What is better: Renting or owning your hardware?

[robbyhicks]

m1000e not quite as cost effective as supermicro equivalents.

Can't really beat supermicro on pricing, and I prefer their BIOS / IPMI interface over Dell.  

Dell does have pretty awesome hardware, but their firmwares / bios always seem to be plagued with issues.  I can't tell you the amount of hours I've spent pulling my hair out!  They might have gotten better -- last I used dell was with their R210/R610/R710 series.

 

[iWF-Jacob]

Cost-effective that's definitely true. What's appealing to me is the configuration of it, you can go anywhere from a single L5520 or equivalent all the way up to dual E7's with 4 HDDs. 

iDRAC Enterprise isn't bad, I agree that Express is very limited. However compare that to HP iLO and it's amazing, I cannot stand iLO.

We have plenty of R610's and R710's and have had no issues with them whatsoever, so not sure what to tell you there!

 

[Varcoe]

I think if your a new business maybe rent them for a bit till you start filling them up and to test the waters, then upgrade to your own hardware. 

 

[Cloudrck]

Typically it's better to own your own server so that they become assets, and with the prices you can find most hardware on eBay, it may not be that much of an upfront cost to purchase hardware than it is to setup a rented infrastructure. The only downside I can see is that you have to be proactive (which isn't really a bad thing) in maintaining your hardware.

 

[Clinton]

Owning hardware is usually more cost effective in bulk, however when you're renting you can easily upgrade to the latest and greatest hardware every year or so without any loss of investment. There's definitely a lot more work involved in colocation.

 

[Licensecart]

If you can afford it, own it, if you can't rent it, simple as that really.

 

[TierNet]

Owning hardware and co-locating is cheaper unless you get many hit and run clients. However, if it's a start up company, renting server hardware is best option to make some profits.

 

[Jonchun]

Don't forget that there are a ton of dedicated providers who give you bulk discounts when paid quarterly/annually even when you're renting. It's almost as cheap as straight up Colo sometimes. If you're starting out, I say rent all the way.

 

[VENETX]

To be honest renting is the best idea if you do not have investors providing backend money.

Through out my years in the business I have finally acquired 30 servers and all equipment needed. It was really extremely expensive but by next year when everything is good on money backlog ill be colocating since its a lot cheaper paying $100/month for colocation than $300/month renting a server.

 

[EludedHost - Jason]

I'd definitely have to say that owning the hardware is the best route to go because the cost's in the long run are better especially in bulk. 

But you also have to keep in mind that you are going to have to pay for remote hands unless you can actually be at the datacenter and fix the problem yourself. You'd also have to keep extra hard drives, etc.

Especially when you start getting into raid, and all this other expensive renting options it's better to just buy.

 

[Aurimas]

The good thing is that owning it doen't tie you so much while renting might have additional conditions such as renting it for a certain period of time and etc. Also if you will brake it you will know that it is your problem while renting it will bring you a bigger responsibility. If you have enough money I would totally buy it.

 

[GS-Dylan]

As a new startup myself me and my partner had this discussion when planning everything. Some of the biggest factors was there wasn't a DC close enough to either of us that met our standards, so that meant we would be paying remote hands when something happened which we weren't wild about. Another was the cost, its alot more of an investment to outright purchase servers and gear, we didn't expect to need 5 + servers the first year so we opted to rent our servers with the intentions of one day owning our own hardware. 

 

[EludedHost - Jason]

If you don't mind spending more money in the long run you can always go with " Dell Financial Services" and pay monthly for the servers.

 

[zomgmike]

Depends on which pros and cons match your situation better.

Renting:

 - Low cost of entry

 - Able to be cancelled at any time

 - Typically includes hardware replacements for failed hardware.

Buying:

 - Higher capital expenditure

 - Requires you to have hot spares on site/pay remote hands for swaps.

 - Leases and colocation can carry extended contracts, you could be on the hook for years.

For your first couple boxes it probably makes sense to rent.  Once you've got a couple boxes on site and you don't mind being on the hook for a few years and you don't mind having a few extra parts on site, purchasing probably makes more sense.

 

[zionvps]

I'd suggest renting at first, and then start co-locating them unless you have a lot of capital to start with.

Things that has to be considered is you need to find a good dc to rent servers from and if you start co-locating right away you will face problems of server hardware getting old by time.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

I'm just going to leave this here. I kinda blanked this thread was going on while writing it.

 

[haloelite3]

Owning the hardware is alot better in the long term as it is more reliable and therefore you have more customization options in the long run.

However it depends on the size of your business - if its small renting may be the best idea, however if big its best to own

hope this  helps!

 

[VPS4LESS]

If you do the math, you will normally save much more money if you buy or lease the hardware. After a certain point per month, you start losing money. That point generally is around $150-200/mo give or take depending on the server hardware. You can build nice E3 servers with 32GB RAM and RAID 10 for around $1000 and colo for under $100/mo. Math time!

I dont know where you buy your servers at but our servers we just built

6 new Supermicro 1U w/600 watt power supplies  

newest x10 MB from supermicro | E3-1270v3 | 32GB DDR3 1600 | LSI MegaRaid cards | 4 x 1TB constellation drives

and total cost per Server build was $2600.00 

also a full cab 42U with 30 AMP power and 100Mbit on 95th is only $650 month

 

[WWW Hosting Services]

If one has the startup investment to purchase hardware outright and is serious about their web hosting business then of course it is better to own your own hardware but as new companies start, sometimes renting is the only option.

 

[cociu]

Is better the own entire DC if you afford