Computers & Electronics

I am trying to start my own SERVER

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Member
Sep 19, 2010
206 posts
8 upvotes

I am trying to start my own SERVER

Hi,

I am trying to run my own server at my office.
I have a website with daily visitors of about 2~3000
and page views of 100,000

I am using bluehost standard hosting service but since my website grew in size
it is hard to maintain with just regular hosting service. I get too much CPU throttle, unbelievable
so they said it's better for me to set up a server at my work.

Can I use START communication's PRO 50mb internet line?
also I need to buy 1 or 2 server computers,
where should I buy them and what specification should I meet?
never done it before so kind of confused,

cheaper the better but definitely not going to be stinge when it comes to running my site.
I am not even sure what the budget should be like. Can anyone suggest me a server spec and prices?

I tried to find out how much bandwidth i use but couldnt find it on bluehost
but right now i get so much cpu throttle because i use up lots or resources,
no live streaming of any sort, just forums and lots of posting and pictures i guess.

help me! thank you
10 replies
Deal Addict
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Nov 12, 2011
4508 posts
700 upvotes
Niagara-on-the-Lake
You can't host something like that on a residential connection. If you're running out of resources on shared hosting, pay and upgrade to a managed VPS. It would be MUCH cheaper and more secure than trying to host it yourself. You can get decent managed VPSes for ~$25-35/month that will be able to handle your needs.
Deal Addict
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Feb 14, 2009
1280 posts
518 upvotes
i apologize upfront, but still suggest you
are better hosting site somewhere than setup home server.
In your post -- there very little technical information.

For offsite hosting, you can look at Amazon EZ2 cloud webhosting,
rackspace, gogrid and similar. I also know several small teams that host and
maintain site for small and medium projects.
Most of such places have scalable services and
you pay for more-or-less exact usage. Also such places have
experienced staff to properly figure out your needs.
They have firewalls, backup, monitors, usage logs, etc

Office servers -- you on your own.
First -- you have to figure-out technology of the site,
is it CPU, Network, database and/or disk intensive.
General and peak stress levels.
Security, stability and other non-functional requirement.
Than backups, firewall, application server, databases...

entry-level grade servers start from 1.5K for basic CPU and
little memory, there is no upper limit. For example
http://www.dell.com/ca/business/p/power ... er-servers
Any practical suggestion can be done only after you give more
information on the project.
Deal Addict
Oct 31, 2012
4547 posts
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London
Typhoonz wrote: You can't host something like that on a residential connection. If you're running out of resources on shared hosting, pay and upgrade to a managed VPS. It would be MUCH cheaper and more secure than trying to host it yourself. You can get decent managed VPSes for ~$25-35/month that will be able to handle your needs.
+1, residential connections are usually asymmetric, and won't have nearly enough upload speed for your purposes. Also if you don't know what you're doing, you could have lots of security gaps in your website.
Deal Expert
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Jul 22, 2006
22438 posts
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ECC ram pricing is pretty nuts...
Deal Fanatic
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Apr 4, 2009
7698 posts
794 upvotes
North York
OP indicated that their were not to cheapout on the servers, etc.

However, I do have to ask what is OP thinking ballpark wise as a budget for this project? $5K or $50K?

I found this link regarding Bluehost Pro ...
http://www.codemyownroad.com/upgrading-bluehost-pro/

How much are they planning to charge OP for Bluehost Pro service, that is making OP think about operating own web servers?
Deal Expert
Aug 2, 2004
38392 posts
12018 upvotes
East Gwillimbury
Don't host your website at home or in an office.

As other have mentioned. Here are the cons

No redundant connection, internet goes down, so does the website.
Bandwidth, what matters is your upload speed not the download, since the upload is small, your web site will be slow
Environment, chances are that your server will be placed in a closet instead of a properly cooled room
Power, you may have a UPS that will help with short power outages but can you survive an extended outage?
Backup, can you survive a disk crash? Will you have a backup?

There are no pros.

Look for a co-location (Bring your own server) or a VPS (Virtual Private Server)
Member
Sep 19, 2010
206 posts
8 upvotes
thank you for all the information,
I think I should forget about office server then,
I just had no idea what so ever, thus asking such question.

Bluehost was fast before but now it is so much slower i guess because of all the visitors to my site,
redflagdeals have such high number of people but still load so fast.

so VPS better than Dedicated Server for now?
Bluehost Pro?

I have such high CPU Throttle right now. like 3~4hrs a day!! thats crazy.
do you think moving to PRO will do the difference?

I should really know better but it's hard because I never studied this stuff,, just learning as I go along.
Deal Fanatic
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Nov 18, 2002
7041 posts
652 upvotes
BC Interior
Ayoba wrote: thank you for all the information,
I think I should forget about office server then,
I just had no idea what so ever, thus asking such question.

Bluehost was fast before but now it is so much slower i guess because of all the visitors to my site,
redflagdeals have such high number of people but still load so fast.

so VPS better than Dedicated Server for now?
Bluehost Pro?

I have such high CPU Throttle right now. like 3~4hrs a day!! thats crazy.
do you think moving to PRO will do the difference?

I should really know better but it's hard because I never studied this stuff,, just learning as I go along.
Given you don't seem to have much experience with this I can thoroughly recommend managed VPS or a managed server. Given your traffic is pretty low a VPS should suffice. Probably in the region of $40-$50 per month. Try hostgator.com or site5.com managed VPS packages.

If you want dedicated rackspace do managed dedicated server but for a lot more coin.

P.S. What kind of site are you running? Ecommerce, forums, content management, static?
Deal Expert
Aug 22, 2006
31271 posts
17295 upvotes
A VPS (usually) isn't better than a dedicated server, but there are exceptions.
It's just a slice of a dedicated server, so if you have a very powerful host with a large slice it can easily overpower a really low end dedicated.

VPS is the next logical step beyond shared hosting. They're usually scalable too so you can grow it with your needs until your needs are a powerful dedicated server.
george__ wrote: ECC ram pricing is pretty nuts...
No it's not. $65 for a 1x8 stick isn't expensive considering that non ECC is like $55.
Deal Addict
Nov 22, 2005
2132 posts
763 upvotes
I think one thing no one's asked here is what kind of site are you serving? Are there files for download? Is it simple content? Are you running a blog? Depending on what you're running people can give you better suggestions for what resources you need. In all likelihood you don't need that much bandwidth than that is offered by most VPS', like a TB or two. Most simple blogs like Wordpress can run off a VPS with less than 256MB of RAM (if you know how to set it up). If you're willing to learn, I'd suggest getting a cheap VPS first to play with, like ChicagoVPS or BuyVM ($40 & $15 a year respectively). Here's a site that teach you how to setup a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP Web Server): http://library.linode.com/lamp-guides/debian-5-lenny There are guides for different OS's on the left side.

As for the Home Server idea. If your data isn't super crucial, and the size is relatively small (small enough to fit on a USB stick) you can back it up daily very easily. You can schedule backups automatically if you want. It's not as terrible as people are making it out to be. And considering you don't have that may vistors daily I don't see why it wouldn't work. I've done it before on my connection (10MBPS upload). Although, like I said earlier, if your site is for massive file sharing you'd probably want to off-load that to a proper server 10MBPS might not cut it. If you're considering a Fibre Connection of 50/50, that'd definitely be more than enough to run it, you'd just have to get a dedicated IP address (to simplify things).

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