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Ask HN: From where should I buy the first server and collocation?

4 points by sradu ↗ HN
I'm looking to buy my first project's big server. While cloud is definitely cool, I prefer a dedicated machine where I can create VMs as I see fit.

Could you recommend a vendor and a good collocation provider? (referral links are ok)

From a server point of view I'm looking for something with a medium amount of ram (16GB), fast I/O and CPUs that are fast enough for the setup.

From a colocation point of view I has to be in the US and have some sort of tech support in case something hardware fails.

5 comments

[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 24.6 ms ] thread
haidut
My opinion is obviously biased b/c I am using that for my project but XLhost.com seem to offer dedicated servers that no other company can match in price/performance. Please note that I am NOT getting royalties from them and that you HAVE to do your own research before committing to them. Before signing up with them I read a few posts on various forums complaining about XLhost down time and poor customer service. I won't comment on those, please Google for the info and make your own judgement. My personal experience is that I can not find any other company were you can lease a 4-CPU machine with 8GB of RAM and 250GB or RAM in RAID-1 for $149. Again, many other factors come into play and XLhost seems to have taken the road of max hardware for less money but maybe lacking in the tech support area. My site is http://www.euraeka.com/faq, so feel free to check it out and judge/test on performance of the hosting provider mentioned above. If you want to discuss this more please send me an email. I don;t recommend any service specifically, but have been reading and accumulating a lot of reviews of various providers (i.e. VPS, dedicated, etc) from ppl who post on HN.
sradu
Thank you for answering. Personal experience was exactly what I was looking for.

The price is indeed very attractive. I am thinking of buying my own server (make an initial investment) and then pay only rent for space in a rack.

dnsworks
Personally I'd go with Softlayer. They have a stellar track record, and great pricing. Just like anywhere else, however, don't take their web pricing as law, but call them up and talk to them about your business.

If you really want to buy hardware, I'd look at HP or Sun. Dell is cheap, and you get what you pay for. HP & Sun have very functional and reliable remote management cards that will help ensure a minimal of on-site management time (I've built out datacenters with 500+ HP servers remotely, only having gone on-site to supervise the physical work of my contractors.)

As for colocation, that's a bigger question involving expected growth, your physical and network needs, your remote hands requirements, etc.

sradu
Hmm, HP sounds interesting. I've had some meh experience with IBM servers. Never had the opportunity to manage HP though.

It's the first time I've heard of Softlayer. Will definitely look at them very closely.

Thanks.

papaf
I'd like to say something in defense of the cloud -- its not just that its cool. Years ago I worked for a small web company which was ticking along and had capacity to spare on their servers.

One day, the skilled PR woman working there got an article about us appearing in a national newspaper. Traffic went up and the servers melted. The people visiting probably tried, saw the site was down and never thought about the company again. After a few years the company went under -- it just wasn't growing quickly enough.

I'm convinced that things would be different if cloud servers were available in those days. We could have brought some extra servers online for a couple of days to cope with the extra traffic without a large investment in rack space and servers that would only see occasional use.