Hello, friend.

crushedhat · April 29

I’ve been lurking here a long time, and haven’t yet found the need to post a question that wasn’t answered by searching. But it seems I need to post something to get cred that lets me take advantage of certain offers, so I’ll just introduce myself.

I’m a software developer working out of my home near Sacramento, California. I’ve been hacking Unix and Linux for several decades (anyone remember DEC’s Ultrix?). For a long time I maintained a colocated server for mail, web, and storage that evolved to be just for myself, family, and close friends. After the hardware and software became very antiquated and unmaintainable, I transitioned to a new server (acquired surplus at low cost) that I run at home connected to Comcast Business Internet service. Specs:

HP ProLiant DL160 Gen8
Dual Xeon E5-2609 (8 real cores, no HT)
144 GiB DRAM
2 TB NVMe SSD (on a PCIe card)
Four 3.5″ drive bays (currently with 12 TB but expanding)

It’s been a challenge making everything work well, such as needing to install an SD card as a boot drive because the pre-UEFI firmware couldn’t boot the NVMe SSD, and getting Comcast to populate my IPv4 and IPv6 DNS PTR records. Notable software includes Fedora 40 Linux, Postfix, Dovecot, and SpamAssassin for mail, Apache, and Home Assistant.

Since I no longer have an off-site backup server, my current challenge is to try to snag a cheap storage VPS plan from a promotion here, or maybe set up a cooperative arrangement with someone having similar needs.

I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts on serving from home versus colocation, VPS, or bare metal rental. I see pros:

Fixed-cost hardware upgrades (e.g. I could easily have 80 TB of storage)
LAN-speed and no-cost local access to data and other services

Cons:

Less reliability from long power and Internet outages (but I don’t need five 9s)
Environmental impacts: space, power, cooling, noise
Internet provider support may be less motivated to please
The aforementioned off-site backup problem

I’ve long since given up thinking that making some money hosting others’ websites or mail is a good idea, since it tends to obligate me to some level of support and reliability. If I give it away, these things are justifiably best-effort.

webcraft · April 29

@crushedhat said:
making some money hosting others’ websites or mail is a good idea

Please not another basement host. Summer is near but really no. If you use it for yourself and your family it should be fine but not if you sell it to somebody. Compared to those super cheap and widely available solutions hosted in a professional environment, the only advantage I see with your potential offer is that you have a residential ip address but this likely attracks buyers you don't want to have in your house.

@crushedhat said:
If I give it away, these things are justifiably best-effort.

If you give it away you have the full desaster prepared. Already look for another internet provider and probably order a bigger post box. Unless you setup a proxy/tunnel or whatever, your internet connection will be maxed out in several ways around the clock (I'm not talking about bandwidth only. As mentioned, you don't want to know what people blast into the internet from your basement).

lowendspiritxdax · April 30

Pro Homeserver

Full control (e.g. privacy)
Easier troubleshooting when experimenting a lot, better for learning stuff

Pro Cloud

Flexible (pay as you go, scale up and down depending on needs)
Higher bandwidth (average user)
Lower latency for users around the globe since the cloud providers are directly connected to large data centers
Security (less likely to burn down or be victim to natural disasters)
Low maintenance (if the HDD or RAM breaks, you get a free replacement)

Pro Colocation

Combines benefits of Homeserver and Cloud, but much more expensive

xvps · April 30

The biggest problem with hosting servers at home is the very limited internet speed and DDoS protection.
If the wrong kid gets mad at you, he will DDoS you for weeks.

The risk is likely much lower when you don't sell hosting and don't deal with abusers, but I would recommend hosting your money sites and primary email accounts in data centers.

I have an old Dell R710II with 2xCPU, 48GB RAM, 5x2TB SAS-2 HDD and 1 Gbit internet at home. I've had it for a few years and it's still fine for testing, learning, backup and so on, but there are simply too many drawbacks for production use, so I decided not to upgrade or replace it.

Calin · April 30

@crushedhat said: Since I no longer have an off-site backup server, my current challenge is to try to snag a cheap storage VPS plan from a promotion here, or maybe set up a cooperative arrangement with someone having similar needs.

