 PM.
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07-07-2020, 08:16 PM #2The Linux Specialist
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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
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07-08-2020, 08:04 AM #3Newbie
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07-08-2020, 08:14 AM #4Newbie
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07-08-2020, 10:24 AM #5Web Hosting Master
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A few ways to look at this.
At about $208 a month for the server. When you add up the server plus management, I would say that's about an average price. If the company you're with now fixes issues quickly, which equals a good nights sleep, there's almost no reason to leave them, and you're getting what you paid for. There may be companies that charge less for that same server, with support included, but you then risk having 28 upset clients while migrating everything, and hoping the new company is as good or better than the current one for less.
Another option...the same server unmanaged for a lower cost with a reputable company, and then hiring a management team for support. Many do this and it works fine, but it again puts all your clients under any possible issues to move them around. Even some server management companies with a good name may not be the best fit for everyone.
I was going to say that overall I don't think you can could significantly lower your operating costs, but then looking at the stats....maybe a VPS or even a Reseller account.
With a Dedicated server, your 28 customers are the only ones using those resources. With a VPS, your 28 are "sharing" the resources with a number of other customers on that server. Plus your resources would be cut down. A well configured VPS "could" handle 28 domains, but if most of them require a database, you would possibly start to hit resource limits...but then reading it over again, the traffic usage is not really high, but it doesn't say how much RAM is being used. For instance, I've seen one website with 1400 visitors crash due to high resource usage from resource hungry plugins and images that weren't optimized, while another that averaged 4 million visitors a day had zero issue.
Another possible option is going down to a Reseller account. Unless those 28 really need the resources of the server, than you are over-paying each month. A reseller account with a good company could be a good fit. Support would be included, and what you could do is research a few, contact them with questions, and then you choose one, move one domain at a time, and see how well it performs. Essentially you could move all the domains within a month, one day at a time, and see how each one performs. Then down the road when you have 50+ or 100+ accounts, then look into getting a server.
A few things to think about.██ WPCYCLE MANAGED WORDPRESS WEB HOSTING ██
Managed WordPress VPS & Managed WordPress Dedicated VPS Servers
Optimized • NVMe • SSD • KVM • NGINX • WordPress Brute Force Protection • Daily Offsite Backups
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07-08-2020, 10:27 AM #6
For web hosting, I do not recommend going below E3. E3s are fairly available now, and the prices have gone down, too.
4 drives:
Two 250GB SSDs (all databases are on SSDs)
Two 1TB Satas (all files are on satas)
If the server goes offline, they put my server back online within minutes.
I've had the server for a while. Had a few drives die
Had 1 power supply go once, recently█||||[ MechanicWeb.com - Shared Hosting | Reseller Hosting | KVM VPS | Dedicated Server ]
█||||[ NVMe SSD | cPanel | DirectAdmin | LiteSpeed | CloudLinux | MailChannels | Since 2008 ]
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07-08-2020, 10:42 AM #7Web Hosting Master
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Great points.
A few smaller servers are good to have a to not put all the eggs in one basket, but an E3 is pretty old, and extremely over-priced in this case. Even an E5 would be less.
True.
Very true. This almost seems like this server is ready to fail after many years of usage.
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07-08-2020, 06:02 PM #8Junior Guru
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Having some managed monitoring is always a good thing when you do have a shared hosting business. It's avoiding having to always be watching the server activities and you can focus on the right things for your business.
How long did you had the server @iridium01? We know that SSDs tend to be less reliable and much less predictable than HDD, but most of the time they last a long time. That said, consumer SSDs are lasting much less than server grade SSDs.
Aren't you satisfied of your current host? Switching to a new host is always tricky. You never know how it will go with a new hosts, it's not an easy choice.
Regarding your current setup, I do not believe that it's not well done, but but better performance I agree that it would be better to have an Hardware RAID-10, or a Software RAID-1 with full SSDs. However, to reduce cost, sometimes people decide to go with such setup, were the OS and databases is served by the SSDs, and the websites files are served by the HDDs. It's a solution that looks to be fair as long as you do not need intensive IO outside of the Database usage.
Hope you the best in your research.█ Eric S.
█ GloboTech Communications - Hosting Specialist
█ Dedicated Servers, Managed Servers, Cloud Server, Colocation and Advanced Solutions
█ Proudly Canadian - In business since 1999 - www.globo.tech
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07-09-2020, 09:18 AM #9Newbie
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07-09-2020, 09:25 AM #10Newbie
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Prob wouldn't call it "bad" but at the time, I needed all the DBs on SSDs. I had one site getting 5k posts/day, but not anymore.
These events seem interesting to me. Why would a dedicated server have multiple downtime incidents, including multiple hardware failures? How long have you been using this server? I can't be sure since I do not have any access, but random power issues do cause a whole lot of other issues randomly.
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07-09-2020, 09:38 AM #11Newbie
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Been with the DC company since 2001. Had a few diff servers over the years(maybe 2-3 with upgrades, etc) and that is why I mentioned with some HW failures. On current server, now, for prob 3 years or so. I think the longest we went w/o downtime was over 1 year.[/QUOTE]
Aren't you satisfied of your current host? Switching to a new host is always tricky. You never know how it will go with a new hosts, it's not an easy choice.
Regarding your current setup, I do not believe that it's not well done, but but better performance I agree that it would be better to have an Hardware RAID-10, or a Software RAID-1 with full SSDs. However, to reduce cost, sometimes people decide to go with such setup, were the OS and databases is served by the SSDs, and the websites files are served by the HDDs. It's a solution that looks to be fair as long as you do not need intensive IO outside of the Database usage.
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07-09-2020, 10:39 PM #12Web Hosting Master
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You're Welcome. The last reseller I used was many years ago and that company is not a consideration, so I'm not sure which company would be good for that role now, but if you read through the Resellers section, you should be able to see who member are suggesting to use.
██ WPCYCLE MANAGED WORDPRESS WEB HOSTING ██
Managed WordPress VPS & Managed WordPress Dedicated VPS Servers
Optimized • NVMe • SSD • KVM • NGINX • WordPress Brute Force Protection • Daily Offsite Backups
Email: sales@wpcycle.com • Facebook: wpcycle • Twitter: wpcycle
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07-10-2020, 08:41 PM #13
People would choose a hybrid storage back when SSDs were much pricier than HDDs. Now that SSDs have become more affordable, there is no reason for such setups, unless we are talking about storage.
When you are using hybrid storage with an entry level CPU and an entry level motherboard, there is a good chance that some of those drives are sharing PCIe lanes among them. Ideally, you wouldn't want that.█||||[ MechanicWeb.com - Shared Hosting | Reseller Hosting | KVM VPS | Dedicated Server ]
█||||[ NVMe SSD | cPanel | DirectAdmin | LiteSpeed | CloudLinux | MailChannels | Since 2008 ]
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07-12-2020, 09:54 AM #14Newbie
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07-13-2020, 11:00 AM #15
You are correct that SSDs have provided better performance for database queries.
The 4 drives you have use 2 different RAID1 arrays. One with the SSDs and another with the HDDs. What I meant is 2x1TB SSD on RAID1 is a better setup than 2x250GB SSD RAID1 + 2x1TB HDD RAID1.█||||[ MechanicWeb.com - Shared Hosting | Reseller Hosting | KVM VPS | Dedicated Server ]
█||||[ NVMe SSD | cPanel | DirectAdmin | LiteSpeed | CloudLinux | MailChannels | Since 2008 ]
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