Moving from single-server colocation to a quarter, half or full rack is a step up in operational responsibility. Power, cooling, network, cable management and physical access all become things you actively plan rather than accept as a default. Here is what to think about before your first rack-sized deployment.

1. Power budget, not just rack units

Modern servers can pull 400W to 800W under load each. A quarter rack with eight 1U dense servers can easily breach a 4 kW envelope. Sum the rated power draw of your hardware and add 20% headroom before sizing the rack. Quarter racks typically allow up to 2.5 kW, half racks up to 5 kW, full racks up to 8 kW or more. Check your contract for the exact figure.

2. Bring your own PDUs (or use ours)

Rack-sized deployments need switched, metered PDUs on both feeds. Either bring your own (Raritan, APC, Schneider) or use ours. Switched PDUs let you remote-power-cycle individual outlets, which is invaluable for headless servers.

3. Network design before you arrive

Decide before installation whether you want a top-of-rack switch with uplinks to our core, individual server uplinks, or a hybrid. Spending an extra hour on network design now saves a day of cable rework later.

4. Cable management is mandatory

A clean rack with vertical and horizontal cable managers makes everything easier: airflow, troubleshooting, future moves. Velcro ties (not zip ties), labelled cables both ends, colour-coded by function. Future-you will thank past-you.

5. Blanking panels

Every empty U in your rack needs a blanking panel. Without them, hot air recirculates from the back to the front and your inlet temperatures climb. Bring a stack with you on the install day, or buy on-site if we have them.

6. Cooling math: hot aisle / cold aisle

Your servers go in front-to-back airflow orientation, cold side facing the cold aisle. If you have any equipment that breathes side-to-side (older network gear), plan baffles or replacement. Mixing orientations breaks the cooling.

7. Approved staff list

Decide who from your company needs site access and submit photo ID and contact details for each. Pre-approved badge holders can escort their own colleagues. Removing leavers from this list is part of your own ISO 27001 obligations, not just ours.

8. Spares and consumables

Decide what spares we should hold for you on-site: replacement drives for your RAID arrays, spare SFP transceivers, patch cables. Remote hands can swap a drive within minutes if the spare is already on a shelf rather than couriered overnight.

9. Backup and monitoring

Set up monitoring (we recommend something like LibreNMS or a SaaS like Datadog) and configure alerts before you ship the hardware. You want to see the rack come up healthy on day one. For backup, add our UK Cloud Backup or Veeam Cloud Connect as the offsite copy.

10. Shipping and install day

Decide whether you ship the hardware and install yourself, or ship to us and have our engineers rack and cable it for you under remote hands. Both work. Self-install means a day on-site; remote hands install means we work to a rack diagram you send in advance.

What to budget

UK rack colocation pricing starts around £162.50 per month for a quarter rack and scales by U, kW, and add-ons. See our Quarter Rack Colocation page for the entry tier, or jump straight to Half Rack or Full Rack if your kW budget is already known.

The Downsides of Colocation Server Hosting?

Colocation Server Hosting is an option that can offer a lot of benefits to a business who needs their own servers but can’t host them themselves. To see the benefits of Colocation, click here.

However like with most things, there are some tradeoffs to using Colocation as well.

Your Server. Your Responsibility.

Using a Colocation Server Hosting provider means that a lot of the environmental factors (power, cooling, network etc.) will be taken care of as part of the service.

However, as far as the maintenance of the actual server, that falls on you. This means any physical upgrades, repairs or anything else must be done by you. Think of Colocation like this: you are essentially renting out space for your servers to live in. You wouldn’t expect a landlord to pay your bills or make your dinner, would you? If you want to use a server but don’t want to maintain it, Cloud Hosting could be an option to consider.

Is Colocation Server Hosting Too Much?

Depending on the size of the business needing it, Colocation could be an expensive option. For very small businesses, colo can be pricey – of course, this depends on a number of factors such as:

• The number of servers that need hosting
• The location of the Data Centre
• The Colocation provider
• Your hosting requirements

We’ve seen prices for Single Server Colocation vary from £40 all that way up into the hundreds range. We like to think our Colocation Server Hosting is priced at an accessible level 😉

Travelling for Colocation Server Hosting

Due to the nature of having your servers be hosted by a third-party, physical access to your servers means travelling. This can often be a big factor when businesses look at Colocation options. Especially if they are planning on accessing the Data Centre regularly.

What you need to ask yourself is: “How far am I willing to travel if I need to fix something quickly?”

Unfortunately, there is no set rule that makes the answer to this question easy. Although generally speaking, if it’s more than a couple of hours I’d think hard about your decision.

To find out more about our Colocation, click here.

Keep in Touch

The best way to stay up to date with what we do here at HA Hosting is either through our regular Blog Posts or via our Social Media:

Facebook

LinkedIn

Windows VPS hosting (often marketed as “Windows cloud hosting”) sits in a useful niche for UK businesses that need Windows-specific software running outside their own office. Here is who actually benefits, where it fits, and where it does not.

