Well, being the smart person I am, I like to plan ahead. Way ahead. So, after watching my site blossom recently, I see traffic going nowhere but up. And with so many people sending donations and buying merchandise, I feel I need to provide them with better service.
So, my shared hosting contract expires the 1st of February. So, as of now I'm still within my bandwidth allotments, and storage allotment, so I SHOULD be able to make it that long before getting a new server.
So, I have already narrowed down to a few dedicated companies with hours of searching on webhostingtalk.com, so finding the right company isn't an issue. But I had a couple questions with dedicated servers in general.
I know a lot of them are called "managed" when infact they aren't really managed other than making sure the hardware is functional. So, in terms of me being completely in control of the server, I just wonder how much time I will be putting in maintaining it?
Like, it comes with RH 7.3. Would that come preinstalled with MySQL, php, etc etc.. or would I have to install those myself? I have some experience with linux, and run mandrake 8.2 at home right now just to tinker with, but I don't know how much actual work I'd have to be doing on the server myself, as I don't have a huge amount of time.
Also, how much does SCSI benefit the server, even if the site isn't super popular? Would I notice a difference in performance really?
So, just wondering what others have experienced on dedicated servers, how much work it is compared to a shared server, etc. Also, does anyone do reselling on the side on their server as well?
