From another Ask HN thread about where people were hosting their sites I found the Hetzner Root Hosting packages:<p>http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver-produktmatrix-eq/<p>You can get a quad core i7-920 with 8G ram and dual 750GB disks for 49EUR per month, which works out to about $65/month.<p>By comparison, RackSpace's "Basic Series" dedicated server solution with a dual core Opteron, 3.G ram and 2x250GB disks goes for $419/month.<p>http://www.rackspace.com/managed_hosting/configurations.php<p>Am I comparing apples to oranges or is there really that much of a price difference between dedicated hosting in Germany and the US? What's the story?
That's because the hetzner systems are built using desktop components, not server<p>Opterons, Xeons, etc. are server class components, which need more expensive motherboards (typically those that can accomodate upto 64-GB RAM, 5X HDD, hardware RAID, iSCSI cards, etc.)<p>Secondly, it's the routers/network equipment that they use - they are much more prone to downtime.<p>webhostingtalk has a couple of interesting discussions about this.<p>What I suggest is you take a look at the deals/offers sections of such websites and figure it out. I currently have a 2 X quad-core Nehalem with 12GB RAM, 5TB B/W and 4X500GB HDD in Raid 1+0 for $399
Rackspace is kind of pricey in general. Look over at <a href="http://interserver.net/" rel="nofollow">http://interserver.net/</a> for some more reasonable US rates on a decent backbone.