Web serving possibilities

[kevan]

All,
I run several sites, all hosted by a web service provider called lunarpages,and previously by ipowerweb. I have often looked at providing this service myself, all I need is a little Technical know-how and a fixed IP address, etc.
Having lost a site through the incompetence of the billing team of one provider, and the latest provider showing similar incompetence recently; can anyone suggest what the best way forwards is? I am technically capable of running my own web servers on linux /windows and do host/administer similar for a well known Essex University; but wonder whether it is worth the effort for a few of my own small sites.
So, are there any good / bad experiences of setting up their own servers; or is it easier to use a reasonable web provider. In which case, can you name a few (or one will do) that does not break the bank balance, and has a good track record.
Thanks
Kevan

[cyanide]

Sorry to hear of your troubles, however, the percentage of having these things happen, increase accordingly when using a budget host.

Hosting your self is generally not a good idea.
There really is just too much hassle involved, especially for only a few sites.

[Jabber_uk]

You may know how to set up a web server etc but I think you could find it too much work in time and too much stress. What if the hits of one site becomes too great for the server (and your upload speed)? What if you have to start using clustered or load balanced servers because the site is getting so busy?

In my experience the best set up server will always have issues (hardware and software) from time to time and you will have to fix them (even at 11pm at night when all you want to do is go to bed!). Got spare hard drives? Taking daily backups? etc.

My team of poeple (which includes myself) is a very capbable one - but I am not going to host my own web servers for a long time yet.

As for an alternative, I have been a customer of Fasthosts as a reseller for many years now (about 6-8 years I think) and I have had a few minor problems and one or two major ones. All of which have been resolved. Fasthosts do NOT impose bandwitdh limitations and if you have the reseller abccout then you have unlimited everything (email addresses on each domain, disk space on the domain etc). EDIT: 'Unlimited' includes unlimited domains of course.

The reseller account costs me £600 per year - I have around 50+ domains on the account now so it pays ofr itself.

The link is:

http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/resellers/

Hope you get things sorted matey :-)

[kevan]

Thanks for the comments. Yes, I think I will continue to host with other companies, the idea of sorting problems anytime during the day / night is a good reason for keeping with the crowd.
I don't think I want to get into reselling though. I like the easy approach, and treat this as a bit of fun - even if I spend half of my waking life adding details to sites.
Thanks for the replies, though.
Kevan