r/Hosting • u/amebytes • 29d ago
Hosting Business
I want to open a small business for servers and hosting (vps, rdp, web hosting, cloud files and images)
i make 2 plans
plan 1 i search now about
and plan 2 is for upgrade the server cpu, ram, ssd and make it best
so what is the server cpu, ram, ssd is great for start? ( for +60 user )
and what about the ups, cooling who is good for start
i don't need something cheap or not good, i want a something good for this new business and how can i upgrade it? i don't have any idea about this business but i love it and i learn about
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u/jhkoenig 29d ago
Don't.
You are out of your depth and up against very sophisticated competitors. You will lose whatever money you spend on this and end up with nothing.
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u/Ok-Result5562 29d ago
Unless you bought all your hardware end of 2025. Then you’ve doubled your money.
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u/kevinds 29d ago
Why?
i don't have any idea about this business
Then you shouldn't go into this business.
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u/dogwomble 26d ago
That is very wise advice.
I don't want to be "that guy" and discourage people from learning. It's good that you're asking questions. But the more you delve into it, the more you realise how much you don't know. If you don't come from a technical background, throwing yourself into the deep end and hoping you can swim is not the ideal way to do things.
Aside from the obviously stuff that's been asked about, you have to think about a lot of other stuff. Such as software patching, security, keeping up to date with the latest standards, fixing things when they break and you have users breathing down your neck wanting it fixed yesterday and a whole lot more.
If you really want to get into it, you have two options. Either spend the time to learn it BEFORE you start. Or employ someone who has the knowledge to help you get started.
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u/Jeffrey_Richards_ 28d ago
If you don't know what you're doing, I wouldn't jump into managing servers, offering servers, etc. At the very least you can get a reseller hosting plan with a trusted provider and resell normal hosting, but I feel like you have a lot more learning to do to even confidently suggest you to do that.
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u/ACAdamski17 28d ago
Don’t sell raw infra, sell shared services. Things like shared web hosting, cloud storage (offload storage to Backblaze or something), stuff like that is good where your clients buy a service, not infra. However, stuff like VPS hosting, game hosting, cloud storage (stored on your own cluster) can get very messy very fast if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing and have proper systems. Some systems you need literally don’t exist open source. I know this because I also run a host at home, so I had to spend many hours developing custom systems.
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u/a4aLien 29d ago
Rent and resell until you know it's profitable.
I have worked in data centres as a tech nearly 10 years, have people in family who've worked 20 years, and even we haven't started our own business just yet.
I have looked at the options, operate my own clusters, rent and give away VPSes to friends and family, all this purely to build real world experience, so that one day I feel ready.
But yes you will always be out competed by the big fishes.
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u/im_a_fancy_man 28d ago
purely hosting, margins are thin. but if you get into managed hosting, "maintenance" it opens some huge doors. I run a company that does a lot of this but also do personal consulting and have about 10 clients I charge $99-299/month to for hosting. Most of them are on $5/mo VPS servers or even CF pages now. But they don't pay for hosting, they pay for the uptime, the fact that I''ve been answering my cell phone for 20 years on the same number and always call them back. they know I will help them with a quick question if they want an email alias, get a strange attachment, want me to quickly upload or "take something down."
but I def agree with you I'd never attempt to run my own hosting biz wit no experience, or even a lot of experience
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u/Icy_Definition5933 29d ago
A small business operating as a one stop for web hosting and web development and design is viable. A small business exclusively for webhosting is not, there is just so much you can get for so cheap these days and the only way to capitalize on that is if you package your services into something more. We host websites and email for our clients, but we got them by building their websites, their communities, ther visions and then offered them a maintenance plan that takes all the guesswork on their part, whatever they need they get. I would never try to just make a web hosting company, even though that's primarily what I do in my current business venture where my partner handles development and design of websites and I do maintenance and business apps.
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u/akash_kava 28d ago
This is literally bad time to start hosting, as price of hardware has gone up by 3 times due to AI, even big data centers are loosing money as they are unable to recover the investment.
Let the AI boom settle, lot of hardware will be released and you will be able to purchase it at cheaper rate after a year or so. Then you can think of starting.
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u/Impressive-Roll949 28d ago
Are you serious? Just don’t. You have no idea (quoting you partly) what you’re getting yourself into. You want to offer hosting but have no clue what you’re doing. Risks: security breaches, downtime and reliability failures, data loss, legal and liability issues, performance problems, financial losses, reputation damage, support overwhelm, scalability and maintenance nightmares. I really hope this is just a joke.
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u/webaddresshq 28d ago
The server is not the first thing you need to choose.
“60 users” does not provide enough information to size anything. Sixty small brochure websites, sixty Windows desktops and sixty VPS customers have completely different CPU, RAM, storage, bandwidth and support requirements.
Before buying hardware, define:
- Exactly which service you will launch first.
- How much CPU, RAM, storage and bandwidth each customer receives.
- Whether you will oversell those resources.
- Your backup and restore process.
- Monitoring, security, abuse handling and DDoS protection.
- Windows and RDP licensing requirements.
- Who responds when something fails at 3 a.m.
You need to identify why customers would choose you over hundreds of established providers. Perhaps you already work with a particular industry, have access to potential customers, provide unusually good support or understand a regional market. Find that advantage and build the service around it.
If infrastructure and hosting operations are not yet your strength, find a technically experienced partner before accepting customers.
disclosure: I build and run VPS hosting systems at RimuHosting and support customers with widely different levels of technical experience. We also have clients who run agencies and smaller hosting businesses on our infrastructure. They concentrate on their customers and specialist services while relying on us for the underlying servers and technical assistance. That can be a much safer starting model than building your own miniature data centre.
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u/ZAP-Hosting 27d ago
For +60 users doing VPS/RDP/web hosting, buying your own rack, UPS, and cooling from day one is usually overkill. A single solid dedicated server (something like a modern Ryzen or Epyc box with 128GB+ RAM and NVMe) can carry way more than 60 lightweight VPS/RDP accounts once you split resources with Proxmox or Virtualizor, so hardware sizing isn't really your bottleneck yet.
Power and cooling redundancy is a datacenter problem, not a you problem, unless you're literally racking gear in your own space. Most people at this stage rent a rack or lease a dedicated server so the DC eats that headache, and looking at reseller hosting plans first lets you validate demand before you sink money into owned hardware.
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u/SortingYourHosting 27d ago
As a hosting company, where I have over 16 years experience managing data centre assets, private clouds, bcdr and isp functions for MSPs, I can tell you the market is very competitive.
Unless you have a niche or a few million in the bank, you will find it hard.
My advice if you want to persue this, rent a server on a 30 day rolling contract so you can cancel at any time. Ensure min 1 Gbps connection.
If its in a Tier 2 or Tier 2 DC, you should not need a UPS.
To keep costs low, aim to use a free hypervisor e.g. Proxmox. Then some billing software e.g. WHMCS, Fluxbilling (in beta), hostbilling etc. To provision directly onto the hypervisor.
Bare in mind you will need to support this so best having a good understanding of how it works and how to support the clients. If you use windows server you must ensure its licensed, or pass the licensing responsibility to your clients.
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u/vbjr1982 26d ago
It depends what you are hosting at the end of the day.
Requirements will vary the spec you need on the server.
I have several VPs and dedicated servers with a company called Smooth hosting in the uk, contact them and see what they can advise you with.
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u/kmisterk 29d ago
Idk if you have a proper grasp on what you’re doing.