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Ask HN: Server colocation
3 points by juancferrer 5718 days ago
What are some good cheap providers? I have a few EC2 machines, but I also have a few personal boxes sitting around that I would like to get online.

Anything in the $50 range that will take a mini tower? Or will I be stuck with 1U of space?
2 comments
noonespecial 5718 days ago
Are you sure you want to "own" the box? I had nothing but trouble trying to maintain a little gaggle of self made boxen at various data centers.

I ended up changing almost all of them to these little $39/month dedicated marvels at interserver. They mess with the hardware, I get the goodness.

http://www.interserver.net/custom-managed-dedicated-servers....

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juancferrer 5718 days ago
I would just keep renting VPS/EC2 machines, but I really need high RAM machines. 8-16GB, and I already have the boxes here, and I just want to get them online 24/7.
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CyberFonic 5718 days ago
I used to install CoLo boxen for clients, sometimes dozens in any given data center. Unless you have network KVM or its equivalent, you'll end up hating the idea. And you need to plan for backups too.

With a mini tower, you'll most probably have to get a shelf and pay for at least 3-4U if you lay it on its side, more if standing upright. Since stuff is always rack mounted, cooling can be an issue as well. Rack mount servers are designed for that environment.

Since you are already using EC2, why not dial up a couple of micro instances. If you are running Linux or BSD, then do your numbers. Sometimes it works out cheaper to host multiple processes on a single larger instance.

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