Which server should I use?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paddy Mac
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Paddy Mac

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Hi,

My current web server died last week and I've been shopping around for a budget web server. I've came across two that is within my budget. The 1st one is a dedicated server with the following spec :-

Windows 2003 Web Edition
1.0GHz Processor
1GByte RAM
72GByte Storage
for £65 a month

The 2nd is a virtual server limited to 12 clients with the following spec :-

Windows 2003 Enterprise
Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon E5420 2.5 GHz
12 GB DDR2 RAM
50 GB Hard Disk Space
for £50 a month

I'm not sure which would be best. The dedicated server is of low spec but it only me who will be using resources, and the virtual server is of high spec but I'll be sharing resources.

Can anyone with knowledge of this area please give me a recommendation?

Thanks,

Paddy
 
Re: Which server should I use?

<Paddy Mac> wrote in message
news:200842144224patrick_mcallister@yahoo.co.uk...
> Hi,
>
> My current web server died last week and I've been shopping around for a
> budget web server. I've came across two that is within my budget. The
> 1st one is a dedicated server with the following spec :-
>
> Windows 2003 Web Edition
> 1.0GHz Processor
> 1GByte RAM
> 72GByte Storage
> for £65 a month
>
> The 2nd is a virtual server limited to 12 clients with the following spec
> :-
>
> Windows 2003 Enterprise
> Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon E5420 2.5 GHz
> 12 GB DDR2 RAM
> 50 GB Hard Disk Space
> for £50 a month
>
> I'm not sure which would be best. The dedicated server is of low spec but
> it only me who will be using resources, and the virtual server is of high
> spec but I'll be sharing resources.
>
> Can anyone with knowledge of this area please give me a recommendation?

Its worth doing a bit of research on the hosting company. I suggest you
visit www.webhostingtalk.com and see what people have to say about the host.
Who are the hosts?

Personally if it were me I'd go with the dual-quad core option. A single
core 1GHz processor sounds quite slow (and is probably quite old too!) For
most tasks a dual core processor is likely to always have spare cpu
capacity, so with 12 clients across 2 quad core processors I would expect
most of the time for you to have the equivalent of at least one core
available to you at all times (I know the math doesn't work out like that
and it does depend on what the other clients are doing). Do you know
anything about the disk arrangement? I would expect that the dual quad
machine to be disk bound before it ran out of cpu resource.

A few other things in case you've not considered them:

1. Do your hosts need to be in the UK? I've found hosts in the US and Europe
cheaper, and (for shared hosting) I've not had any problems hosting in the
US instead of the UK.

2. Do you need Windows hosting or will *nix do? If (for example) you are
using asp.net then you NEED a Windows server, but if its just for plain html
file or for php then a Unix server would save you £10ish a month.

3. It might also be worth posting to alt.www.webmaster.

These are just my opinions, but I hope it helps.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian
 
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