I started out four years ago with a Linode 768 and a Linode 384 - one for Apache, the other for MySQL. Since then our traffic that goes to these Linodes has increased 1000x, and they've always held up like champs. I now have three Linodes for work - a 1536 and two 1024s, then just this year bought one for personal - a 512. I run two very highly profitable sites that generate a ton of traffic, and the Linodes serve to host secondary applications brought into the primary sites as well as secondary services for the companies (blogs, etc). They've never missed a beat. In fact, I think this is most telling. First, Apache:

00:19:22 up 446 days,  3:13,  2 users,  load average: 0.02, 0.02, 0.00

Rebooted three times - once for a dist upgrade, then once for 768 - 1024 and finally for 1024-1536.

And MySQL, which has only been rebooted once - to upgrade from a 384 to a 1024:

 00:15:30 up 674 days, 20:40,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Finally, the third static/media content server which has never been rebooted:

04:20:55 up 630 days, 12:07,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

One of my techs asked recently "hey, do we still have those Linux servers? I never hear you say anything about them". Which honestly? That's probably the best compliment I could ever give.

The second best? Since 2002 I've had a personal server co-located in a datacenter outside of Omaha, NE that I use for my personal email, shell sessions, and other work. It has evolved over the years from a Dell PowerEdge, an IBM xSeries 336, and finally three years ago a HP DL380 G5. Three months ago I had to replace another power supply on the DL380 and I thought.. this is nuts.

So I bought a Linode 512 and slowly started moving services over to it. Last week I went to Omaha to pick up the DL380 and say goodbye to the NOC crew, dropping off my final co-lo check and entry badge. When I got the 512, just as I did with the initial 768 and 384, I sized it to get things migrated and then see how they pan out. I'm hosting the same services I was on a dedicated box with a RAID-10, 6GB of RAM and two DC Xeons. Sure I worked on managing memory a bit more effectively and have dealt mentally with accepting that swap will be used - but it's handling it fine.

If I ever need to upgrade? I'll schedule 10 minutes to do so. If my calculations are correct, well - you know the rest of the story.