Dedicated server needed - recommendations?

jaydeeuk1

Been tasked to look at getting a managed dedicated server to host our web based programs to free up a role. At the moment we host our own on a server farm about 40 mins away, but becoming more time consuming to maintain. I've had a bit of a search on here, but most seem to be the cheap as chips variety. There's a tonne of sites out there but I have no idea who is reliable and who offers value for money.

We require a windows based server, running SQL server and various SMTP based services, so need a free reign on things. Might end up requiring a couple of servers. Bandwidth will need to be in the region of 60gb/month, and a decent speed, some I looked at had a 3:1 contention ratio which looks about right.

Budget up to £1000/month, preferable more towards £500 though. Any ideas?

Scho

I've worked at 2 companies who used managed servers in the past and both used Attenda. Maybe its worth checking them out but not sure on costs. They did know their stuff generally though.

If you're looking and 2 servers I'd also think about the use of a SAN or NAS, especially if you want 2 clustered SQL servers.

wellynever

tsohost.co.uk

Have a word with James or Adam with your needs, They should be able to sort something out for you.

robt_2

I would get over to here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2

Post what you want/need (including the country where you want it based). Lots of people will give you very good advice there - not many on this site have experience of dedicated servers.

For what it is worth, your budget looks HUGE to me. I pay $160/month for a Intel Core2Quad Q9550 2.83 Ghz, 8GB Ram, 5TB bandwidth, 2x500gb HD, all fully managed - that is from Host Dime (and hosted in the USA). Price not available on their site - you can haggle. I know this is linux and not Windows, but adding Windows would not take the price up to £500!

jaydeeuk1

Cheers, will have a look over there.

I've budgeted £100-£250 a month for the hardware (our stuff is quite taxing CPU wise - probably down to my shoddy SQL statements and ASP code ) and another £100-£150 a month for SQL Server and windows server. Then bandwidth costs and price for lower contention ratio on top. It will host quite a large (100000+ users) program and several databases, and could have as many as 250 concurrent users (I want their network to be the bottle neck, rather than our bandwidth!).

We were looking at hiring someone to look after the server, but figurered might be cheaper getting a dedicated solution managed elsewhere, hence the decent sized budget.