Buying a new Server

July 19, 2008 @ 2:07 pm- from Murten, Switzerland

It's time to retire my existing Web Server which is going on 7 years now. The box that this site is running on currently is an old style 2ghz Pentium 4 box with 1 gig of memory and it's starting to creak at the edges pretty hard with a few off and on failures to power and the system board components (lthe clock seized to work a few weeks ago). As of late the box has been locking up on a few occasions - and in fact just as I started writing this post today it just locked up again. Thankfully the lockups are not hardware fatal and the machine keeps on ticking after being rebooted by the ISP staff, but clearly this box is reaching the end of its hardware life cycle and usefulness.

I've been meaning to upgrade the box for a while, but frankly there's really not been a compelling reason to do so until recently. Even with the fairly large and various amount of stuff running on this server including the WebLog, our message board, a large variety of sample applications, my West Wind Web Store (in various different versions actually <s>) and a bunch of smaller internal applications, it never seizes to amaze me that this underpowered box does as well as it does. The other reason I'd been holding out as long as I had has been waiting for Server 2008. I wanted to wait for the new OS to update to save myself from an update in the future and having more synchronicity between Vista on the desktop and the 2008 server on live site.

Anyway, it's time to get a new box and I'm kind of torn between the choices on what to get. The last box was a home built box that cost me somewhere around $500 to build at the time. It was an emergency replacement box swapped in for a slowly failing server at the time and it just somehow worked out as the permanent replacement. I'd say for the years of services it's done that was a good price to value effort. The old box was basically a desktop box that my ISP at Gorge Net in Hood River has been kind enough to co-locate for me.

The question now is though what to get for a new box. I've been leaning towards just building another box with an Intel Core Quad processor and a gobs of memory, plus some high performance drives for best performance, but things have changed with processor designs significantly over the last few years with chips running super hot. So I'm seriously wondering whether a desktop processor is a good idea for an always-on server environment. Additionally I'm really pressed for time as I have a two week window to get the components, build the box, run a burn in and then move everything from the old server onto the new box while I'm actually in Hood River with physical access to the box. Finally, I'm not all that keen on building my own boxes anymore especially in regards to getting those monster processors installed and properly set up for cooling and optimal tuning. My last home brew installation of an internal office server took me way longer than I care to admit to get the machine into stable operation and while that kind of experimentation was fine for a desktop box I can fuck with anytime, I don't have that privilige with a server at a (somewhat) remote location.

So, I guess I'm asking for a some experienced advice amongst you, my dear readers.

Some of the choices I've been toying with are:

Build my own

If I build my own box the price is probably the lowest and I get exactly what I want, but as I mentioned above I am a little worried about component overheating and life time. Pricing for what I'm looking at looks to be around $600 or so for a Intel Core Quad with 4gig and two SATA drives plus a new box and a beefy power supply. The price is right but I'm not sure if this is still a good idea.

Another option is to buy a bare bones, pre-installed system that has Box and CPU mounted and ready to go. But in briefly looking around I didn't find a lot of choice in this space from most of the component vendors, so this is probably not an option.

Get a Desktop Box from Dell or some other Vendor

Pricing a box that has similar components (minus extra drive and maybe additional memory) from Dell costs roughly the same, but there's less control over the components. It's amazing how cheap boxes have become. Effectively the pricing doesn't seem too much more than home build but I'd probably have to do some component swapping to get the high end drive and memory upgrades still. The advantage for me though is that I don't have to wait for components to show up and build the box and hopefully get a reasonably tuned box that I can just install the OS on and be done with.

Here's with what I came up with at Dell:

Dell Inspiron 530
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB), Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1
Unit Price
$728.00

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 (will be dumped)
Memory
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
Keyboard and Mouse Bundles
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
Monitor
No Monitor
Video Cards
ATI Radeon HD3650 256MB
Hard Drives
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
Floppy Drive and Media Reader
3.5in Floppy Drive
Mouse
Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
Network Interface
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Optical Drive
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Sound Cards
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Warranty & Service
1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support
Sub total:$728.00

Looking over prices what it would cost me to build a box with similar components it's not going to be any cheaper, even if I end up replacing the drive with something faster later on. <shrug>

The question again is just how much can you trust a desktop box (especially from Dell and Inspiron) to last in a server environment today? I've had good luck with non-server boxes in the past with all of them lasting close to 5 years before they got obsolete.

