what should you do when your servers get old?
 

would you ask your host to upgrade them and would they charge you anything in that case?

i have a couple of dedicated servers and most of them are p4's so im not sure if i should ask my host to upgrade them or not and if that would cost me money. i didnt notice any problems with the servers though, but i also dont know if i would get a better performance with the new servers...

Typically many companies would charge you an upgrade fee because the monthly price that you pay is more for service and bandwidth than hardware. Anyway, if you don't see a reason to upgrade, then there really is no point in doing it.

Now if you own your servers... you could always use older servers for less intensive tasks. There are all sorts of applications.

If it's not broke, why fix it

I've seen hosts say the exact opposite, that they're basically a hardware leasing company that also happen to offer bw and support.

One thing to consider is that today's price for a higher spec server could be close to a grandfathered price for a P4 anyway.

I had one host that quietly reduced their monthly fee for the same hw without telling their existing, loyal clients. Discovered it about 14 months and $700 extra later.

Oh, also from the host's POV, I would guess that cancelling an older server would be something they'd rather not do, since it will be harder to sell to another client.

From the customer POV, it won't hurt to ask if they can offer you an upgrade path OR a discount on your existing server for being a loyal customer... the hardware has surely paid for itself several times over by now...

One more reply...

I've never had a host offer to do any preventative maintenance such as replacing fans, cleaning out dust from heatsinks, etc. Does that mean an older server may be more likely to "break"?.... :error

if you want a newer server that what your hosts gave your 2-3 years ago you should ask him, if not im pretty sure other hosting companies will give you a newer server for the same price as you current host if not for less.

Hit me up if they try to charge you for the upgrade.. I have a few of these,

Dell PowedEdge Server
Dual Quad Core Xeon
4GB RAM (Up To 16GB)
2x250gb hd's
Starting at $249 + Bandwidth

depends on how many sites you have really, a dozen big sites are actually easier to move than 100+ little sites (unless they're super small and you can use the WHM built in moving tool)

for the most part you could merge entire servers. Depending on bandwidth usage you may be able to cut your hosting costs in at least half by realizing that current servers can handle twice the load the servers from 2-3 years ago could. Hard drive access speed is still pretty much the same limitation it used to be but has improved maybe a good 30% but using linux you can simply put things like your log files onto a different drive and do a few tricks to spread hard drive access across several drives. I generally put log files on 1 drive, DB's on another drive and site contents on 1 or 2 other drives.

You might also want to ask around about "private networks" and have something like 1 dedicated DB box with a private LAN setup between all the servers. Some hosts simply charge WAY too much for things like that though.

Rather than individually shifting sites.......

If your hard drive is a standard size that is still currently available (ie bigger than about 60-80GB) then one possible easy upgrade path is to clone that drive onto a new one which is then installed into the new server.

You could also continue to use the old hard drive, of course.

I left my last hosting company that I had for 8 years because they wouldn't upgrade my damn server. The thing was so fucking old. Cheap bastards.

Having spent many years working on mainframe computers prior to getting into adult I will say that replacing hardware just because it is old is a pretty sure way of replacing reliable hardware with an unknown.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If your host won't upgrade them, get a new server and ask the host to mirror the HD of your old one.
WG