virtual private servers?
Hi community.
I currently manage and pay for 4 websites and one mush. I think I probably pay about $400.00 a year for all of these services combined.
I like these services because someone else takes care of support, security, and patching. I don't like these services because I lose some flexibility.
In the last year or so, virtual private servers have gained some traction - it looks like a year on a vps server with 512 RAM would cost me $240.00 (and my time). I liked the idea of dedicated servers, but they are waaaay out of my price range.
None of my 4 sites garner much attention - I get about 400 unique hits a day on my blog, but that is it. I probably have about 40 gigs worth of data.
I like the idea of consolidating my websites. I can't self-host because I rent an apartment and don't have a spare machine. Does anyone out there have experience working with VPS? Drawbacks? Advantages?
I appreciate any feedback, and I would be happy to offer additional details if that would help.
Thank you and warmly,
Boris
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I do support for some clients who have them, and I share one myself that I use for several web sites. They work just fine until you get into really high-bandwidth applications. Definitely worth saving $160/year over your current setup, if you have the time and skill to sysadmin yourself!
I run pennmush.org on a
I run pennmush.org on a SliceHost.com slice, in addition to having two other slices for my company (an LLC).
I highly recommend slicehost: They've got a great community of slicehosters (staff and users), a very nice interface, and a good company overall. They work with Rackspace, another good name.
It's also about 5 seconds from clicking the "Pay" button to the email with "Your Slice IP you can ssh into is ..."
While they're dirt cheap compared to most commercial hosting, they're a bit at the upper end of what I term the 'Sysadmin's preference' group: slicehost, linode, prgrmr. They're a little pricey relative to linode and prgmr, but they're also definitely at the top end of support. (Caveat: I only have personal experience with slicehost, and friends who use linode and prgmr).
Prgrmr is pretty much a "self managed" - They don't have much documentation, and their support isn't as thorough as slicehost. While with slicehost, you can't ask them to do everything for you, you can ask their help - Multiple support guys are available 24/7.
... And if you use slicehost, then list penndev@gmail.com as the referral :D.