What would I need to host a website

[harobikes333]

The traffic will be about around 100 unique hits a day max. We don't plan on making it an online shoping site or anything, just an informative website where people can come and see whats new.

What kind of server would I need?

 

[eXx08]

I'd just recomed renting out some servers and get a whole account.

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, there are lots of virtual hosting providers out there. You don't need to think about hardware (although you do need to think about operating system if you have some stuff you know you will be running). I use Network Solutions, and think pretty highly of their setup. I did have some issues in the beginning because they are not quite as proficient at Windows as at Unix, but they got them all resolved.

For about $250/year I get: 10 gigs storage, 20 gigs/month bandwidth, 50 email accounts, three registered domains, an ftp server, and webtrends. The site support ASP and PHP, as well as ASP.Net. Can run the whole thing through their web-based control panel (which is a little clunky, but works), with an ftp client to upload content.

The servers are very fast, and I have not had a significant outage in seven months.

Btw, if you want to have a look and judge the speed, one of my sites is here.

 

[harobikes333]

thanks for the replies I'll take a look

 

[SGtheArtist]

I agree, for a small business its not worth the trouble to host your own website. This creates some other issues you must consider like hackers & virus making their way into your corporate network which if the servers not correctly setup could easily be done and put the whole network in jeopardy.

Not only that, but the monthly expense of having someone that has the expertise and equipment to do the job is minimul compared to the cost of hosting your own site.

 

[harobikes333]

ok I was just wonder because my Pastor made a website: http://www.arbsville.us/

He has his own server, but I think he just made it for kicks since he actually worked for the military working in hawaii doing things with computers....

He changed faiths though..... he's now cathlic>_< (I'm lutheran)

oh well lol ppl change

 

[SGtheArtist]

A church site maybe another issue completely. If its a small church then they may have 1 box serving the site & the box isnt on any "church network" This could be done to keep cost down.

However if there is any organizational network involved I would recommend the outsourcing of the hosting duties.

 

[Some1ne]

For 100 visitors a day, you really don't need much of a system to host that. If you have an old desktop lying around, you could use that to start with (I'd say anything with a 1 GHz+ CPU and 256 MB of RAM should be fine for this). Just do a clean install of whatever OS you want (Linux, Windows any flavor other than 9x/ME), and then install your webserver software of choice (apache, tomcat, jboss, etc. depending on what sort of webapp, if any, you are using). Next you just need a domain name, which awhile ago could be had for $15 from yahoo for either a 3 year or a 5 year lease on the name, and preferably a fast net connection with a static IP address. Alternately you could just use any broadband connection with a dynamic address, you'd just have to kludge up something to ensure that your domain name always points to your current IP (an easy way is to get a no-ip.org account, and just set up your domain name so that it points to your no-ip address). That should be just about all you'd need to do what you want.

The advantages this has over just renting some space on someone else's server are cost (if you already have an old PC sitting around that you can use, and can get/already have a decent connection for it reasonably cheap), and also customizability, and no quotas or other limitations. The disadvantages would be that it takes more skill to set up and administer, and maybe more time as well, and if you don't have an old system lying around that you can use for it, then it probably wouldn't be cost-competitive with a hosted solution, and it's also somewhat more difficult to scale if/when demand skyrockets.

 

[phaxmohdem]

For 100 hits a day you could host the site off of a 486 (assuming no dynamic content is in themix).

I once thought as you do, and actually I do have my own web server I play around with, but my important sites, I have hosting for. HOWEVER I would highly recommend, finding an old Pentium/K6-2 box with 128MB-256MB ram, or whatever you have lying around, install a fresh copy of Win2000 on it, and install Apache/PHP/MySQL, and learn how to administer your own web server that way. It is very very simply to do, and worth the time, just for the knowledge you would gain.

For your reference, I have a Compaq 850R Dual Pentium Pro 200MHz/512MB RAM server that is incredibly fast at serving up web pages. Running Apache/MySQL/PHP its limitation was the bandwidth of my Cable connection. It could support many thousands of unique visitors per day, and such a server only costs in the $50 range on eBay. A Pentium II 400-450 or low end PIII system would have equal or greater web page serving performance, and probably even costs less.

If your web pages are static, its not the Processor that matters, its your Hard drives, and upstream bandwidth that will cut you short. Get a fast Hard Drive(s) and a fast internet connection (upload speed anyways) and serve to your hearts content. Its only when you get into Dynamic/database driven sites that the CPU really comes in to play. RAM is also important. more RAM = better obviously.

 

[WackyDan]

I would pay a hosting service..... Many are reliable, and cheap!! You'll get a "virtual server" - in other words shared hosting where there are other domains for other customers being hosted out of that same box they have you on. That's how they can do it so cheaply. (no lessons on DNS being given here )

Using your own system would cost you power, and if it went down, your site would be down. That wouldn't be a problem with a hosted solution.

Plus, if you ever wanted to add shopping carts, or other transactional based functions, you'd already have it as a feature/upgrade with whatever hosting service you went with, plus their machine would be a lot more powerful than an old desktop.

 

[slayer202]

bluecapacity.com is a good option if you don't want to spend much.

for $5/month I get:

1500 Meg Storage
15 GB Bandwith Monthly

 

[bob4432]

this is total overkill, but not a bad price - http://www.hostpc.com/hosting.php

i switched about 2wks or so ago to them and so far they are good.

i would definately outsource it just so you don't have to worry about all kinds of bs.

i do have a home server i use for testing and on a 512Kb/s up/4000Kb/s down cable connection i logged over 1000 unique ips, 200,000hits and 1.4GB in upload in one day on a xp2000 with 512MB of ram and the machine was not even taxed, but the internet connection sure was. even a 1GHz machine would have handled this fine.

 

[DaveSimmons]

One reason to pay someone else for hosting is that a good company will apply security fixes to the server OS and applications as they come out.

For $10/month you can buy an extremely reliable hosting account from pair.com, my employer has had a secondary website hosted there for a couple of years now with either zero down time or very close to it.

If that's too expensive, you can find plans for as little as $10/year but they won't be quite so reliable.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

DeviousTrap's Telnap may be something to look into.