10 Meg enough?

[Kenrik]

Here's my question.. right now I'm on shared hosting for my iPhone Apps backend web stuff. I don't think the shared hosting can handle the traffic once the site goes live. Now a dedicated server is pretty expensive and I do have a great deal of Linux/Unix/OSX systems admin experience.


What I was looking at was getting a Mac Mini Server and hosting it myself.

In my area Comcast offers a 100meg Down / 10meg Up Static Business connection for around $180 a month.

My question is this.. many hosting companies claim to have 100meg UP connections but then they will run hundreds or thousands of sites off that connection.. your percentage of that connection is actually very small.

My question is: Will a 10 meg connection dedicated to a single mini server in raid 0 ($180 a month connection) out perform the $250 dedicated server from a large hosting company?

 

[larkost]

How exactly are we supposed to know:

a) how much data a typical client uses

b) how many users you expect to have

c) how often they are expected to connect, and how big is the deviation in usage

d) how sensitive they are going to be to slow or intermittent service

So basically we have absolutely none of the information to even begin throwing out ideas.

But generally, if you are going to have a professional service, then you are going to need a lot better setup than a single mini on a home connection. For starters Comcast is not going to give you very good reliability promises... no where near what a colo facility is going to give. Not to mention failover power, networking, and servers.

 

[maflynn]

If you're looking to setup a hosting solution yourself, I'd say that you need to look at Comcast'z terms of use. Many ISPs prohibit such activities. Secondly setting up a hosting service, with that amount of bandwidth appears to be woefully small. I mean you complain that your shared hosting setup will be unable to handle the traffic, but the small bandwidth setup of comcast can?

Finally, what type of fail over and back up strategies will you be employing? If the server goes down at 2:00am, will you be able to go into the office at that time and resolve the problem. How will you now - you'll need to setup notifications. What business plan will you have to minimize or avoid outages. Will you plan on back up power, so that if your office loses power, you'll keep your site live?

Personally, I'd look at contracting out to a hosting service that specializes in such things.

 

[MMV]

Besides your ISP's AUP and SLA, you might want to place your Mac Mini Server in a secure data center for other reasons. Multiple backbone connections, backup generators, secure location, etc.

You could colocate (colo) a Mac Mini Server for less than $30 a month with some of the colo facilities that specialize with Mac Mini's. www.MacMiniVault.com being one of them. Do a quick google search.

 

[DustinT]

I really don't recommend you host a publically available website from a home internet connect. You would be much, much better off spending the $180 on a hosting package. There's lots and lots of ways to get really great hosting for that kind of money.