I can second this. I hosted CentSports (a recently acquired side project) (~1mm userbase, ~500gb dataset) in a full cabinet for under $1100/mo. At it's peak we

I can second this. I hosted CentSports (a recently acquired side project) (~1mm userbase, ~500gb dataset) in a full cabinet for under $1100/mo. At it's peak we did about 80 million pageviews per month on a heavily IO-constrained, heavily active OLTP workload (...not nearly as impressive as mmaunder's!) By the time the doors closed, we had about 16 RU's filled, IIRC. The beefiest DB box had 64gb of RAM in it, which as it turns out is a $1200 one-time upgrade for colo vs $1500/mo extra on your dedicated (quick price checks on newegg and softlayer, I'm sure both numbers can come down). Yes, making the leap into colo can seem like a big up front cost, but over time these costs do work in your favor. Yes, there is a support cost involved (either with remote hands or you getting up at 3am and replacing that disk yourself). But If your workload and dataset are such that you don't necessarily require a new box spun up in less than 24 hours, the savings could be quite great for you.