Get a Server Box from Dell or some other Vendor

While at Dell I also checked out the servers and prices there also seem reasonably decent for a mid range non-rack server. For a quad core 2.5ghz Xeon with a similar configuration (plus 2 drives unfortunately) I'd end up with something like this:

PowerEdge T300
Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X3323, 2.5GHz, 2x3M Cache, 1333MHz FSB, No Operating System
$1,666.00 Save $688 on select PowerEdge™ T300 servers through Dell Small Business.
Memory
4GB DDR2, 667MHz, 2x2GB Dual Ranked DIMMs
Primary Hard Drive
250GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Cabled Hard Drive
2nd Hard Drive
250GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Cabled Hard Drive
Hard Drive Configuration
Onboard SATA, 1-4 Drives connected to Onboard SATA Controller - No RAID

Floppy Drive
No Floppy Drive
Network Adapter
On-Board Dual Gigabit Network Adapter
CD/DVD Drive
16x DVD-ROM Drive, Internal, SATA
System Documentation
Electronic Documentation and OpenManage CD Kit
Chassis Configuration
Chassis with Cabled Hard Drive and Non-Redundant Power Supply
Hardware Support Services
3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite
Power Cords
Power Cord, NEMA 5-15P to C13, wall plug, 10 feet
TOTAL:$978.00

which seems reasonable for a server. Components as a whole seem a little less powered than the desktop counterparts, but I suspect the Xeon processors are better optimized for server operation and heat dispersion for running in always on scenarios.

Unfortunately in various configurations I haven't been able to get exactly the config I'd like to see so I probably have to call Dell to fine tune a little bit if possible or at least ditch the third drive for a 10k boot drive.

Looking for Feedback

The environment will be almost purely for hosting my own Web applications, mostly ASP.NET applications running SQL Server as a data backend all local in this case plus a few older COM based Web applications. There are obviously more expensive solutions available especially in rack mount form but I'm incined to think that most of the server boxes are just badly overpriced for what performance they provide. Am I totally off my nut on that or does that seem reasonable at all?

I thought I'd take advantage of the vast pool of folks out there and I would love to hear some thoughts on what's worked for you in small shop server installs focused purely on Web Servicing for small to medium level Web load.

Feedback for this Weblog Entry

re: Buying a new Server
by Steve from Pleasant Hill July 19, 2008 @ 3:58 pm

I would lean towards the hardware you're thinking of (not so sure about the benefits of a quad over a duo) but as an off the shelf unit from a major vendor, and with Server 2008. It is important that the factory put together a hardware suite that is proven to work with this OS. As you know, getting a box and replacing the OS causes warranty issues.

I run a P4 with 1GB (and W2K, since I have emotional problems with XP and Vista bites), and will be looking to replace this system with something similar and want to use Server 2008 as my desktop machine, so please keep us updated!

re: Buying a new Server
by John July 19, 2008 @ 4:35 pm

Rick, I'm not how it works in your country but in Australia Dell has an "Outlet" where they sell surplus computers still brand new (often over ordered by large clients and returned unused).
In the server space we often see some awesome machines for half price.
I run a little 1RU server with a xeon quad core, 4GB RAM and a proper RAID 1 controller. I'm not sure about you but being a software guy I love it when my site and demos run really fast and a hate solving hardware issues. For me in was worth the $2000 for something that works and is easily co-located in a single rack unit.

re: Buying a new Server
by Steven Smith July 19, 2008 @ 10:01 pm

For the hardware, seriously consider Dell Outlet. I've bought several machines from there, always saved a bunch, and have yet to regret it. The other thing I recommend is to put your sites into a VPC. Next time it's time to upgrade, copy the VPC to the new hardware...DONE!

re: Buying a new Server
by Claus July 19, 2008 @ 10:36 pm

Two options,
instead of build your own, you can always get a builder to build you a box with everything and do the burn in for you. They're more game oriented, but some will build you server boxes, and at least you know exactly what you're getting. You can add processor, case and hard drive cooling you can never get from an off the shelf vendor. In my experience, this can be the same price as buying components from newegg.com, and they do the work for you. Velocitymicro is someone I've been looking at for a new development box for myself; they seem to have good reviews. A more barebones games builder is MagicMicro and Cyberpower.
Second option is to maybe look into some of the cloud computing that Amazon and others offer? I don't have much info, but it seems intriguing, and I think in this age, we shouldn't have to worry about buying hard drives for a server anymore.
I have had the worst experience with Dell, both with server performance (mainly hard drive performance for SQL 2005 with their 7,200rmp drives on RAID5) and their customer service. The prices are good, but I feel some of the components are very cheaply made and may not hold up.
Also, the desktop lines won't have any of the fans and cooling you'll need for a server, plus you only get 1 year of warranty...
Good luck and keep us posted, this is something that we rarely discuss....