Who Windows VPS hosting fits

You are a good candidate for a Windows VPS if any of these apply:

1. You run accounting or ERP software that is Windows-only

Sage 50, Sage 200, QuickBooks Desktop, Pegasus Opera, and many sector-specific applications are Windows-only. Hosting them on a Windows VPS lets your team access them remotely without keeping the office machine on, and gives you proper backup and disaster recovery for the data.

2. You need a remote desktop for a small team

A Windows VPS with Remote Desktop Services can serve 5 to 20 concurrent users at modest cost, with all the data and apps in one secure UK location. Useful when your team is hybrid or fully remote and you do not want to maintain a server in the office.

3. You host a .NET or Windows-specific web application

IIS, ASP.NET, MS SQL Server. Some applications are easier to run on Windows than to migrate to Linux. Windows VPS gives you the platform without the cost of dedicated hardware.

4. You need a Windows file server for offsite access

SMB shares, AD-integrated permissions, scheduled backup to our Sheffield Ceph cluster. A small Windows VPS can replace a stack of NAS appliances scattered across multiple offices.

5. You want to develop or test against Windows

Developers, ISVs, IT consultants who need a Windows environment for testing or for client work without burning local resources.

Who it does not fit

Windows VPS is the wrong answer if your workload is genuinely cloud-native (containerised, autoscaling) or if you have a heavy database workload that really wants its own physical hardware. For those, look at Single Server Colocation or talk to us about a dedicated host.

What our Pro Windows VPS includes

Our Pro Windows VPS starts at £12.50 per month and runs on HP servers with Proxmox/KVM virtualisation, backed by an all-flash Ceph cluster in our ISO 27001 Sheffield data centre. The price premium over Linux is the per-vCPU Windows licensing cost. Includes:

• Windows Server 2022 (Standard) licence included
• NVMe-class Ceph storage with self-healing redundancy
• 10 Gbit network internally, Tier 1 carriers externally
• Console access via KVM (noVNC) when remote desktop is unavailable
• Snapshots held for 7 days by default before risky changes
• Optional Veeam backup add-on to our second UK data centre

Sizing guidance

For a single-user accounting app: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB disk. For a 5-user RDS environment: 4 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 200 GB disk. We can resize live without downtime as your usage grows, with pro-rated billing.

Get started

See our Virtual Servers page for full Pro Linux and Pro Windows specs, or talk to us about your workload and we will size and quote the same working day. All UK-resident, all UK-managed, all in our Sheffield data centre.

Rack Colocation Hosting | Who Is It For?

Recently we’ve discussed what Colocation Hosting is and what benefits they can bring. So we figure now is a good time to go over who would benefit from Colocation Hosting the most. In this blog we’ll be tackling Rack Colocation – Check out this blog for Single Server Colocation Hosting.

Rack Colocation Hosting Recap

Before we start, here’s a quick recap of Rack Colocation in case you’ve not read our previous blogs.

Rack Colocation is a service where you can utilise a Data Centre’s infrastructure and hosting capabilities to host your servers. The name ‘Rack Colo’ comes from the option to use your servers and put them in a secure rack. The major benefit of doing this as opposed to self-hosting is a massive reduction in costs – setting up hosting is expensive! It’s then the Data Centre’s job to make sure your servers have Power, Internet, Cooling and are secure. You can also physically access your server whenever you need to. Typically Rack Colocation customers get keys/codes for 24/7 access.

Who is Rack Colocation Hosting for?

Let’s get right to it, here’s what you need to know.

Typically Colocation services are aimed at and used by IT Service Providers. Single Server Colo is a more accessible option. Rack Colo on the other hand, due to the cost and scale of the service, is more suited towards ISP’s.

As mentioned earlier, Rack Colo lets you host multiple servers that are stored in a private rack, as opposed to a single server in a shared cabinet. This ranges from a Quarter Rack to a Full Rack. From our own experience and working with other businesses who use our Colocation we’ve found that:

• Rack Colo is useful for businesses who’s services demand multiple servers
• Having 24/7 access is incredibly useful and mandatory for these businesses
• Makes having your own servers much more cost-effective
• At this scale, the cost of a rack is much cheaper than multiple Single Servers (in colo).

How Much Expansion Room Would This Allow?

Typically the decision to invest in Rack Colocation should have considered near-future growth and expansion. For example, you might predict to need another 5U’s (U us the unit of measurement for a server) worth of room. So a business would buy their size of rack with that in mind.

On a technical level, it is definitely possible to upgrade from say a Quarter Rack to a Half rack. However, the process isn’t as easy as it would be to upgrade the number of Single Server Colocation you use. This is why it’s important to calculate near-future expansion. Typically as well, Rack Colocation is a longer-term solution – often with annual contracts.

If you have any questions about whether you should consider multiple Single Servers or a Quarter Rack, get in touch with us here. We’re happy to answer any questions!

To find out more about our Colocation, click here.

Stay in the Loop

We post updates and content regularly. The best ways to keep up to date with what we’re doing at HA Hosting is through our Blog and Social Media.

Facebook

LinkedIn