[plug] DIY hosting - worth it?

[Josh Fletcher]

I started off hosting at home but found that it was just too much of a pain
in the ass when i was constantly downloading stuff (i regularly hit my 28gb
cap each month) so running a business, off-site hosting was the way to go. i
went with www.dreamhost.com in america and they have been excellent, i would
highly recommend them. as someone said previously, if you are using adsl
personally, then hosting your own site will cost more just by reducing your
surfing speeds, costing you power, having to have the hardware in place etc
etc. hosting off-site is cheap and usually a much better alternative.

my 2c =)

On 9/30/06, Nikhil Jogia <plug at nikhiljogia.com> wrote:
>
> Gavin Chester wrote:
> > DIY hosting - is it worth it?
> >
> > There are a lot of pros and cons to running your own web server at home,
> > so I'm hoping that initiating this thread will evoke a lot of opinions
> > both ways from those that have actually done it/doing it here in WA :-)
> >
> > I can think of some pitfalls:  need for dedicated box with UPS, chewing
> > power having it 'on' all the time, constantly checking its logs,
> > hardening its security, etc.  Other than the technical challenge of it
> > all, the reason I am thinking about hosting my own web site (or three)
> > is to have greater freedom and control.  Another factor in favour is the
> > cost savings involved from being able to host my 15 domain names,
> > instead of having to park them at registrars ATM.  It is uneconomical to
> > have them hosted commercially when the business concepts for which they
> > were registered are still in development.
> >
> > One factor mitigating against home hosting is that I have _terrible_
> > phone down-times.  They don't give a toss about servicing us, being
> > classed as remote regional here in Dwellingup.  For example. twice this
> > year I have had faults that took _SEVEN_ days to be repaired, and would
> > have been more if I wasn't agitating them all the time.  In that event,
> > I have read that some commercial hosts offer a mirroring service - I
> > presume that would takeover when my server was 'offline' due to phone
> > faults.  Other ways around this is that I've considered the greater
> > reliability of two-way satellite - albeit at greater cost.  Anyone have
> > experience of either of those things.
> >
> > Another factor to consider is speed.  Is the DSL 512KB service the
> > minimum?  Or, would 256KB be enough?  I expect very low traffic.  I was
> > going to tinker with VOIP also and have read that 512KB is the minimum
> > for good quality IP calls.
> >
> > There's a lot to be considered there.  I hope some have the time to
> > write of their own experiences and with their advice.
> >
> > OH, and did I mention ... I have practically NO money with which to do
> > this ;-)
> >
> > Gavin
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> > http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> > Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
> >
>
> Whilst 256KB would be enough for a small site, the power bill, lack of
> reliability and amount of time taken don't really make it a viable option.
>
> IMHO, the only situations you would host off DSL are as a learning
> experience, you want to integrate your website with your existing
> network (ie website to upload to internal file server) or you have a low
> bandwidth site that requires a lot of internal (CPU, memory etc) usage -
> thus saving on colo fees.
>
> You might want to check out some US based shared hosting. I hear
> 1and1.com is good and allows multiple domains - US$2.24 per month.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>
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