Discussion: Dedicated Server or Home PC?

[dekemvri]

Hello,

I’ve been reading some threads around home-based web servers. A lot of people say if you have a good configuration with a fast internet connection, it will be better than a dedicated server and it will be cheaper.

I think the servers are created to work under higher and continuous loads, they have better cooling and so on. The higher class servers are packed with a lot of advantages.

Anyone tried to host a site on a home PC? What problems did you encounter? What are the positives and the negatives of hosting a site on your PC?
:shock:

 

[Maverick]

Setup your own Dedicated Home PC Server

The only problem is to get the PC online permanently. If you can do it and if you have some decent hardware and fast connection, yes, you don’t need to pay for hosting.

 

[Unwise]

Problem number 1 of the home pc is the stability of the electricity. The company that maintains the electricity in Bulgaria is have a lot of outages and they are happening pretty often. Sometimes they are long enough for a UPS to not be effective.

Problem number 2 is the good, fast and stable internet. I will start with something people don’t know. A lot of providers are offering connection speeds that are not guaranteed, the internet line is shared between a number of users. Not every ISP will offer you guaranteed speeds, because they are more expensive. If you host sites and not files that need continuous use of the network, you may have no problems. The stability of the service can bequestioned on a lot of ISPs and there are not UPTIME guarantees.

About the cooling and the weather in the server room, I will be more skeptical. We are not talking about servers with dozens of CPUs, we don’t have to cool anything. Just watch the temperatures to not fall below 0 C and to not go above 30C. You don’t need any special air conditioners and facilities. You may only want to use PC case that is hermetically closed.

 

[happyslacker]

Dedicated server at home - Dedicated Server - Web Hostining

It is not enough to have a fast connection; you must have a decent uptime. The electricity should not have outages too. Can you get this? Can you defend your network from electricity overloading when there are thunders? Can you offer 24/7/365 support of the ecosystem. If you go to bed at 22:00 and something happens at 22:01? Your server will be down until you get up in the morning or what?

If you have serious projects pay to professionals for a good service. If you are not so serious about it you can use cheap or free web hosting, you don’t need to pay for extra electricity.

 

[Unwise]

It is not so fatal like you are describing it, but you are kinda right. If we talk only for electricity outages, you can use a UPS which will give you the needed boost. If you are paying for a guaranteed internet speeds and if your nearby an internet central, your connection will not go down too.

 

[dekemvri]

Set up your very own Web server

Yes, interesting. It is not a professional solution to use a PC for a homemade server. But, If you buy an UPS you will have no problems with the electricity if the outages are not too long.

 

[mantodeus]

There is something you don’t put in your calculations – the software support of the serve (apache, php and so on.) I never had any work with it but it seem like you have to spend some time in reading before you canadministrate a server. I think the home-based server is good only if you start something. After you gain some attention you can buy a hosting or a server or something...

 

[de7ox]

Do You Run a Home Server

In my opinion a dedicated server.

 

[happyslacker]

Hosting at Home: The Pros and Cons

The software is not a problem – in every Linux distribution, you can create a server fairly easy.

But for the UPS, you can’t solve your problem with it. When there are overloads on the power network your UPS will take some damage, if it is good. If not, your computer will take the damage. Your system will go down in some moment. If you buy a second UPS you will gain yourself an extra 10-15 minutes which are nothing. And consider that the internet can go down parallel to the electricity and you are blown up.

Why I am talking about outages?

I have some insights about this problem in Bulgaria. No one put a defence against it indoor or outdoor, no one measures anything, we don’t upgrade our infrastructure for tens of years.

If you think a VPS or something like it can solve your problem, you are not right. They are important, but by themselves they are not enough.

 

[georgimateev]

Home dedicated server on seperate machine

There are aggregates for the places where UPS is not enough. But the question is whether you want to put this in your house and whether you want to explain your wife that she must not clean it in any case with her tools.

 

[Unwise]

I tried to manage a home server and things were kind of fine for around a year. There were only a few longer downtimes, but it was fine. This never was a big problem. After that I found a place with UPSs and aggregates and now I’m using it. It is great.

The problem with your wife is not really a problem. They are not that dumb and even if they don’t know what it is about, they will not touch anything as long as you told them it is something electronic and important for your work. If I could get a good connection where I live, no doubts I would have a few servers at home.

