Hey,

I run about 5-6 websites that do a total of <10GB of bandwidth per month. All the sites are running on *nix and most run Wordpress or Joomla. All together, I pay about $50 a month for hosting.

I would really like to move to 1) one single host and 2) not some crappy out-of-country host 3) a host that *cares* about me and my business and actually treats me like a valued customer. Somebody local would be great.

Any thoughts? What if I bought a server and got someone to do a co-location? Is it even possibly for me to spend around $50/month for something like that?

Are my standards too high?

2/27/2008 11:02:44 PM

dreamhost fits everything except the local part.

2/27/2008 11:16:28 PM

I personally like Site5. They would fit the needs you described. I haven't had a single complaint for the ~3 years I've been with them. With the bandwidth you're talking about, I think co-location is a little over kill and out of your budget range.

Disk Space 750 GB
Bandwidth 7.5 TB
Domain Pointers Unlimited
Monthly Price:
Term Length Monthly Price Per Term Setup Fee Discount
3 Months $10.50 $31.50 $29.95 0%
12 Months $8.50 $102.00 FREE! 19%
24 Months $6.95 $166.80 FREE! 34%
36 Months $6.00 $216.00 FREE! 43%
48 Months $5.00 $240.00 FREE! 52%

http://www.site5.com/in.php?id=13604

2/27/2008 11:17:38 PM

http://www.linode.com/

VPS is the way to go

2/27/2008 11:54:04 PM

^ I still think VPS is a cool idea, but the price to data transfer limit ratio on the plans is pretty bad. You should be getting that bandwidth per day, not per month.

2/28/2008 12:01:43 AM

^ 200GB per month? you think you should get 200GB per day and only pay $20/mo? I think 200gb/mo is way overkill for most VPS users needs.

2/28/2008 12:05:39 AM

^ With VPS you're paying a premium for total control over you environment configuration. That doesn't mean you should get gimped on bandwidth when compared to traditional shared hosting plans. Site5 gives you 7.5 TB/month. That's ~250 GB/day for a lot less than $20 per month. Other shared hosting plans from other companies have similar bandwidth limits for similar prices.

2/28/2008 12:09:45 AM

ive just got done reviewing a bunch services to move a nonprofit site from an expiring contract to another host.

i finally chose Blue Host

1.5 TB disk storage. 15TB monthly transfer. superior reviews. high-rated customer service. unlimited domains. (1st one free for life of service, each add'l domain $10/year.) a ton of tools available for free.

all for $6.95/month.

no shit

http://www.bluehost.com
http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html
http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/kb/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=162

are they local? probably not... but damned if i care. these guys rock. they seriously have one of the most consistently top-rated service, top-reviewed hosting service. I've had a totally smooth experience transitioning from the previous host to them.

definitely stay away from 1and1 and IXwebHosting. They're the cheapest, but 1and1 is the worst host ever. prepare to have your credit card stomped all over, get incompetent customer service, and a lot of downtime. IXwebHosting is better, but they lost a lot of my files once and denied it, and basically refused to go back to the tape archives and do a restore. Maybe they dont have tape archives, i dont know, but that really pissed me off.





[Edited on February 28, 2008 at 12:50 AM. Reason : ]

2/28/2008 12:38:03 AM

i have lunarpages and love it, unlimited domains as well.

$6.95/month

* 1,500 GB Storage
* 15,000 GB Bandwidth
* Free Domain Name for Life!
* Legendary Support
* Host Unlimited Websites!

it's the same deal, and they are rated one of the top as well... and i can say they've been up for 6 months straight, 100% uptime

http://www.lunarpages.com/

2/28/2008 1:04:53 AM

Quote :

"^ With VPS you're paying a premium for total control over you environment configuration. That doesn't mean you should get gimped on bandwidth when compared to traditional shared hosting plans. Site5 gives you 7.5 TB/month. That's ~250 GB/day for a lot less than $20 per month. Other shared hosting plans from other companies have similar bandwidth limits for similar prices."

7.5TB/mo on shared hosting is complete and utter bullshit. Show me a shared hosting acct that transfers just 1TB per month.

With practically any shared hosting setup, if a site is active and using a lot of bandwidth, storage, cpu, etc, the provider will just shut it down for resource usage.

