Hi, I'm nearing the point when my volume of traffic will force me to leave the reassuring world of shared hosting, and purchase a dedicated server. At first I was thinking a VPS would do, but looking at prices and offers, there's not that much interest in not going the dedi way. However, I'm not very sure of what to chose, and of course, at what price. Please, if I describe my profile, could I ask you your opinion ? - Average total number of visitors per day : 110 k unique visitors, for 350 k pages seen. Dynamic websites, but not total CPU whores, each of them is relatively low on server resources (picture yourself a wordpress blog with few extensions and a simple theme without a zillion functions, to make yourself an idea). The max number of simultaneously present visitors should be something like 500-800 persons, maybe 850-900 at peak hour. The biggest traffic-generating website is a wordpress blog using a caching plugin with preloading, it should reduce server usage. My websites are a mix of adult and all-ages websites. One of them is accepting user-submitted contents so it can't help generating occasional content removal requests and one or two DMCA removal requests per year. - I need at the very least 300 GB of hard disk online storage (I'm addicted to making backups, I also synchronize local and remote data), and double that if Raid allows it without doubling the hosting fees. (I must confess I never used Raid functions before, it's just that I know it exists and works.) I don't serve zip archives to the visitors, but my websites are "very visual", with lots of pictures between 50 kb and 100 kb to generate bandwidth usage. If you need it, I can compile data to give you a monthly bandwidth usage figure. - My webmaster profile : Not a newbie (I've been a webmaster for more than 6 years for my own websites, I also managed a small company's oscommerce online store), but NOT a linux guru ! I can easily handle basic SSH operations (file copy, rename, move, search, compress, symlinks, extract, rsync, crontab), but nothing complicated. Whenever something can be done through a graphical interface, I'll be delighted not to resort to a shell. My php knowledge is average, I can make simple stuff work, nothing complicated either. I will NEED a graphical "do it all" online GUI, be it cpanel (I love it, but I don't own a licence), webmin (never used it, but if it works like cpanel and is only half as easy to use, it will be a pleasure), plesk, anything will do. Security updates are going to be a problem, I don't know how a linuxian updates Apache, mysql or other stuff, it would have to be either handled by the host, or checked+proposed+handled by cpanel/webmin/plesk/whatever. Time is a crucial matter : I can learn relatively fast, but I'm not the idle student with a dozen free hours per day type (add to this 10 more years, kids, and a day job, sadly, free time is a luxury), so if something is going to take a hell lot of time, I give up on it and search for simpler and faster solutions. There you are. With this profile, and my traffic, what kind of dedi offer would be suitable, in your opinion ? If you're a web host, throw your offers, they will be welcome
Well, I'm a webhost, but I new to webhosting only offering shared/reseller/vps options. You will defiantly need a dedicated server, defiantly not a high end one, a standard server should do. By the sounds of it aswell, you need a managed server aswell. As a unmanage plan you would be responsible for everything. If you're interested in a VPS, pop me a message, if not, ask around for a managed dedicated server with cpanel, 500GB hard disk, maybe 4Gb ram, and a decent dual/quad core processor. Good luck!
Have a look at services which are provided by mediumcube.com. Servers have no downtime and prices are affordable.
I recommend a high end VPS, dedicate machine can be of same price but it has risks, VPS will provide you raid protected storage that means your data is safe, similarly it will be cheaper as well. have a look at WiredTree for VPS with excellent support. good luck )
A high end VPS with only 512MB ram will do, but you should go with a dedi if you want to have 300GB or more. I've once used linode for my blogs, total visitors around 200k in a day, I use the second VPS for database server and rsync the first VPS on it.
Thanks for the replies, everyone ! I can add more precisions, I've been asked here or by PM : - my monthly data transfer is around 2500 GB - an American location would be best, USA is my #1 traffic source (But I'm currently hosted in Europe and nobody's complained yet, so it's not crucial) - yes, it has to be a managed offer - RAID is not a crucial setting, I'm a backup addict already - Why not a VPS ? Disk space, I need at least 300 GB. I'm still on the lookout, collecting info, already received a nice offer, so I renew my thanks to all who replied, and if you feel you have an interesting offer, I'm all ears too !