re: Buying a new Server
by Nik Kalyani July 19, 2008 @ 11:45 pm

Just curious why you would even want to deal with the hassle of owning and being responsible for the hardware when dedicated and virtual servers on a pipe are a commodity. Since your focus is software, wouldn't you be better off letting someone whose focus is infrastructure worry about the hardware? I love tinkering with hardware myself, but for business, I have found the TCO with hosted dedicated or virtual servers to be less than owned+co-located hardware.

re: Buying a new Server
by Nicholas July 19, 2008 @ 11:56 pm

Rick,

Dell had some killer deals on the Inspiron 530 recently (check gotapex.com), and I ended up replacing my old server with a 2.6 GHz quad-core Inspiron 530 with 4 gigabytes of RAM, and 500gig "datasafe" drives. Installed 64-bit version of Server 2008, and it's been running like a champ. Always on, sitting in my office. Doesn't generate much noise or heat. Haven't measured power consumption but I'd wager it's not very high.

re: Buying a new Server
by Rick Strahl July 20, 2008 @ 1:59 am

@Nik - that's a valid comment, but I have a really funky software setup that will be hard to get supported by anyone. Also I do a LOT of tinkering with software configurations and a few older COM based applications that make having fully auto/ISP managed solution impossible.

It'd be different if it was just a bunch of ASP.NET apps, but there's a huge mishmash of server applications running on this server that require special attention anyway that any sort of managed solution isn't going to help me. Really the hardest part is that portion of it and given that it's been going on 7 years since the last major upgrade it's not too much of a hassle.

@Steve - I've been thinking about Virtualization, but to be honest I don't think that addresses everything either. Yes it's easier to back up and move the install, but in my experience - other than hardware failures - the main reason for machine upgrades tend to be new OS software in which case you have to start over anyway. The other issue is I just haven't been able to spend any amount of time to really understand what I can and can't do with Virtualization. However, I'm thinking about offloading some of my 'legacy' stuff into a virtual machine and isolate that stuff completely from the rest of the site which should make everything more stable.

re: Buying a new Server
by Wyatt Barnett July 20, 2008 @ 4:38 am

I'd definitely go with a pre-built server box with plenty of beef. One thing--have you considered virtualization. It is very, very handy in these multi-headed server scenarios--you could logically split SQL, old COM apps and newer .NET apps without investing in new hardware.

re: Buying a new Server
by Wes MacDonald July 20, 2008 @ 5:35 am

I too had no desire to build my own box. The one thing I found is that the stock boxes from Dell and HP are awesome deals until you go to customize them - like upgrading the RAM to 8Gb, then the price seems to spiral out of control. I needed to replace my old server and wanted to run Windows Server 2008 x64, it had to support Hyper-V so I opted for an Acer Desktop (FutureShop) with a AMD Phenom Quad Core Processor with 8Gb of RAM and a 750Gb Hard Drive for less than a $1000 dollars. It is serving me well.

re: Buying a new Server
by Tom July 20, 2008 @ 6:25 am

We've had a few Poweredge R200 1U servers off Dell for GBP£200 to £300 (USD400-600 ish).

These were roughly Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 2x 500GB SATA disks in hardware RAID1, no OS. Very solid machines, they just work.

If you don't already have one, can I suggest you get yourself a Dell account manager? We get much better pricing that way.

re: Buying a new Server
by Josh Stodola July 20, 2008 @ 12:21 pm

Definitely build it yourself, but you better get a 10,000 RPM primary hard drive. Performance impact is incredible. The Western Digitial Raptors are recommended. I bought this HD as my boot drive my new PC that I am building (right now): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136260

You can get a smaller one (150GB) though if that is too pricey :)

Atwood on 10K Drives: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000800.html

Have fun!

re: Buying a new Server
by Nik Kalyani July 20, 2008 @ 1:32 pm

>> I have a really funky software setup that will be hard to get supported by anyone.
>> Also I do a LOT of tinkering with software configurations and a few older COM based
>> applications that make having fully auto/ISP managed solution impossible.

Neither of these seem like reasons that would exclude dedicated/virtual hosted solutions. I have RDP access and can do pretty much anything I want on my hosted, dedicated servers (i.e. no ISP Control Panel). If I change the IP I'd be SOL, but other than that I can install anything I want and have unfettered access to the OS/registry/drives/services etc.