Example, from the Site5 Terms of Service:

Quote :

"If Site5's system administration team determines that a customer's account is utilizing an unacceptable amount of system resources, Site5 may temporarily deactivate the account in question. If Site5's staff deems necessary, an eviction notice may be sent to the customer of an offending account providing them with ten (10) days in which to either upgrade to a dedicated server or locate a new provider. This only occurs in extreme cases."

2/28/2008 1:21:08 AM

that's the thing

you're paying a little more for a VPS

because you are GUARANTEED that amount of memory and that amount of cpu cycles

you're not sharing resources with 3985029385 other people

granted, you're all on the same server, but everyone has a set slice of resources they can use.

200GB/month is plenty.

2/28/2008 1:54:27 AM

I have hosting through Media Temple and am really happy with them. They are a great group of people who always take care of any problems I have within a matter of minutes of sending in support tickets. Not that I ever have any, but the one time I did when I initially wanted to swap something on a server they came through for me.

I'm on their grid-service.

http://www.mediatemple.net/

2/28/2008 4:47:02 AM

i went with http://www.hostmonster.com/ (which is the EXACT same everything as bluehost, as they're the same company)...i, however, got their current numbers for $4.95/month with a 2-year contract

short of it is that i love them, i think they rock...i miss my reseller account for the ability to let the somewhat-knowledgeable users manage their own settings, but if it was that big a deal, i could have paid a lot more for it

2/28/2008 9:10:42 AM

Something about Blue Host's plan just seems wrong. The bandwidth is feasible (since it's probably just an unmetered connection), but giving each hosting account 1.5TBs of hard drive space is a little ridiculous.

As a side note, I hate that dedicated servers are so expensive by comparison to some of these plans.

2/28/2008 10:11:38 AM

^that's why VPS is so awesome. $20/month for what is essentially a dedicated server.

2/28/2008 10:17:23 AM

Sadly certain people, myself included, actually need dedicated servers. Otherwise I get bent over and bandwidth fucked.

Not to mention how little RAM most VPS configurations come with.

[Edited on February 28, 2008 at 10:23 AM. Reason : ]

2/28/2008 10:19:31 AM

Quote :

"Something about Blue Host's plan just seems wrong. The bandwidth is feasible (since it's probably just an unmetered connection), but giving each hosting account 1.5TBs of hard drive space is a little ridiculous."

agreed...i host a dozen sites on mine and am just over 20gb...the odds that i'll ever reach 1.5tb are minimal, which is what (i assume) they're banking on...if every user who paid for 1.5tb actually used it, they might be in trouble...but i think i represent a non-average user, and i'm not even close (i could be wrong, though)

either way, they have raving reviews - it's high-quality, low cost hosting and though i've only been with them for about 6 months, i have no complaints

2/28/2008 10:45:42 AM

I use bluehost, and all of their support staff are english speaking americans.

They make it a point to tell you that on their recordings.

2/28/2008 10:49:44 AM

Quote :

"Sadly certain people, myself included, actually need dedicated servers. Otherwise I get bent over and bandwidth fucked. Not to mention how little RAM most VPS configurations come with."

oh, believe me, i know

i use VPS for projects that aren't mission critical but i still like to have an actual box, not a shared hosting plan.

i have 4 actual physical servers colocated at hurricane electric in fremont, CA as well

if you really have a need for a physical server, colocation is the way to go - you'll pay out the ass for a dedicated server otherwise.

2/28/2008 10:50:50 AM

How much does that run you, if you don't mind me asking?

2/28/2008 10:57:07 AM

http://he.net/colocation.html

i only end up paying around $30/month by the time i get monthly payments from the clients whose stuff is hosted on them

the whole thing runs a little over $500/month

2 2u servers, 1 4u server, and 1 1u server
each with varying line speeds



also:
http://calpop.com/colocation.html

their site looks a little sketchy but i've used them in the past
unmetered 10mbps connection w/ 6u of rack space for $99/month
not bad at all

2/28/2008 11:00:45 AM

Quote :

"the whole thing runs a little over $500/month"

holy shit that's a lot of money.

This afternoon I created an account with mediatemple to try out their gridserver, and im bitching about the $6 increase per month over dreamhost.

2/28/2008 8:19:49 PM

^^ My concern is being outside the major internet backbones and having the server all the way in California.

I was thinking of going with http://www.managemybox.com since they have good pricing and while I've heard good things the fact that they have no 24/7 800 number doesn't endear me to them.

2/28/2008 10:37:20 PM