colosteading
a new server has been ordered. with luck, it will be colocated by the first of december, but i assume the turkey holiday will interfere with that. i'm still mulling over whether i want to try to eliminate my home server completely. i'll probably wait to see how reliable the colocated server is.
this will hopefully mean the end of the intermittent problems with blo.gs, and push me over the hill in getting motivated to work on it (and various other little projects) some more.
it does mean i'll be leaving pair networks, which is a shame because they've been great. the desire to have my own server to abuse is just too strong. the question now is whether i'll steal more customers by offering to host some of the friends i've referred to them, since i'll have bandwidth to spare.
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yeah, pair's services are all managed, so you don't have full root access. but they have just about the best-managed network i've ever seen.
all of the dedicated server options i looked at just didn't have the right mix of options, and weren't significantly cheaper than the route i've decided to take.
look at skynetweb (www.skynetweb.com) - they're quite good, but a bit expensive.
for definitions where a bit
= a lot
, sure.
even if i took the annual payment discount (with its free setup and first month free), i'll be paying less monthly for my colocated server after six months versus a similarly-configured server at skynetweb. (it's not quite apples-to-apples, again, but even the minimal dedicated server plan at skynetweb loses out by about $95/mo after a year.)
the basic economics: $1000 server with p4/2.4GHz, 60gb 7200rpm 2mb cache ide disk, 512mb ram (possibly 768mb if the extra stick of 256mb i have laying around works), plus $75/mo for 100gb bandwidth and 1u colo. that includes remote reboots, backup service (not sure what that means) and is month-to-month with no setup fee.
a comparison with rackshack or nocster starts to get more interesting, particularly because their base bandwidth allotment is higher. (i'd be paying $225/mo for colo+bandwidth for parity with the rackshack plans, at least at the advertised rates from lacolo.com.)
none of that addresses bandwidth quality, of course. lacolo.com is primarily cogent bandwidth, which appears to have a spotty rep (but some well-known clients, like seti@home). for my purposes, bandwidth isn't a huge deciding factor.
Hi, I am considering using lacolo as my colocation provider, do you have any negative or positive experience with them?
my experience (for about two months now) has been entirely positive, but my needs are rather low-key. i haven't noticed any significant network disruptions, or any problems of any kind.
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i had my own servers running off my home T-1 for a while until pacbell decided to NAT everything and shut off the outside world. then i went and got a dedidcated server and it's been completely trouble free. i looked at colo but it's too expensive for what they give you (which is next to nothing). getting a dedicated means they give you some stuff preinstalled and if you don't like what they give you, you can always redo it anyway.
the only problem i had with pair -- i almost signed up -- was apparently (and this may have changed), you can't have root access. this really troubled me.