I agree that you would have problems with "Managed Dedicated Servers," but since most mainstream dedicated/virtual servers are unmanaged, you can tinker and COM away to your heart's content.

re: Buying a new Server
by Steven Black July 20, 2008 @ 1:38 pm

Rick, I'd first ask the ISP what he's purchasing these days, and consider getting that.

See, the worse case scenario is a failure of say a drive or a power supply. Imagine hearing exactly what you want to hear when you're swamped, or traveling, or with other plans: "I have a spares right here, Rick, and the lads can just install it later today."

How sweet is that?

Your use-case already says what you have now is plenty powerful enough, which is probably a lot less than what your ISP may be regularly purchasing now....

**--** Steve

re: Buying a new Server
by Rick Strahl July 20, 2008 @ 2:07 pm

@Steve - yeah the ISP is an all Dell shop, except for a few off the side servers like mine. This is why I'm leaning towards getting a DELL. I checked with them and they have a few of these T300 servers going as well, so this is somewhat comforting.

@Nik - understood. But my point is that the pain point is getting the machine configured and up and running and it's much easier to do it with the machine in my office sitting next to me than doing everything from scratch over an RDP connection. Once the server's up and running no problem, everything short of OS or hardware updates are done remotely. As Steve points out with this particular ISP I can get people to do certain hardware updates for me as well. In the end I just don't see any additional benefit from paying an ISP for a box by way of my monthly rate when I can get the box into the shop myself and pay a considerably lower monthly rate.

re: Buying a new Server
by Chris Miller July 20, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

Rick,

I would go with a Dell server, especially if the ISP is a Dell shop. We have a rack full of them for our in house servers and they have held up pretty well. Having on site Dell experience at the ISP is handy if you need to have a drive or power supply swapped out.

I would consider the virtualization, if not for today then at a point down the road. If you wanted to try beta versions of ASP.NET or SQL Server, if it has the words "Microsoft" and "Beta", then it can be messy to uninstall. It's much easier to build up and tear down a virtual OS than a real one. With Server 2008, you can always add virtual servers using "Hyper-V". Just make sure that you get a Dell server that supports Hyper-V.

Since your ISP is a Dell shop, it wouldn't hurt to check with them to see if they get a Dell discount. Also, if you can order at the end of month, you may get a Dell salesperson who is itching to make their quote for the month and can cut you a deal.

re: Buying a new Server
by Mike Gale July 20, 2008 @ 6:03 pm

A long time ago I located servers with ISP's. I dropped that.

For my own use I've moved to using somebody else's server and buying a chunk of it. The key thing here is people who know what they are doing at the ISP.

(I also run a similar machine at the office to test before I deploy. Issues are: 1) Designing code so that you can do this without special setup 2) Helping the ISP to decide on an early deployment of new versions of .NET. 3) Monitoring the ISP server/s and making sure you get the performance you want.)

You currently can't go that way, but it might be worth thinking about for the future.

In your situation I would go for a server grade machine, made by somebody else. I'd seriously consider whatever my ISP uses, though not feel forced to use it.

From recent experience I'd probably go for a DELL machine. (Those outlet stores mentioned in earlier posts look interesting.)

(Every time I look at hardware, which isn't often, things have changed so much that I need to study up on the technology. This is needed even if you're buying a prebuilt machine.)

My experience is that you don't want to talk to a DELL representative by phone, if you can avoid it. I've found they know less than you do and mess up your order, while an on-line order just works!

re: Buying a new Server
by Benjamin Siegel July 20, 2008 @ 7:36 pm

Hey Rick,

For what it's worth... my thoughts:

If you go with Dell, (desktop or otherwise) just get the support. At least then you know you will have someone working to get it back up if something happens. This is what I do in the office.

For home, I prefer to build myself...

About 6 months back I built a home based server (desktop board) with the following components:

Motherboard: Desktop Board (Intel Extreme Series): Quad Core
RAM: 8GB

Video: e-GeForce 8400 GS Dual Monitors)

Drives: 4 Seagate SATA (500 GB each) configured under RAID 5

It's running Windows 2008 Server standard and although I prefer ESX VMs, I've been running Microsoft's Hyper-V for a few months now with 4 Virtual Servers for development and testing with WebConnection.

Not one problem so far with any drivers (video, sound, anything else). Not even one crash (impressive for Windows 2008 server)

When my wife logs in, she's got the Aero interface

Hope this helps..

