Ask HN: Why is European/German Dedicated Hosting So Much Cheaper Than US?

Post by tworats » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 3:18 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #7

you say European... are there other providers in Europe that are priced competitively with hetzner.de?

Post by tworats » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 3:27 PM UTC

forkqueue wrote: post #11

sandGorgon wrote: post #5

That's because the hetzner systems are built using desktop components, not server Opterons, Xeons, etc. are server class components, which need more expensive motherboards (typically those that can accomodate upto 64-GB RAM, 5X HDD, hardware RAID, iSCSI cards, etc.) Secondly, it's the routers/network equipment that they use - they are much more prone to downtime. webhostingtalk has a couple of interesting discussions…

Also they're using non-ECC RAM (the processors they use don't even support ECC), which is much cheaper and also a very bad idea for anything you care about. Data corruption isn't fun, especially when it's subtle and has existed long enough for even your 90 day old backups to have it.

Post by lsc » Tue, Aug 10, 2010, 9:24 PM UTC

tworats wrote: post #13

lsc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the price differential between server and desktop systems isn't that great, especially if you use AMD systems. were I to go head to head with hetzner, I'd be getting killed on power costs. Does Germany have cheaper power than I have? (and is that right? 8GiB ram with mirrored disk for $65/month? because that is /really cheap/ - even with free power they have less margin than I do) Hm. It's possible that the core i7 s…

thanks for the detailed response lsc, very helpful. Either there's something different about the cost structure there or the competition is forcing them into offering below cost? I don't know. I remember a couple of years back when 1&1 offered three years free hosting, which I signed up for. I've used their service since and payed plenty for it, so maybe the 3 year horizon is fine by them...