The very old server, which I co-locate at my friend’s company’s data center, died on Friday night. I’ve been waiting for it to happen for a while, and I back up my data nightly, so I didn’t lose much. Remember, backups are important. The only lesson here for me is that I should snapshot certain directories (home, databases, etc.) more frequently than once per day.

After giving it some thought, I decided that it’s not worth repairing or replacing the server. I was able to get my e-mail flowing again by switching my domain’s MX record to use Google, so that wasn’t a problem. To get my blog and other web sites back online, I decided to go with a virtual private server (VPS). I have several friends who use Linode and highly recommend their service. I signed up for the smallest plan and was back up and running in minutes. It took a bit longer to get my blog back online, but that’s only because I had tinkered with the WordPress directory and left the themes in an inconsistent state.

So far, I’m pretty happy with the arrangement. A VPS should give me far fewer headaches in the long run. I was starting to grow weary of owning hardware, especially since it had long ago passed its prime.