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How is the pricing difference for a dedicated server and EC2 5 times? Maybe if you only look at the physical hardware cost, but often that is the smaller compon

How is the pricing difference for a dedicated server and EC2 5 times? Maybe if you only look at the physical hardware cost, but often that is the smaller component. You are comparing a capital asset with both fixed and variable cost components to a fixed-cost per-hour lease of resource.

FooBarWidget 16y ago
If you really need to lease resources by the hour then by all means, go with virtualized servers. But for one of the web apps I'm building I know that there's a high chance that I'll need to keep the servers around for at least a year. The prices on e.g. hetzner.de (I'm not a customer, I just read about it on HN) totally blows EC2 Reserved Instances out of the water. I don't know why you consider dedicated servers capital assets. Maybe if you're colocating your own servers, but I plan on renting dedicated servers that a hosting company provides. They'll be responsible for replacing the hardware if it fails. Turns out that renting a dedicated server and colocating your own costs approximately the same, assuming that the hardware never fails. If the hardware does fail then renting a dedicated is cheaper.
- petercooper 16y ago
  "Renting" also has tax benefits in some jurisdictions since you can write off the full rent instead of depreciation over time.