I started self hosting inandaround 1999 with Windows NT/2000. When I was bringing up a new box, it was infected before the installation was done, I knew it was time for a change.

I switched entirely to FreeBSD servers - all were basically headless towers/desktops with a 16 port KVM switch. For my email server I ran a FreeBSD Mail Toaster.

I eventually got a rack with a bunch of HP servers and moved it into my garage. My local cable business class was cheaper than the T1 - then the heat, the cable outages - I finally gave up and moved everything to Bluehost. It was so quiet in the house!

After a while, Bluehost failed me so I moved to Hostgator - after 10 years, they’ve failed me and I just learned of VPS and Mail-in-a-Box.

I’ve never really ran linux boxes (except for my Mandrake HLDS server running Counterstrike) - so it’s a little different than FreeBSD (Mac’s OS is FreeBSD from the command line).

Anyway, here I am - back to self hosting (and saving money).