wanna set up dedicated server hosting business

[Infiltrator]

I would like to know what I am getting for my money.
1. Does anyone recommend a good Australian server hosting company that is cheap and reliable.
2. I wanna know that the server can host game servers that I want. (I would like about 10, or just what the server can support)
3. Can you tell me what I can put on different types of servers?
Sorry its a linux server but does that really make a difference?
Dual Intel Xeon 3GHz HyperThreading
2048 MB Dual Channel DDR333 ECC
2 x 200 GB SATA hard drive
100 GB Monthly Bandwidth (in/out)
100Mbit Connection
2 dedicated IP
Up to 4GB DDR Memory
Up to 4 x 250GB Sata Hard Drives
This one costs $599/month, do you reckon I could set up about 10 servers on this? I want to make some profit from this, I ain't an NPO to upgrade to more ram and such costs more, would it be worth it to get more ram?  
Thanks.  Also, what is tickrate? is that the maxfps you can have? Meh, I get around 30-40 anyway. 66 is good isn't it?  I'll probably just have tic66 servers going.

[Drocona]

Holy shit lol, that's a huge scam if you ask me.
You'll never be able to run 10 servers on that one, I think it will hold around 70-80 slots or so? (someone check this, not that good with big servers).
As for Linux, it's fine, really depends on what your choice is. Prefer windows or linux, you'll have to consider.
100GB a month is not enough by FAR, 80 slot servers being filled 50% (so 40 players) on 66 tick will generate aprox 1TB (1000GB) a month this is 10x as much as you get. Thats only upload counted.
FPS = Frames per second. On servers it's generated by the CPU, it's directly linked to the tickrate. If you run a 66 tickrate server your FPS HAS to be above 66 all times to maintain 66 tick. Whenever FPS drops below 66 the tickrate will drop with it.

I'm not sure what bandwidth etc costs in australia but.. in america you can get the same or better with 1TB transfer for 150 US$ a month. Think about it real good cause those prices mentioned... I fell off my chair when I read them lol!

[fqdn]

are you sure it's not 1000Gb instead of 100Gb, with that kind of machine 100Gb transfer is a waste. 1Mb/sec is ~330Gb month transfer or ~1Mb/sec constant, that will get you around 8 players at rate of 20000. ok, given that you won't be transferring 20000 bytes/player every single minute, i'll double it to 16 slots. As you can see it's not worth it for $600/month.

[Infiltrator]

All the dedicated server hosting companies that I could find are really expensive.  Do you suggest maybe I start with a box in America and then when I can buy a box of my own to use that one?  I looked around and that is pretty much the cheapest price I can get on a good dedicated server here..it sucks.  Got any ideas on a good company in America that I can get some hosting off?  Thanks. And, no it was 100gb transfer. That is a bit small i realise now.

[fqdn]

you may want to talk to the guys at http://www.zombiehorde.com as their main server is in Australia, they may be able to point you in the right direction for server companies down there. if you host a server in the US but your are connecting from Aus your ping may be a bit much to play decently, you'll be looking for a west coast provider if you really want to try it.

[Infiltrator]

I don't mean that I will personally connect to the server but I was going to get it hired out to people in America for their use. The server that i have web hosting on at the moment, just for web hosting is in America and its not too bad to connect to.

[fqdn]

oh, in that case $600 for what you were quoted is a rip-off. that's not even a 2 x dual core xeon for $600, it's the older xeon with ht.

[Hollanda]

If you are renting to US players, hire a US server, for best pings. Seeing these prices (I'm almost sure you can get it for less money), I think you better start of buying your own server and colocate that.

Dual Xeon 3 ghz HT (allways turn HT off for gameservers) can hold around 70-80 slots at tr66. Full means bandwith of around 7-8 mbit.

[Kabool]

http://xlhost.com
http://gameservers.com
http://theplanet.com
Good hosting for less money.

[Infiltrator]

It's ok actually.
I have found a good deal of servers that I don't have to rent out and there is alot of them.
It is $400 straight up for 23 servers, there are some dual xeon servers, some p3 and then some p2 and they can all be upgraded. THere are about 4 dual xeon 3.0ghz servers which I can use with about 2gb ram in each. This is much better then 1 for that for 1 month, I have then for more than 1 month, even could last more than 2 years for that $400 which is quite good. I will tell you how it goes. This would be good as there would be many servers to host on and I can even take ram out of other servers and chuck it into the ones i'm using to make em go faster. The guy who is selling them is in Sydney and it shouldn't cost much for delivery. I'll get back to you. It might even be 2xdual core, im not sure, i need to check it again, I haven't purchased this yet but I reckon it couldn't be a waste of money for $400. Do you guys agree?

[fqdn]

that's cheap for hardware but i warn you that colocation costs are much more than renting dedicated servers, the main reason behind this is that when people colocate they know how much bandwidth they are using and purchase that amount. whereas people that rent dedicated boxes rent from companies that will oversell bandwidth. so a rental company (dedicated server not game provider) will rent you a server with 2000Gb/monthly knowing that the majority of the users will only use a small amount of that. a colo company will sell at a billing rate at 95th percentile (usually though you can get straight data charges), so 1Mb at 95th is ~330Gb/month but you can't go over that average of 1Mb/sec (95% of the time hence 95th billing) else you pay overage charges. does that make sense?

[Infiltrator]

Just wondering if colo is a typo, otherwise I don't know what that is.

[Hollanda]

colo = colocation

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/colocation