 

[Veselushko]

Dedicated Server Host vs. Home Computer Host

There are aggregates for the places where UPS is not enough. But the question is whether you want to put this in your house and whether you want to explain your wife that she must not clean it in any case with her tools.

I tried to imagine how you try to start the diesel generator in a room that is 3x3 meters big

Mine views are that if you live in a big city or a capital, you can host a home server.

On places like that the salaries can let you buy a good computer or even a server machine. The connection is a few times better than the network in the smaller cities.

For example I have a website that is hosted on my home pc ( http://nokia7200.info ) and the uptime is 16 days. The only problem was before this 16 days when the electricity company decided to stop the power for a whole day, and here are some other problems.

1. If 10 users of the forum see the thread and try to see my website at the same time, there is a chance my server will stop working for at least 30 minutes. The server will not restart and Apache/MySQL will drain a lot of your memory.

2. Image if your connection is 10mbps, but the upload stream is only 3 (200 kb in a second). What if someone tries to download a file which is 600mb big? The other part of the visitors will have big loading times and they will give up and leave your site in most of the cases.

To solve these problems you will have to buy a new computer or at least put enough RAM for the needs of the website. You will have to pay more for a better connection and may be it will be still not enough.

In a few words you can host a site at home, but only if it gets a few visitors and that’s it.

 

[geshoto]

Ahhh, if it was that easy. There will be no data centers, UPSs, generators, hermetically closed rooms, double internet connections and so on.

 

[VPenkov]

Server, Dedicated Server, Home Server, Server

It is pain in the ass to host a website on a home machine. You will never get the needed connectivity while using the neighborhood ISP. I’ve though that my connection is okay, but when I started to work in a place where the connection really rocks, I changed my mind.

 

[Unwise]

You may have never met a good IPS. I was holding a server in home for almost a year while continuously using the Wireless and without any UPSs and aggregates. I have problems only when the electricity company has problems, but this is not happening often. If you are okay with your IPS and if the electricity infrastructure of your city is okay, you can make a super cool server by yourself.

 

[VPenkov]

Need help Setting up my Home Dedicated Server

I am into the internet from many years and I’ve been working in most of the ISPs in Sofia. I know what I’m talking about and I have enough experience to understand what is happening.

 

[ddimitrov]

You have to consider a few factors:

1. Internet Speed – you need a bigger upload stream, something that IPS are not talking about. The problem is that the download/upload speeds are not equal and the first one is pumped to the sky while the second one is miserable.
2. Electricity – the other big problem. One decent UPS system costs more than your server and can support it without electricity for just 30 minutes or something like that.
3. Server – forget about a PC made in the local pc store. You need something by a big brand. IF you want a server machine, you can get a good HP machine for 1k dollars.
4. The expenses and the headaches you will get are really a lot.

I support 3 websites which are stored on a home server. We have a few problems because of the cheap router used in the system. The reason to not use hosting services are just to protect our information for our safety.

 

[Unwise]

Dedicated server vs desktop pc / server

The problem with lack of upload is hilarious. Just you have to make a difference between guaranteed speeds and not guaranteed speeds. When you pay for a cheaper and shared plan it is normal to have a lot of upload, because that is what the NORMAL user needs. You can buy a plan with asymmetry of download/upload. I am paying for 1:10 (d:u) guaranteed speeds and I’m cool. Too bad that not a lot of the ISPs offer this kind of service. In most of the cases they use the upload for their needs and they offer 2:1 or 1:1 ratio of download:upload. Even in one of the best collocation centers in Bulgaria I couldn’t get a higher ratio than. 1:4.

Everything is in the way you ask for a service. By the way, there is something cool for the providers and this upload connection. Networks which generate a lot of outbound (upload) traffic are easier to connect with nearby networks and are better for the maintain of peer connections between nearby ISPs. When this connection is a fact, most of the traffic goes through opened and free traffic-exchange connections which save a lot of money for the providers.

P.S. You can buy a cheaper server machine.

 

[Amigo0o]

I was hosting a site on a home pc once. The internet connections was cool and the electricity was stopping only once in a 3-4 month. Everything was great until the site developed and my CPU started to overload. The site was loading really slow.

 

[ddimitrov]

How to host your own dedicated server?

A lot of the IPS can offer you the desired symmetry of the download:upload ratio. You can ask the IPS for a speed which they can guarantee you on 100%