Benjamin

re: Buying a new Server
by RVBoy July 21, 2008 @ 2:41 am

Agree re the suggestions to get a Dell server. It may cost a little more than a desktop or self-build but components and construction are more carefully selected to give you reliability and 24/7. Unless you're hosting it locally, consider a DRAC card as well. Unlike Windows Remote Desktop, a DRAC card lets you manage the server even if the OS crashes completely or the machine is powered down. As long as the box has the power cord plugged in you can bring it online or re-install OS or software from a CD or flash drive in your personal PC. For somebody who spends time an ocean away from the server this can save you heaps of time and $.

re: Buying a new Server
by Martin Murphy July 21, 2008 @ 11:04 am

Hosted VPS is the way to go. If you need more RAM or processor they can allocate on the fly with as little downtime as a reboot. You don't need to even be aware of the intricacies of virtualization. Just call or go on the web interface of your vendor and request more RAM for example.

If you are unhappy with them just move the VMs. It's good when your vendor don't feel that you are locked in because then their level of service is higher.

Also I think I would disagree with the OS upgrade comment. There are many reasons that you would need physical access to the machine that virtualization takes out of your hands. Hardware failure now becomes the ISP's responsibility, Hardware monitoring now becomes the ISP's responsibility.

Here's a biggie. You can get a new VM setup without physical access, get all your apps setup and then switch the new one on and the old one off and you never have to visit the server room. (Also no old hardware to sell).

re: Buying a new Server
by Donnie Hale July 21, 2008 @ 2:20 pm

Rick,

I recently got a Dell server - a PowerEdge SC1430. It came w/ a single default 80gb drive, but I bought 2 500gb server class drives from newegg and installed those. I'd make the same choice if I had to do it over again, and I looked at all the same options you did.

The only difficulty I ran into is that the Dell raid card isn't on the Win2K3 CD, so I had Dell walk me through getting the OS installed w/ the correct raid driver. But ever since then it's been great.

Donnie

re: Buying a new Server
by Marty Cantwell July 21, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

Hey Rick,

IMHO I have to throw my hat into the ring with you on the Virtual Server scene not being quite there yet. At least for apps like you or I host on a server.

I actually bit the dust and purchased a couple of referbished Dell servers last year and have had really good success with them. My favorite sales rep (for a local hardware vendor) went to work for Stallard Technologies and I let him talk me into a "starter server" as he called it (it was a 1650) and it worked so well I ended up getting another from him. Stallard Technologies specializes in referbishing off lease Dell server equipment.

The boxes I got have dual Xeon processors running at 3.4G, 4GB ram, a remote access card which allows me to power up/down, control, administrate, etc. the server (has it's own IP address and will let me log on even if the box is shut off!), the high-end RAID controller, etc. They have worked very well for me and since they were referbished units (no longer in new production as of the last year or so I think), they only ran me ~$650 each.

Unless some things have changed, be sure to *not* go with Intel mother boards and chipsets if you want to RYO and expect to run a Server OS on it!

re: Buying a new Server
by Joshua Starr July 22, 2008 @ 6:11 am

Rick -- I agree with Marty, I have personal experience with Stallard as well. I bought a lot of 3 PowerEdge 1750 1U rack mounted units (from Stallard via eBay) that came with 2 gigs of RAM. The units were Dual Xeon 3.2ghz machines and it cost me just over 600.00 for all three, I bumped the RAM up to 4 gigs, and added in 3 SCSI U320 hard drives for RAID-5 operation.

The total price (including the price of the actual server) to configure each unit with the extra RAM, hard drive, and RAID controller was about $700.

What is your current backup practice? Are you running any form of RAID, or just relying on nightly transfers to an offsite location? RAID is definitely the way to go, coupled with a semi nightly backup strategy depending upon how often your data changes.

Another thing to consider is the event that you ever decide to change colocation providers. Hosting a consumer desktop costs a lot more than a 1U rack server. I currently have my servers colo'd with "ColoStore" for $50.00 a month per 1U of space.

What most colocation providers offer as a standard feature is called "Remote Hands" which is a KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) over IP. It enables you to utilize your server as if you were sitting right in front of the machine, with a keyboard and mouse. You can change BIOS settings, and install a fresh OS if you need to.

