What server do i need?

Im starting a video sharing website and would like to know what type of server i would require for this venture. I'm assuming that i will require one since i will have lots of videos to store, but im not sure if i will or not. Could anyone please offer some information about this?.

Would i for example, be better off hiring one from hosting companies or would it be more beneficial to just purchase one myself. Also what is the best software to use on these servers?, windows server?.

Again, without sounding repetitive, i don't have much experience dealing with server type question and so apologise in advance for my ignorance.

Cheers

John

The "cheaper" route in the long run: Build the servers yourself and colocate. You could get a full rack for about $1k/month and a rack full of storage will run about $30k->$40k. If you were doing it from month to month it would be around $6k->14k/month.

Of course if you can offload the actual hosting to other places and just use embeds you could use shared/vps hosting to start. $70/month maximum.

Don't go with video hosting and Windows - it's possible, but it's difficult as hell to make it function the way you want. Stay with Linux and some sort of control panel - DirectAdmin - for example.

As for the server, what exactly did you mean by "just purchase one myself"? Don't buy the actual server, and even if you do - do not think that you can host it in your house - I seriously doubt your internet connection will be able to handle the traffic. Also, proper cooling is required. So, if you decide to buy the server, you would need to colocate it (Placing it in a datacenter facility).

Best thing is to just rent the server from a hosting company for a start. When (and if) your project grows, you can always change the ways you host it. Another minus with the actual server purchase, is that if your project fails, you would have unused hardware in the corner of your room that has cost you money, but has made none.

If you don't have experience you should rent a fully managed server or VPS. Good thing about VPS is that you can usually upgrade it whenever you want, so you can start small and when your website grows you buy more RAM, CPU and HDD space.

Absolutely brilliant folks, thanks so much for the feedback, it helps me build a bigger picture about the whole server issue.

Just to let you know video sharing is always loosing money. I don't know what your business plan is but if it is open network with general interest you are probably going to loose money. Even youtube is loosing money but Google can afford it and use it to close the circle.