I'm curious if anyone is interested in a bit of investment to start a webhosting biz? I can design a layout, install / manage webservers and can find customers. I believe at the low cost of my find and low colo fees this could be a good revenue opportunity to someone with interest. I have been searching around alot for a decent buy on a server and I came across an amazing deal of not one but 5 server. Now normally one wouldn't think about this deal as it would cost too much to colocate all five servers right? The good news is I have a friend where I live that owns an ISP with a 100mbit line and he's willing to work with myself and whomever decides to invest. I know how to manage linux webservers so it would be nice if my partner knew too but not absolutely necessary. Total cost of the servers? Get this 5 Servers for a total of $3,499.99 Are they junk / obsolete servers? They look pretty decent to me with the stats below Each of the servers is the following specs. They won't sell just one either all five need to be purchased at the price. Specs on the servers can be found here. http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/sc1425_specs.pdf 2x64-Bit Intel Xeon 3.4GHz - 4GB RAM 1x73GB 10K RPM U320 Component Description CPU 2x64-Bit Intel Xeon 3.4GHz - 800MHz FSB - 1MB L2 Cache - Hyperthreading Memory 4GB (4x1GB) REG ECC DDR2 SDRAM (Max. 16GB, 6 slots total, 2 slots free) Hard Drive 1x73GB U320 10K RPM SCSI Controller Adaptec 39320R U320 SCSI - S/W RAID 0/1 SATA RAID Controller CERC SATA 2s (Adaptec Controller - S/W Based) - RAID 0/1/JBOD - 2 SATA Ports Chipset Intel E7520 PCI 1x64-bit/133-MHz PCI-X Power Supply 1x450W Non-Redundant - 100-240V, 6-3A, 50/60 Hz Onboard Ports 2xUSB 2.0, 2xPS2, 1xSerial, 1xVGA Out, 2xRJ45, 1xHD68 External SCSI Remote Management IPMI 1.5 compliant Baseboard Management Controller - Dell PDF Details Network 2xIntel 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Other Drives 24X CD-Rom Tested Yes - Knoppix, Dell Diagnostics History Off-Lease Notes Front cover & rack rails are included. Manuals and CDs are not included. Please inquire for alternative SATA or SCSI hard drive configurations if required. The SCSI card, SCSI cable, and hard drive can be exchanged for $100 CAD credit per server. I'm not worried about the software as I have copies of Redhat / Fedora Linux. I also have Cpanel / WHM already. Even simply upgrading the harddrive storage of each server to 500 or 1000 gb mirrored running Raid would enable each server to make around 9000.00 per month fully occupied. If anyone thinks this is a good opportunity they can send me a pm.
I would recommend posting a thread at WebHostingTalk.com about this. There are a lot of people searching for opportunities like this, and they are most likely to hang around WHT. As for those servers, I'd never recommend starting a web hosting company with so many. In all honesty, you aren't going to grow that fast, seeing that the market is so saturated. Leasing five servers will do nothing but waste your money. I'd recommend starting your company with one or two servers. This would cut your expenses and maintenance time as well.
These aren't leases.They were ex - leases. It's a purchase of 5 completes. Each has 4 gb of Ram. If you put dual 1000 gb drives in them instead of the single in them now you could sell great value packages dirt cheap and sell space in volume without overcrowding due to having 5 servers instead of 1? The bonus is the lack of a heavy colocation fee thanks to my friend.
if it was me, i wouldnt be targeting shared hosting with them, since its a group of servers you'd be buying, your in a good position to start a grid service. sell virtual servers like slicehost.com etc. grid hosting of vps is a better market, lower client numbers required, less support required, and controllable resources not thousands of sites hammering your server with proxies and warez. http://www.3tera.com/ i'm half interested, can email or msn me todd at vexill dot com
One could argue that but there's some money to be made still. It's all in marketing / presentation / and the biggest customer service. Having a low overhead would enable offering of these services at a lower rate with all the bells and whistles. If anyone is seriously interested please send me a pm. I'm in the process of also trying to arrange a local grant to get going on this but the hardware purchase has to come first. I propose that we also keep one of the five servers for our own project development (sites) at zero cost to those involved.
Webhosting is a great side business as long as you're willing to commit a portion of your life to being a tech support guy. One of the main reasons why it is so tough, though, is that you basically have to compete with Hostgator's prices to be considered.
I've had BAD experiences with hostgator (support wise). Yeah I'm already speculating spending my days doing support. I think it's key that support is priority #1
it's very tough to compete with their $5/mo plan with unlimited domains. My friend used to charge something like $20/mo for a package like that!
It's not so tough though if you have very little overhead and all the hardware lined up. Hostgator is overpopulated and their support minimal. I think you'd get alot of loyalty customers too if you treat them well. It's not always about 5.00 vs 20.00 Alot of people would spend that extra 15 for the safety blanket of knowing they aren't going to lose 6 months work in the event of a crisis. Hostgator actually did that to me too. Lost 6 months of my work by deleting my vps by accident mistaking it for another account without so much as an apology and not a single backup.
I've often considered doing this myself, but the overheads were too much. That said, I have 40 domains now and moving into my own reseller account is becoming more and more realistic option so I cut out the middle man.. Where are you located is the pivotal question for me? I worked in a datacentre for 4 years so I know a bit out hosting, servers, bandwidth, rack space, etc.. and have a few contacts still so.. Add me to MSN if you want..