I'd hunted around for a dedicated server and OVH seemed to offer a much better spec than anything else I've seen. I've went for this server: http://www.ovh.co.uk/products/mg_hybrid.xml

Looking around other places, the same kind of spec is going to cost treble that, easily.

Anyone using them ? I see they have a rep for torrent servers and their tech support apparently isn't the best (it's a French company, maybe better if you're French I guess).

Just seemed like their server/costs were too good to be true. Looks like I'll be finding out soon enough.

Never seen an off-the-shelf server with a spec like that, let alone at that sort of price. I'd be very interested in hearing about your proposed setup on that kind of hardware.

It's a good price eh?

I'll be using the server mainly for database hosting. The large memory and SSD drives made it attractive as I have a heavily optimised database that can have it indexes fit into 24GB and the SSD drives are great for reading random data. After VAT a 12 month plan comes in at just under 2 grand.

After signing up I was asked to verify with a scanned photo ID and proof of address. 3 hours after payment I had a root password for the server. A range of OS choices are offered on signup, I'm using Ubuntu 10.10 64 bit.

bash> sudo apt-get install php5 mysql-server apache2

LAMP wasn't installed but the above command took a minute to get them on. It's pretty much good to go after some configuring.

I'd looked at co-hosting with poundhost but over the medium term the cost of this server seemed very worthwhile.

Or sudo tasksel

I've got a few Ubuntu Server boxes with ServerSupermarket/Node4 and I really like it as an OS. The only thing I've had to install manually is Ioncube; everything else is in the repositories. Currently setting up a few VMs with it on so I can have a play with ldirector and Varnish in front of a couple of LAMP boxes.

I use it as a Desktop so it's a safe bet for me to use it as a server... no complaints about it at all.

> Varnish

Looks interesting... web pages stored in memory, that would make the 'does Google penalise slow sites' people go mental!

I use some MySQL MEMORY tables on a script that's 'always on'.... so it doesnt need compiled when called upon, it's great having the freedom of your own server to take advantage of memory.