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Thanks for LET, but you've left me in a quandary :)
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Thanks for LET, but you've left me in a quandary :)

Hanging around / lurking here has been an interesting experience and has opened my eyes to how I could have been saving money with my hosting compared to what I've been paying Linode these last few years.

Right now I'm torn between getting an ultra cheap VPS or using a Dedicated box, the lure of both is incredibly strong and the more I sit and look at it and compare the offers of the various VPS deals, the harder it is to make a choice. I was building a spreadsheet for myself of all my options and its become quickly overwhelming :)

The original idea was to simply save money. Why pay Linode $360 a year to host a website/rarely updated blog and email server when I could get a cheap monthly / yearly deal from the adverts here? Then I started discovering the high HD options like VPSDime Stroage VPS & the Dedibox XC from Online.net which opened up the thought that I could finally have an online backup of bits of my data (like 10 years of digital photos, bought books & comics and other stuff) that I could access as needed.

I actually spent the last few days building up a spreadsheet of various deals and every time I look at it I feel no closer to making a decision.

I could continue with the Dedibox from Online.net, not save any money (actually pay a little more) but have a box that is well and truly mine. I don't need to worry about CPU or Ram usage. However I would still want to VPN into the UK occasionally, so I would need to get one of DireVPS's offers.

Or I could be super cheap and use one of many cheap VPS's like Rootnerds (I am trying out the myXXXL plan, great box but slow link compared to VPSDime/XVMLabs, Online.net) or DireVPS, Ramnode, Kihi Hosting, VMBox, MyCustomHosting, GreenValueBox, Crissic(?) and so on.

Or I could go kind of in the middle with something like VPSDime's Storage VPS, assuming they come back in stock :), and pay $7-14 a month for lots of storage and being able to host stuff too. Though once I get up to paying $14 a month, the whole "well if you pay a little more, you have this box all to yourself with that Dedibox" and then I go through it all again.

So yeah, I'm super thankful that LET exists and for it opening my eyes to new possibilities, but dang has it left me in a quandary :)

Comments

  • Delimiter is another option for a dedicated server, currently the Atoms are at 5/10 a month..

    But yea it's hard to make a decision especially when there's a few good providers here.

    Thanked by 2tarasis MarkTurner
  • Remember you don't have RAID on the XC from online.net, so remember to keep backups and use their free FTP space! Nothing wrong with having more than one VPS/dedi, it's good to spread services out!

    Thanked by 1tarasis
  • aglodekaglodek Member
    edited September 2014

    Simple solution to your "problem": get a dedi with a few extra IP's, set up OpenVZ, or better yet KVM virtualization, and there you go - the best of both worlds, eat your cake and still have it :)

    Thanked by 1tarasis
  • @ATHK Indeed, the posts by a few of the hosters here give me confidence that I could trust them.

    @linuxthefish I hear you, though the FTP backup is a little bit of a phaff. So much easier to do an rsync. As the FTP is only 100GB ("only"! he says) it would be for the email/website/configs. My photos are over 250GB, so I can't have an extra copy there. That said I already have a copy on my HD, a Time Machine Backup, a copy on another disk and then I want a copy online. I am that paranoid about losing them :)

    @aglodek heh, I hadn't really planned/thought about effectively becoming a reseller.

  • My first VPS was with these guys..

    @tarasis There are many different ways you can go. I personally like to have things spread out a bit, so I have a couple cheap dedis and a few VPS's - just a few ;).

    Grab something like a Kimsufi KS-1 (N2800 model if it's available) to get a taste of a dedi, grab a VPSDime storage plan, maybe host your mail server over at Ramnode/Kihi/Crissic/whoever.

    What I'd recommend is not trying to find an all-in-one solution. You'll end up with a single point of failure. One of the biggest benefits to LE* is that you can pick up a couple different boxes, build in some redundancy - and still come in well under $30/mo.

    As for who specifically to go with: the top providers poll is a pretty solid starting point.

    Thanked by 1tarasis
  • @mikeyur said:
    My first VPS was with these guys..

    Yup I was the same :) I had the 256mb Slice + Backup for $25 a month, the earliest receipt I can find is Feb 2009 (I'd been home hosting till then with DynDns as a backup Mx. Linux for Apache and Windows for Pegasus Mail). Then ~Jan 2010 I swapped to Linode, in part for the lower latency of having a UK node and I think they had 512mb for the same as SH's 256mb plan. Which has now become a 2GB plan. Upgrades are great grin

    You are of course right, it's better to not put all the chickens in one basket. I honestly hadn't considered having services on different hosts, a bit more work for setting up though as that's suddenly two or three servers to maintain/monitor.

    The problem is I have now tasted a Dedi with the Dedibox XC :) I can't really imagine dropping down to the lower plan with its weakling processor. That said if I don't have all my chickens in one basket then it's also wildly overspeced for just email or just http stuff. (And as I have to pay VAT, it comes out at €19.xx a month, not €15 ... Grr)

  • I think you should settled your budget first, and it can't be as cheap as possible, you should came up with a numbers, once you have the number everything will be easier

  • @graca pulling numbers is tricky without a good grasp of all the options. I'm starting from currently paying $25 a month and I want to reduce that to as low is possible. Going from $300 a year to say < $50-75 a year is ideal. This is for a personal website/blog/email server, I don't make any money :) (literally, I'm a stay at home dad, ex programmer & system admin)

    That said, a dedicated server that is the same as what I'm already paying is horribly tempting.

  • tarasis said: paying $25 a month and I want to reduce that to as low is possible. Going from $300 a year to say < $50-75 a year is ideal. This is for a personal website/blog/email server, I don't make any money :) (literally, I'm a stay at home dad, ex programmer & system admin)

    Then get a VPS from one of the proven, tried-and-true, reliable VPS providers here.

    And some backup space from one of the proven, tried-and-true, reliable storage providers here.

    Setup the VPS and your off-site automated backup.

    Write a 'setup' script that you can use to quickly rebuild your web/email environment on a fresh VPS in case of a catastrophic failure. And a 'restore' script to restore your latest backup.

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