Anyone using a dedicated server at home to run automation tools?

profitmotive

profitmotive

Grown Ass Man
Jan 8, 2012
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You can browse eBay for example and find tons of powerful servers 16GB+ RAM, 2.6+ Ghz, quad core dell servers for $100 to $500.

Just wondering if anyone does this and what type of connection you're working with up/down wise.
 


OK, yeah perhaps powerful was too strong a word. Though, and I'm no genius, I hear you can buy more than one server from eBay.

Still, I'm not trying to go down the rabbit hole of everyone posting specs on their hosted servers... a.k.a an epeen showdown. Let's move on.

Just want to know what would be, not the minimum, but decent specs/bandwidth to do stuff like scraping, running custom bots, maybe a little tweetadder, etc.

I do this now on a laptop with 4GB RAM. It doesn't take overly long and most of the time those things are running in the background or I leave it running overnight.

I'm just thinking perhaps, instead of paying month to month for a server shared by others, accessed by the host's admins (who can actually be your competition), I could set up a Windows server on the LAN so I can access it remotely from my laptop whenever I want to check in on things or launch new stuff.

Sure a 32 GB 8x quad core 4 Ghz server would make things go even faster. However we're talking automation. I don't need it to go that much faster because it's running all the time in my own custom environment. I'm also not doing stuff on a scale where I'd need that much speed at this point.
 
Genius? IDK. I heard you can get better deals on craigslist.

Joking aside, the min you can run this on is a 5 year old laptop with your thinking of it being automated and running in the background so therefor it doesnt need to be up to snuff really. Totally wrong thinking. Also, didnt TweetAdder just go down the tubes with Twitter in a lawsuit?

No matter what your doing, automation ( i.e. bots ) consume CPU and bandwidth. To think you run this on a low end box and be fine is a double edge sword. Sure you can do it ( ive done it ) but your only gonna get 2-3 tools max running 24-7 to really run at full capacity.

Think of it this way, your thinking about BUYING a server/computer just to run bots on. Why not run it on your own computer then? If your gonna buy something, buy something you can scale. Either buy several cobalt raqs or buy 1-2 high end machines. Better yet, rent them for $70 a month. Dont pay money for middle of the road.

I very seriously doubt the server admin jocky is going to be your competition.

You might not need speed now, but once you get use it to and need to scale, you will wish you had it already.
 
Good stuff and food for thought, thanks.

That last sentence being the kicker because yeah, you're right, I don't need that much speed now; but when I do the couple servers I bought will seem like they're holding me back. Definitely something to think about.
 
The cost of electricity alone makes this not worth it if it's a powerful machine (won't matter if it's a laptop, however).

Get a real server in a real datacenter, the bandwidth is going to blow away whatever you have unless you're on fiber.
 
I've been running automated tools SEO tools for the past 4 years, pretty much 24.7.365 and you will be surprised how little you can get away with.

Everything that you said, you can easily get away with on any kind of VPS out there with 2GB of RAM and up with any processor post 2009.

The issue that you need to worry about running from home is not your servers resources, its your bandwidth. Depending on the sophistication of your upstream provider, they may develop a footprint with all that traffic and decide to throttle all of those outgoing packets to make room in the tubes.

The reason why most people opt to go for a VPS/Dedicated remote desktop is not a lack of local resources, it is because they treat it as a disposable resource. If you run into issues, get an IP blocked for abuse, or whatever it won't effect the way your room mate watches Apple TV, know what I'm sayin?

On the other hand if you do want to make the plunge, you can definitely get a box on ebay/or even new on Newegg for under $500 that is considered a "server." Just make sure that your processor has all sorts of multi-tasking abilities, multiple cores, hyperthreading etc.

The problem that a lot of people run into when working with automated tools is not the tools itself, its the lists.

For me, my lists get up to 500Mb in size easy - so working with/appending to different lists etc can freeze up your box way before running the tool itself will.
 
$600-800 Quad Core 3-5 year old Xeons with 16-48gb ram, and SAS drives are IMHO a great machine to Colo for $99/mo which will include power and bandwidth from a non-Tier1 provider. Sure not as fast as a Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge powered server but they work, and are very affordable.

You can run a shitload of automated software on them if the software is coded properly, and for the price of 2-3 decent VPS you have much more robust hardware.

If you're a new server admin I wouldn't even attempt this.

Each situation for hardware is going to be unique though so I'd compare VPS, CoLo, Dedicated in a spreadsheet and figure out the break even points, and Pros and Cons of each.
 
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