>

Hello if you like we possible give you

3 TB HDD Raid 60
(5 GB SSD For boot/Operating System)
40 MB/s I/O
3.3K IOps
1 vCPU e5-2630 v4 or better
1 Dedicated IPv4
VNC Access
Control panel for automaticaly reinstall acces
1 GBps port speed shared @ 20 TB Bandwidth per month
Port 25 block permanently
1 GB DDr4 ECC RAM
Full KVM Virtualisation
Full Root Access
Multiple 32/64 bit OS
Romania Location
Orastie City
Linux or Windows
Seedbox Allow
Allow plex or others
Public torrents Allow
ADULT Websites Allow
Web 3.0 / Free Speech Allow
IGNORE DMCA , ALL REPORTS INGORED

38.69$/year

Regards,
Calin

sh97 · April 30

https://lowend-deals.xbit.win/#storage (some links are aff)
I would suggest Crunchbits and GreenCloud, both are prem.

DataRecovery · April 30

@crushedhat said:
Since I no longer have an off-site backup server, my current challenge is to try to snag a cheap storage VPS plan from a promotion here

For backup storage here's probably the best deal you can get (ref).
That's 2 TB plan, but there are other plans available, both larger and smaller - check the links on the left.

Should be a rational purchase, since you say you have a single SSD in your server. Doubly so if it is a consumer, not an enterprise/server model.
And the cost will be at least 10-20 times less than your Comcast Business plan.

Joseph · May 1

@crushedhat said:
I’ve been lurking here a long time, and haven’t yet found the need to post a question that wasn’t answered by searching. But it seems I need to post something to get cred that lets me take advantage of certain offers, so I’ll just introduce myself.

What are examples of offers here that require a posting history in order to take advantage thereof?

skorous · May 1

@Joseph said:

@crushedhat said:
I’ve been lurking here a long time, and haven’t yet found the need to post a question that wasn’t answered by searching. But it seems I need to post something to get cred that lets me take advantage of certain offers, so I’ll just introduce myself.

What are examples of offers here that require a posting history in order to take advantage thereof?

Pretty much any giveaway, service transfer, etc...

@crushedhat said: anyone remember DEC’s Ultrix?).

Ultrix was one of my first. I much preferred it to VMS.

somik · May 5

@lowendspiritxdax said:
Pro Homeserver

Full control (e.g. privacy)

Easier troubleshooting when experimenting a lot, better for learning stuff

Pro Cloud

Flexible (pay as you go, scale up and down depending on needs)

Higher bandwidth (average user)

Lower latency for users around the globe since the cloud providers are directly connected to large data centers

Security (less likely to burn down or be victim to natural disasters)

Low maintenance (if the HDD or RAM breaks, you get a free replacement)

Pro Colocation

Combines benefits of Homeserver and Cloud, but much more expensive

Probiotics

Good for your body

Antibiotics

Also good for your body....

Wahaat?!?!

crushedhat · May 6

Thanks all for your comments and offers. I think I need to clarify a few things:

Comcast Business Internet is not “residential” service. Although it shares infrastructure, and suffers the single failure points and slightly longer latency of any last-mile service, compared to residential it has non-throttled speeds with faster upstream (I consistently see 295 Mb/s down, 120 Mb/s up, better than many hosting offers), no monthly traffic limits, static IPs separate from the residential ranges, no proxies (if you turn off their stupid supposed “value-add” options), few if any filters, and better customer service. It definitely costs more than residential service, but with what I save on colo or hosting, plus the added benefits for users at home (35 Mb/s upstream with congestion-throttled speeds is their best residential offering), the overall value works out well.
I have no reason to think that Comcast’s peering to the Internet is inferior to any other major provider.
Any service I’m giving away is strictly to family and friends, where I have full control over usage and content, so I believe my risk of DoS or other attacks is relatively low. If I am flooded by traffic, Comcast says they have mitigations that can be enabled.

crushedhat · May 6

I appreciate the posted storage hosting offers, but I’m holding out for better. I’ve seen them, just have to grab when the timing is right.

crushedhat · May 6

@skorous said:

@crushedhat said: anyone remember DEC’s Ultrix?).

Ultrix was one of my first. I much preferred it to VMS.

When I was in college, the Engineering and Computer Science department had two VAXen (as they were affectionately known). The one running clunky old VMS was the workhorse for supporting classes and administrative needs. The other one ran Ultrix, and supported only a few specialized classes. The sysadmins, having been trained only on VMS, were frightened of and totally clueless about Unix, and had a somewhat adversarial relationship with the students such as myself who understood it and helped them administer it, often behind their backs. Things got better when our group got our own little MicroVAX running Ultrix, the only one of ten or so not running MicroVMS.

Hello, friend.

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