Its taking me a lot of time to decide where to go from here. Shared hosting is no longer viable to hold this place together. Bandwidth and space is ripping through the roof.

The choice is simple but risky. Go for dedicated server? or go for a co-located server. Either way, it'll set me way way back financially.

Let me explain the difference to those who dont know much about hosting. Dedicated server is where you get a specialised computer to power your site. This machine will only power YOUR site ensuring all resources are for you and your business. However, you dont actually have full control over the machine/hardware. This is where the co-location package comes in.

Co-location is where you build your own server with the specs that you desire. Then you choose a datacenter of your choice and you hand over your server to be hosted for you. It works out cheaper than a dedicated solution since you're not paying the host for hardware, only bandwidth and resources. However, you do need to spend a lot of money on the server itself either by purchasing it ready made, or build it yourself. Plus theres maintenance costs in case things go wrong.

All in all, i prefere the co-location method, its worth the hassel - since at the end of the day, if anything goes wrong with your hosting needs... you just pick up the server and drive to the next nearby datacenter and plug it there.. and your site will be back online in no time.