[ZachPruckowski]

Don't forget to factor in the costs of running, cooling, and maintaining that much hardware (also bandwidth costs). I'm not saying it's $2k/month, I'm just saying don't compare the physical box and AWS without factoring everything in. At the end of the day, if you don't need the support, you're probably right that a dedicated box makes sense there.

[adventured]

AWS has among the highest bandwidth costs you're going to run into, if we're talking co-location, dedicated, or self-hosting. Their bandwidth costs are the sole reason I won't go anywhere near AWS yet, I consider their prices outrageously high.

10tb = roughly $1,000 per month

They're between 5 and 50 times more expensive on bandwidth than the options in dedicated / colo / self hosting.

[dekhn]

You can negotiate with AWS.

[liotier]

I don't believe that startups in their garage days have anywhere near the necessary leverage to negotiate anything with Amazon...

[jaequery]

Agree, not many people actually realize just how slow and expensive AWS actually is. Kudos to SO for going with their own hardware.

[dekhn]

they negotiate, still. I know several startups which went to amazon, said, "hey, your competitor is cheaper, what is your value prop" and suddenly had 50% discounts, etc. It's amazing how much you get simply asking!