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i'm in the process of developing a website that i predict will generate a lot of traffic. the site will be similar to many other sites offering free media streaming: mp3's. we are going to start with a pretty minimal amount of media to share, but the basic idea is that artists will set up a profile page with music they have made available for consumers to visit the page and listen to the music. we are starting with just a handful of artists, but i think that this project will generate more and more artist pages. eventually i'd like to set it up so consumers can create personalized playlists. how can i best prepare server space and bandwidth capabilities? i have a small team of web designers and programmers working on the site, as i am pretty illiterate when it comes to site management. as the ring leader of this organization, i am more or less looking for financial requirements and monthly burn rate estimates. i don't have a ton of capitol to start with, putting together a business plan, but i am seeking investments. i have a game plan to grow fast enough to be successful, and slow enough to manage the financial growth requirements. any questions i may have failed to ask myself? is it realistic to start this project on a shared server, and upgrade? any financial advice you think i can use? i really appreciate any advice given, as this is my first business venture. thank you all in advance. Jordan Westerman D.B.A. Badfish Productions, LLC

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Yes its realistic to start on a shared server and upgrade later, but a VPS would probably give you more flexibility and time before you need to upgrade. As long as your developers are careful to divide the "dynamic" (web pages) part of the site and the "static" (mp3 files, images, videos) up into different dns names, moving it around later won't be too much trouble.

Take a look at amazon's prices for ec2 and s3. Even if you wind up elsewhere they're great references for estimating your costs.

cagenut
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  • I would definetly go with a VPS. It will allow for the OP to grow up in sizes as need. Shameless promotion to Linode, because you could start with a 360 and end with the king at the 2880 level as the site demands it. Plus they bandwidth pool so, if you want to keep the 360 as a static backend and get another 360 as the front end you get a combined 400GB of bandwidth even, if the front end only pulls 100 and the backend 300GB. – David Rickman Apr 11 '10 at 19:18