Hosting questions...need some assistance

Hey all,

I'd like to thank you first for taking the time to read my post. I have a list of questions I'm hoping the hosting experts can assist me with. Here goes:

1. What are the estimated server costs for, say, a fraction of YouTube's capacity?
2. What type of server/hosting environment is suggested for this type of community site?
3. Are there any reliable hosting providers that you would recommend?

I'm currently working on a business plan for a potential project and appreciate any assistance. Thanks again!

Youtube pays over a million dollars a month for their bandwidth usage.

Go with a good company that oversells like 1and1 because if you start getting huge they will have to move you to a better server

Thanks Vizon. I don't expect the bandwith usage to be anywhere near what YouTube uses. The project will require a video upload and view much like YouTube, but will differ in that the market is much smaller than the general public and will only be available to paid subscriptions.

1) A fraction? Well it depends.
If you're looking for a high end cluster (1 Server for web, another for database, another for application, etc.) thats a good $2,000 - $3,000
If you're thinking even smaller than that (1 server for everything) then a Dual Quad Core Xeon Server would cost you $1000 - $2000.

2) In a datacenter with multiple high-end bandwidth providers that have redundant power and UPS with an expensive fire suppression system and security cameras with hand readers around every corner along with thousands of pounds of air-conditioned air pumped into their facility which house thousands of servers and real live tech guys.

If you meant more on what the server is running and not literally the 'environment' the server is in, then use Linux running Apache with PHP + MySQL.

3) If it's media things you're hosting, your best bet is with http://rackspace.com/ - On the expensive side, but they're really good with server resource intensive sites. (Focus more on mission-critical websites that require clusters rather than selling single servers, however single servers are still available.)

http://liquidweb.com/ - Owns two of their own datacenters in central US. Great tech support.

http://steadfast.net/ - Owns their own datacenter in Chicago. No personal experience with them, but seem more professional and more promising.

http://softlayer.com/ - Unsure whether they own their own datacenter, but they also seem very promising. Commonly used with webhosts.