Dedicated Servers
 

Sorry Admins and Mods if this is not in the right loctation.

-I was wondering what should I be looking at when buying a dedicated server?
-What type of Specs should I look for?
-Does anybody here know of a good company?
-What about the costs of building one?Worth it?
-Is it worth even renting a server?
Please help as I would like to make a good decision.

TitaN-R2K

what exactly is it your planning to use it for?

BB posed an important question. It all depends. There is one altarnative if you want to have control but don't need as much power and it's called VPS and is a virtual private server (a dedicated server that's virtual)

Memory, cpu are more important then space in more demanding applications for running mysql and other databases aswell as php.

All I was going to use it for were a few game servers and maybe a voice server.
I understand game servers take a lot of memory to run.

TitaN-R2K

If it is worth renting a game server or not depends on your situation:

if you have a decent spare computer laying around, then no, I don't think renting is the way to go.

Not when for about the same price you can go with a co-location service

I have a pentium 4, 3.0 Ghz w/1 Gb ram server.

I am paying $50 a month for a colocation service (colocation is where you take/send your computer to a datacenter, were you are paying for bandwidth).

That $50 is giving me:

1. A 100 Mb/s connection with 1000Gb/month bandwidth
2. Absolute control over my game server - I can do what ever I want to it.

Currently it is configured as:

1. Running a 50 man BHD server
2. Running a DFX server
3. Running a 400 Man TS server
4. Running a 8 man ventrilo server

5 (hopefully) running a second BHD server.

And I can change it how ever I want - We decide to dump BHD I can throw a BF2 server up on it

Your not going to be able to do that with renting a server from a company - you will be locked into what ever they are offering, and pay more if you want to host mulitple servers.


of course, I understand that not every one is going to have a computer that can handle all of that... But if you do (or can afford to build your own), I would definatly look into co-location over renting a server.


As for specs:

yes, CPU and memory are key, But don't cut your self short on disk space. better in my opinion to have to much, then to have a drive running @ 90% full...


IcI

where do you colocate at ici?

waveform.net - Fortunitly for me, the datacenter they set me up at is only about 45 - 50 min from my house.

If your looking at colocation and want something close by, do a google search for it, such as for me "michigan colocation"

hmm. sounds interesting, I'm deffinitley going to do my research on that and might consider doing what you do IcI.

If it's not a problem do you think I can run the specs by you to see if it's good enough..later down the road of course, but just wondering.

TitaN-R2K

You have absoulte control of a dedicated server aswell. But it's always better if you're close to a Co-location datacenter and you can got there and actually see the server running and it simplyfies use. But you still have to follow their terms of use either way as you use their network.

A dedicated server is a fysical server that you rent and use as Root. You can put whatever you want on there aslong as it's compliant to their TOS and other legal documents and contracts. The same issue is present on Co-location (unless the company has no consern for their own well being heh).

I didn't think of the dedicated server that way - So yes renting the dedicated server would work....

lol for some reason when I have been thinking of game servers it has either been renting from a game company - or running it your self. Renting a dedicated server never entered my mind.

Still of the 2, since the datacenter is close by for me I prefer the colocation.

Dedicated would be great for people where the datacenter is hours away and/or don't have a spare computer touse.


IcI

Agreed. I presumed that you ware refering to a dedicated game server but I thought I would make it clear for Titan :)

Most times Co-location is the cheaper option as you provide the hardware, but it put's more strain on the person using that server as there's usually less help to optain as the company usuall have a stricter policy towards Co-locations (in general, there's both better and worse) users as it's not the companies chosen equipment.

anyone know of any good decicated server companies in the us?

Well I was referred to use the dedicated servers my web hoster provides by the tech support.

Here is the url: www.ace-host.net

This is why I posted this topic, so if anyone can look at the specs and let me know if they are worth buying.

Here are the specs:
http://www.ace-host.net/dedicatedservers.html

Let me know if they are any good. Or if you can refer me to another hoster.

TitaN-R2K

those look good - Only one problem:

Depending on what game you want to host for, it will be harder to do since they are using the linux operating system

Some games such as the BF2 series have linux versions for their server hosts.

Games such as BHD are designed for windows only (though people have managed to get it to run on linux)

So for ease of use for setting up game servers, you probably will want to look for a dedicated server that runs windows (probably going to be more expensive...)


IcI

I have setup windows based game server applications on Linux but you need to know your way around Linux shell. I don't recomend it, not all games work and it's harder. I would defenetly also go for windows even if Windows perform worse then Linux. Unfortently when you run windows programs on linux you actually bring parts of windows on to the linux system through emulations. Linux is also generly harder to maintain for someone that's not experienced with Linux shell as all you see is text on a black background (unless you change the color haha) it it technicly possible to get a remote desktop for Linux aswell but it boggs down the system. With windows you see a real desktop that your used to (well a bit different as you should go for Windows Server 2003) It's alot faster then XP (doubt you can even get XP on a server hehe)

What I said right now is exacly what ici told you, but with a bit more information. So I'm not really sure why I wrote it but now it's been done and it took me some time so it would be a waste to delete it ;)