You should be able to find a very reasonable PowerEdge 1750 with a redundant power supply on eBay pre-configured with all of the hardware you need, if you look around. Having a Dual Quad Core server with my personal company (http://www.infinistorm.com) right now, I can say you probably don't need that much power unless you're planning on doing some uber virtualization.

re: Buying a new Server
by Steve July 22, 2008 @ 7:20 am

Is a Windows Home Server box out of the question?

re: Buying a new Server
by Jonas Stawski July 22, 2008 @ 1:47 pm

Why don't you just host it with some hosting company. GoDaddy offers really good pricing: https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/hosting/dedicated.asp?ci=9014&display=dedicated

re: Buying a new Server
by William Plander July 23, 2008 @ 11:55 am

to be 100% honest...I'd say "none of the above". Doesn't matter what machine or configuration you choose, you're to hard on shit (that's a good thing) and will find a way to blow the damn thing up.

What you should focus on is "recovery". Go buy 2 Dells (online..don't talk to anyone...they're idiots). Load them identical. Use your old machine to run FULL incremental backups if either we're to go down. Then find a good trustworthy IT guy to run the whole process for you.

Take my advice and your girlfriend will be first to thank me. <BG>

re: Buying a new Server
by Russell Thatcher July 24, 2008 @ 6:49 pm

Rick, I just wanted to drop a quick line about the current state of virtualization. I work for a consulting firm that does development work in Java, .NET, RoR, SharePoint, etc...We use VMWare server for everything, and I mean everything. We have a quad core Xeon rig with 16gigs of ram and 1TB of space. Currently, we have an array of virtual servers running including a full blown windows domain with 2 domain controllers, an Exchange box, 3 Sql Servers, and mix of various IIS machines and linux boxes. We try to duplicate the production environment of our clients before we start any given project, and I have to say I am a VMWare junkie! We have had zero issues with the virtual environment, and in fact you would never know the difference unless someone told you.

This is probably more than what you're looking for, but I have had a great experience with VMWare products. Aloha...

re: Buying a new Server
by Rick Bean July 28, 2008 @ 6:47 pm

I just read a post by Jeff Atwood at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001157.html. He wrote it as a reply to Rob Conery - also a resident of your fine state. While it is more directed at a workstation, I found a lot of wisdom there.

Good luck which ever way you go!

Rick

re: Buying a new Server
by Dave Rapin July 29, 2008 @ 9:17 am

I use and am in love with Slicehost: http://www.slicehost.com/
Tweaker's dream, cheap, and great performance.

I definitely recommend going VPS if you can find a decent windows host (slicehost is linux and works for my rails / merb hosting). I would never build a physical box these days, and dedicated hosting is usually overpriced. Shared is crazy cheap but very limited. VPS gives you all the advantages of dedicated without the price.

If you're not tied to .NET then there are sooo many options. EC2 will work with windows but through virtualization which I definitely wouldn't recommend. Great VPSish rails host built on EC2 is heroku.com and of course there's google's app engine if you want to run python / djangoish webapps.

If all your doing is hosting blogs though, then any php capable VPS or shared host will work great with wordpress or even use wordpress.com etc.

Anyways, best of luck.

re: Buying a new Server
by Peter August 01, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

Since nobody asked: How much are you paying (per month) for your collocation?

re: Buying a new Server
by foobar August 02, 2008 @ 6:22 am

-- Benjamin Siegel
> RAM: 8GB

I'm in the market for a new machine. 8GB RAM looks intriguing. What version of Win2k8 do you use? 64-bit?

re: Buying a new Server
by Rick Strahl August 04, 2008 @ 8:42 am

@Ben - I spent the weekend setting up a 64 bit box for testing (I'm still waiting on new drives to arrive next week) and experimented around with this setup for a bit. The big concern with 64 bit were my last few Web Connection applications running on the server and it turns out there's no problem with that at all. IIS 7 lets the Application Pool be configured for 32 bit so it's possible to EASILY switch Web Connection apps to run in 32 bit without forcing the entire Web server into 32 bit! It works well.

Everything else seems to work pretty well and performance of 32 bit apps including VFP is good. I've been running load tests over a couple of days of the WWWC apps and the numbers on this quad box are impressive with persistent 120 req/sec even with a few slower hits mixed in.

So far so good. Haven't had a lot of time testing all the ASP.NET server apps for 64 bit issues, but so far it looks like it all runs without as much as a blink in 64 bit.

So, I ended up with a T300 box from Dell, with a 2.5 Ghz Quad Xeon, 4 gig of RAM (just ordered 4gig more because of the 64 bit choice) and added two 10k drives. The whole thing ended up being $1400 including the add-ons.

The only thing is I didn't realize how freaking big this T300 box is. It weighs 50 pounds and is fuller than full size...