Hosting

There are a plethora of server hosting services on the Internet, and they have become less expensive and more powerful over time. Each of them have different benefits and drawbacks: thus, we aim to summarize them so you can choose the right provider for your needs.

This guide was written thanks to the advice and experience of Sunako, a skilled sysadmin that has shopped for and purchased from hosting providers around the world.

More info can be found at the chat log: https://usercontent.irccloud-cdn.com/file/YlHAkupp/sunako.txt

Sections

• Servers/Proxmox - How to use Proxmox on a server blade in a colocated facility.
• Hosting/Providers - The providers we recommend for a multitude of different purposes.
• Hosting/Azure - Microsoft Azure provides an interesting 2-year Bizspark plan giving you $150 a month on Azure along with all other Microsoft products free.
• Hosting/Cloud Storage - Many providers offer inert cloud storage for single person/backup use (not website hosting). Some, like Amazon Cloud Drive, provide you 'unlimited" (~100TiB) storage for just $60 a year. What a steal.

Special Considerations

If you have special needs, there's providers out there for you.

• Hosting/Free - Free, high quality hosting really is available out there, and it is good enough for a small website or webapp.
• Hosting/Cheap - Discount providers with high quality exist out there on the internet.
• Hosting/Storage - If you need to store and host tons of data inexpensively on hard drives, there's providers that specialize in it.
• Hosting/Minecraft - Minecraft servers often have special needs and pricing concerns.
• Hosting/DMCA Friendly - Some hosts are relatively lenient with the DMCA and will be fine as long as you keep up with your DMCA reports.
• Hosting/Lawless - Some hosting regions, such as Eastern Europe and Israel, have fallen into a black hole where copyright, patent, and trademark law have taken a back seat.