> > Any recommendations? > > > > It's for an existing site that exceeds the CPU/RAM usage of some > of the > > lower-priced basic offerings from AN Hosting or GoDaddy (the > shared virtual > > servers). Not a heavy hard drive or bandwidth site. Currently paying > > $150/quarter, looking to lower that as much as possible, as this > is for a > > non-profit organization that is on half of a shoe-string budget as > it is. > > > > Does it make sense to upgrade my internet connection and host it > myself, or > > go after a hosting company? Ideally I would like to administrate > the server > > as well and have it run Ubuntu or Debian, but I'm not hellbent on > that. Sorry I'm coming into this late. If you're not experiencing huge bandwidth requirements from any of the sites you're hosting, I'd recommend DSL and hosting things at your own home, provided you have space. As you suggest this above, I'm guessing this isn't a problem. For many, many, years, I've hosted my things on a server in my own basement. I've got DSL from ipHouse (iphouse.net), and very reliable power in my neighborhood. Comcast is even allowing webhosting on their connections now, provided you go with the business-level service. With that, you can get blocks of IPs, the same as has been the case with DSL for years. Their upload speed ranges from 1 to 2 Mbps, whereas DSL caps out at ~800Kbps. Qwest is offering a new 20Mbps fibre option, but I'm not sure about their terms on personal web hosting. If that doesn't work for you, I know of at least one person who uses Colo Pronto (www.colopronto.com) without too much issue. You ship down your own 1u server, pay $25/mo and you get a 100Mb connection to the world (shared, of course). They make their money on service, however. Reboots, eyes and hands, etc. I'd caution you on them only in regards to outgoing spam. UCEPROTECT has them listed at various levels on a fairly regular basis, a few times at level 3 (the entire AS was blacklisted). Now, when you run you servers at home, there is going to be the occasional downtime. No, or little, battery backup; no connection redundancy; you're out of town on vacation and cannot reboot that firewall you *had* to reconfigure from the beach. Overall, I find it's nice to have control of things. --- Eric Crist