A couple of comments have resonated with me: "Hobbiest" "Gamer" "Minecraft" Hobbiest: dude, no question which one. Just as I said- albeit under false pretense- you gotta get system one. As an avid builder hobbiest, Its the gets me all interested, also. 16 cores and 3.7ghz!!1 Gamer: go with what you know will work. System two sounds like a more pratical choise and will dedimate. Minecraft: really? Like said here already, rent dude. Rent.that way you can stop and not be out the capital outlay and upkeep(ie electricity, potential part failure, shit happens, general aggravation of server management) The more you give detail, the I'm convinced you're going to do system one but need system two. Good luck! Benchmarks!!
Xen used to rent. Its an effing nightmare to get anything done with them. Its easier to have Enigma host and we're able to adjust the server as needed. The old one used to crash...alot. And mods took days to get put on, and another week to adjust them if they caused crashes. His server just runs better than renting. Also, we couldnt use the bukkit flavor either if I remember right.. stuck with vanilla..and griefers
Sounds like a terrible provider. The one I was using, the guy would be responding to emails within minutes at all hours of the day, upgrading the server right away, we could install mods, copy our own backups, white list users, export renders etc. It was like $8 a month for 10 users I believe, probably less then it would cost me in electricity to run one at home.