In the (small) company I work for we're planning on getting a dedicated server, since we need more storage and performance that we get now in our shared hosting.
We have 1&1, and we're happy with them, so our first option is to get one of their dedicated servers (more info here).
Now me need to make an important decision: do we get an unmanaged dedicated server or a managed dedicated server?
The main reason to consider the unmanaged option is to have full access to the server, because with the managed one we don't get root access and we can't change server configuration. It' not that we need those features all the time, but some times it could be handy (we're making a Moodle website and root access is good for a few things, for example).
The thing is that I would be the person in charge of managing the server, and I'm not sure if it's a task that can get too complicated. I don't have experience managing servers, I'm a web developer, very computer savvy, and I've worked a little with unix.
I've been doing some research and I read comments about managing a dedicated server can require a full time job, but I can't find a reasonable explanation if that's always true or it depends.
So I'm looking for some advice. Should we just go with the managed option and lose the root access feature? Is a dedicated server something that is going to take so much time? Is it something I can learn "easily" (I learn fast)? The company I work for wouldn't hire someone else just for that, so it's either me or no one.
1&1 offer the option of getting an unmanaged one, and switching to managed if we want to. This would be good in case it's something too overwhelming, but we would lose some features like root access. Strangely (for me), they say the opposite option (start with managed and switch to unmanaged) is not possible.
Any advice would be much appreciated!