I've been interested in hobbyist colo for a while but the cheapest I've found is over $100 a month. Is this in the ballpark of what you are paying or are there better deals to be had?
The rate I'm paying no longer exists and the company I'm with got merged into another one so my point of reference isn't so good. :)
That said, there are a couple of companies on Webhostingtalk that have good prices for hobbyist colo if you look in their colocation forums and search for "Seattle." Opus is nice ($129 for 4U and 3A of power with 400GB of transit) and there is a company in Seattle--their name escapes me but I've seen them on WHT--that is $35 for 1U and 1A with 500GB of transit.
So, yes, I think you can do better especially if you just want space for a medium-usage 1U.
Opus is nice, I like to support them, always very friendly and understanding with my noobishness. When I first signed up, I didn't understand how to mount my case even. There were these brass grommits that were in the toolchest off in the corner nobody told me about that needed to be snapped into the rack uprights, and that's what you screw your case into. The tech was totally nice about it when I asked and he even helped me lift the case into place while I screwed it in since I was by myself.
Yeah, I'm over $100/month. I negotiated a deal with Opus though where they wouldn't charge me extra if I ever happened to go over my bandwidth cap, just throttle me. I figured if my app ever hits the mainstream and I'm making money, my little infrastructure will crumble way before my bandwidth cap is hit and that's when I'll upgrade my plan to a private cabinet with lots more U or just move to the cloud.
