Profitability in Server Hosting?

Sometime next year, I want to start running my own business.
It's a toss up between server hosting and basic computer repair/building.

How much money is actually in this business and if anyone actually owns a hosting business, how much in startup cost did you have to shell out? Did you have to get credit to do so?  Also, how much time did it take you from idea to starting up.

I'm merely hypothesizing, but the computer repair business isn't going to be big money. It's definitely a viable side-business, but you're in a tight market where if you want customers, you have to give a low price.

As for server hosting, I see better prospects in this one, but again, you're going to have to give competitive pricing, and the initial startup, I imagine, will take quite a bit of money. If by credit, you mean a loan, provided you're employed already, I think you can save up enough to start

Server hosting is VERY expensive.
You need to buy high-end server, rent out server space and bandwidth, buy web-end software for the user.  You also need to be able to configure the servers and you need a help desk/tech support.

The likeliness of making a profit is minimal.  For a start up, you're not putting in too much money... but still, you're unlikely to make enough money to make it profitable.  It's very difficult.

And don't even try to run servers off a business cable line.  That doesn't work :-P  You need to be in a data center (or build a data center).

Mooga speaks many truths. If you look at clutchkill, it seems to be a 2 man job where the CEO does most of the tech support and everything.
They look profitable but it also looks hella hard.

It should be noted that this is something you have to take seriously.  You can't just start this up as a hobby, it's serious work.  If you want a hobby, rent a DS and enjoy yourself

No, it's not a hobby. That's why i'm weighing the opinions.  I'm just tired of the grind of 9 to 5's where I don't feel like I'm doing what I like or even using my brain anymore.

So where can i find info on server specs and datacenters?
I'm sure a lot of the infos i'll be digging for on my own, but i figured with as big a community we have...might as well ask

There are datacenters all over the country. Basically you buy your own machines, and then rent rack space + bandwidth from the datacenter. The rest is up to you to research and figure out. Some questions to ask yourself:

Do you want to target consumers or businesses?
How do you plan to market yourself?
What type of infrastructure will you offer, ie just basic webservers, or full on domain hosting with email, database servers, etc?
Will you offer services such as VPN, or RDP access to the servers?
How do you plan on funding the business, ie personally or will you need VC? (I can tell you from experience that the upfront costs for server hosting are pretty large)

If it were me, I'd probably go the computer repair route to get a feel for running your own business first, plus you can get a higher ROI faster. I do some PC repair stuff from time to time for extra cash now that I'm in school, and can charge between 60-80/hr depending on who I'm servicing (small businesses will pay more than consumers, and you can charge more b/c they are usually networked which means more complexity). The risks are pretty high with server hosting, so know what you're doing first.

Dell sells blade servers, and they come with warrenties with them.  They are 5,000-14,000 apiece. I was working on getting better webservers for the company i am work at and they are really expencive.  I would suggest getting some backers first, before starting it up.

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Personally, I would never buy the hardware. Always do a business lease, much more cost effective in the long run. Most of the fortune 500 companies I've worked for do this, and most of the small businesses do as well. Computers are a highly depreciating asset, purchasing them is basically throwing money away that can be used elsewhere.