Is there any "Rule of Thumb"...
HARDWARE:
I understand that this all depends on what you are hosting (static pages, streaming, etc) but try to determine some average for what you do.
My thoughts/reasons are: (think average here)
1. There has to be some ratio of HD : CPU : BW
2. At what point do you use multi-servers vs upping CPU, HD, etc? (failure risks, etc)
3. What would/should the profit & cost figures be based on CPU : HD : BW?
4. Also, what do you people think of embedded NICs? I'm an intel nut (CPU and NIC) but how do these RealTek and SIS NICs perform (high CPU usage, high latency, etc)?
SERVICE:
My best efforts has been to reverse engineer my desired profitability for a server of X cost.
Eg, If I were to get 400G BW & 80G HD and I wanted to make $2000 per month, it is simple division to figure out what things need to sell for.
Another method I've tried is to guestimate what a site would use and base a plan around that.
Eg, a customer of X size would use Y mailboxes with Z megs of daily emails. Their site would use XX megs and have YY daily visitors.
With the numbers that I could get with these methods, I can host an obscene number of clients on one box.
I don't plan to over-subscribe nor obligate myself to a customer for 100000G of HD or BW even if I know that they will never use it. End result, I'm unsure how to calculate the best server configuation and plan creation.
Any Rules of Thumb?!
Thanks,
Travis
