Basic dedicated server

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I currently run a VPS, with about 25 (mainly Joomla) sites, which is:

1.1gb Ram + 1.75gb virtual
10gb drive (on a RAID 1 system)
250gb data transfer
Running on a quad core server with lots on RAM, via Xen

As I plan to add a lot more websites to the server (50+ in total?), primarily simple html or Joomla/CMS based, I want to beef things up and take the step to going to a dedicated server.

As a first step, I am looking at one of the following specs:

Option A
- Dual core 2.2ghz
- 4GB RAM
- 1x160GB HDDs
- 5000GB monthly transfer
- 100mbit port

Option B
- 1.6ghz Dual core Intel Atom
- 4GB RAM (3.5GB is addressable)
- 2x500GB HDDs
- 1000GB monthly transfer
- 10mbit port

I appreciate that there are pro's and con's on either (I am not interested in bigger/more powerful servers yet) - which spec would you recommend?

 

[Posilan]

Option A
- Dual core 2.2ghz
- 4GB RAM
- 1x160GB HDDs
- 5000GB monthly transfer
- 100mbit port

Option B
- 1.6ghz Dual core Intel Atom
- 4GB RAM (3.5GB is addressable)
- 2x500GB HDDs
- 1000GB monthly transfer
- 10mbit port

Option A *would* be the better option if only it had the 2 HDD's of option B. With 1 HDD you can't set up with a RAID which is really not ideal at all (can this not be "upgraded"?).

Steve

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Steve,

what you suggested was my first question, but alas, no, not available!.

The monthly transfer is significantly more than I have at the moment and probably what I will utilise, so, I could do several daily backups (either full or incremental, for less disruption).

 

[Posilan]

Steve,

what you suggested was my first question, but alas, no, not available!.

The monthly transfer is significantly more than I have at the moment and probably what I will utilise, so, I could do several daily backups (either full or incremental, for less disruption).

Is there a reason you are limiting yourself to these two particular options? What are the costs for both options?

I would really advise against getting a server without raided hard drives regardless of offsite backups.

Steve

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Budget!

These options will cost me £25 per month each which is not a big step from my VPS! I would be happy to pay an extra few quid in the first option for RAID, but, alas, it is not there!

 

[Posilan]

Budget!

These options will cost me £25 per month each which is not a big step from my VPS! I would be happy to pay an extra few quid in the first option for RAID, but, alas, it is not there!

£25 is very cheap! This is obviously why option A is down to basics on hardware.

I'd go with option B out of the two. 1000GB of transfer is quite a lot but obviously you are in a better position to judge that than me knowing the sites and their traffic - can you add more allowance if needed?

Steve

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

I know, but I am really happy with the supplier and they are my first choice.

My fear is whether the Atom processor will cope.

As I am planning one particular site to get reasonably busy, when that happens, I will bump the spec/server, and may look at something like EC2, but, that is a while away.

As always, your comments appreciated, Steve!

 

[PandaIT]

Hi,

Is this to have the physical hardware on your own premises or to rent a server in a data center somewhere?

The reason I ask it because if its in a data center generally you can upgrade to what you need as the amount of websites you have grow.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

PandaIT,

this is in a data centre, but the choices are very limited. I would like to think if the main site takes off, upgrading to a much better spec will not be an option!.

 

[PandaIT]

Consultant,

Im sorry, why wouldn't it be an option to upgrade? You can upgrade with most suppliers almost on the fly!

When i first started out hosting I also rented a server in a data center and as the websites i hosted grew i simply upgraded the package I was on, and this was using a cpanel solution which I cant knock at all.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

PandaIT,

how can you upgrade server hardware via cPanel - what is in the box is in the box!!! It needs physical intervention.

Also, what my supplier offers, he seems fixed on - maybe he has a deal further up the food chain!

 

[KM-Tiger]

Just to chip in:

It's a no-brainer. Never take a server that does not have RAID. (And have an effective means of monitoring RAID health).

As regards the Atom, they are low energy processors that work remarkably well. My office server here is a dual core Atom. More often than not, the bottleneck on a webserver is disc I/O. Do you know the nature of those discs and is it a hardware raid controller or software?

 

[PandaIT]

I see what your saying, but what can happen is you can go to your supplier and tell them you want to upgrade your package and they will do all that for you, or the ones I use certainly have. In my experience it doesn't matter what your renting from them, you can upgrade whenever you want, and the supplier will take care of transferring your data to the new set up. To you this should be completely transparent, except maybe a little downtime.

I would have a word with webhost.uk.net and just ask the question to them : If you want to upgrade your server at anytime what does that involve. This is the strategy I have used and its allowed me to grow my rented equipment as my customer base has grown with no issues or physical intervention on my part.

I hope this helps
Andy

 

[Posilan]

I see what your saying, but what can happen is you can go to your supplier and tell them you want to upgrade your package and they will do all that for you, or the ones I use certainly have. In my experience it doesn't matter what your renting from them, you can upgrade whenever you want, and the supplier will take care of transferring your data to the new set up. To you this should be completely transparent, except maybe a little downtime.

I would have a word with webhost.uk.net and just ask the question to them : If you want to upgrade your server at anytime what does that involve. This is the strategy I have used and its allowed me to grow my rented equipment as my customer base has grown with no issues or physical intervention on my part.

I hope this helps
Andy

Andy,

I think the problem here is that the OP is wanting to work to a very tight budget and the offers he is wanting to use is from a provider that is not flexible with their offering.

Sure, most dedicated server offerings will allow upgrades, but from the sounds of it, the company the OP is dealing with may be reselling an offer from another company where they have no control over the hardware otherwise they would possibly be more flexible in adding a second HDD.

Most other dedicated server offerings are quite a lot more than £29 a month. That pricing is very keen - it's difficult to see how the company is making any money at all at those prices even though hardware is to the bone when you take into account rack space, power and bandwidth as well as the cost of the server hardware itself.

At those prices, it may be that they are reusing older servers that have been decommissioned elsewhere - and if so, even more reason to want RAID.

Steve

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

KM,

I will check the RAID system and disc setup.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Make sure you test the hard disks when you get the server. A server that cheap is going to be a pile of old hardware that is just waiting to fail - a ticking time bomb. You don't want to lose a lot of hard work and data as a result.

Matt

 

[Chris Ashdown]

As a unmanaged server I guess they are using someone like Fasthosts to get that price and inflexability

 

[Dominic Taylor]

I would strongly recommend upping your budget and obtaining a larger VDS rather than a very basic dedicated server, especially one without RAID. You'd be better off with shared hosting otherwise.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

As a unmanaged server I guess they are using someone like Fasthosts to get that price and inflexability

Even FastHosts charge double that. And that's with their many interesting reviews and some reports of a staff exodus.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Apparently the first one is at RapidSwitch the second is in Newcastle!

 

[leemason]

Why are you looking at a physical server rather than expanding the current VPS to provide more performance? It might be better to stick with the VPS but increase the CPUs, etc on that.

 

[KarlAustin]

On your budget I really would recommend sticking with a decent VPS from a good provider - it should provide better performance, reliability and data security than a cheap server will.

We made it a policy 10 years ago never to build a server without at least hardware RAID-1 - even if it meant losing some business to cheaper providers. It's just not worth the hassle when the disk does die and the customer loses some data (if they've gone for it without RAID, then they aren't going to pay for CDP backups).