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Ask HN: How does hosting your own machines compare to the cloud?

7 points by hguhghuff ↗ HN
So in mid 2018, is it possible/practical/viable to host your own servers?

I’m wondering about colocation... would you get better, faster, cheaper than cloud hosting?

Does fast and cheap collocation even exist any more? What would be the down side of self hosting instead of using AWS/Azure/Google?

12 comments

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vishnuharidas
When you are buying a cloud service, you are exchanging money for the time and effort to set up and maintain the servers.

Of course, you can set up your own server in a cheap rate, but you will need to spend much time and effort on setting up everything including the hardware, software, connections, electricity etc. Keeping the server up and online is not an easy task from a household location. Load balancing, keeping backup servers... as time goes, you lose more time and more money.

When you buy from AWS/Google/DigitalOcean — you just pay the money and - bam! - you have everything at your service.

nik736
You can also rent bare metal servers, you get ssh access so you basically don't have to spend more time than with a VM but have the bare metal power.
debacle
I would colocate a server if I cared enough about what was going on with the machine to own the hardware. I know there are a few places in my area that colo, and they are generally more expensive than hosting.
dyeje
Unless you have specialized hardware, there's really no point. The cloud will be cheaper and easier.
zepolen
Easier maybe, cheaper no way.
billconan
I think in bayarea, the cheapest colo you could find is in Fremont, for $400 per month.

I'd like to use colo, so that I could make a raspberry pi cluster as my server. That will be cool. but $400 is too much for now.

Whereas my current AWS monthly cost is $10.

I try not to use any amazon features to untie from amazon, so I can switch servers later.

This is the cheapest colo I found in Bayarea

http://he.net/Colocation-in-Fremont-CA/?l=Fremont_Colocation...

It seems to be the same vendor for linode

Another benefit for using aws is that you can deploy your server globally, instead of a single location.

nik736
This is a whole cabinet. 42 Units, that means you could put 2 switches and 40 Dual E5 systems with 384GB memory each. In this case the colo pricing doesn't matter at all, you could even pay 1000 bucks per month and wouldn't notice it much because the main cost is simply hardware.
billconan
But this is usually the smallest unit (whole cabinet) for purchase, right?
nik736
No, you can even get single units, let it be through a reseller or directly.
jtchang
Do you get enough power/amps to host 40 dual E5 systems?
nik736
In most DCs this is not an issue, what do you think how companies like DO or Linode do it?
eb0la
If you want cheap collocation, just talk to a business near you who has a small Datacenter and ask them to share the costs, or have you as a customer.

Maybe you have an PR/Advertising agency near you with room to spare. They tend to own their own (second-hand) servers because cloud is expensive and 1-2 good sysadmins can do a great job for much less than the cloud (except for CDN, which they purchase from amazon/azure/gcp/etc. )