Hosting Company Choice Is Everything

محروم.كوم · #1 09-24-2009, 06:40 AM

I am no expert on this* but commonsense to me says a lot from reviewing managed server company solutions. Reading through threads here where people upgrade from shared to VPS* have issues* or VPS to dedicated* and still find what they have been provided is not adequate. I hosted my first site back in 1995* and since then have been learning from trial and error* all experience basically.

I see HostGator a lot here usually in conjunction with "unhappy"* so lets do some comparisons here on what you get for your money.

Also* not sure why people have mentioned VPS from HostGator* as I do not see them having a VPS solution* Shared* Reseller or Dedicated is all I see. I do hope they aren't telling customers that Reseller hosting is VPS* because its not.

(All monthly prices as at time of posting)

The below are for demonstration purposes only* to show price vs. specifications and how rapidly they can vary.

HostGator Basic Dedicated
US$174

Intel Xeon 3040 (Dual Core)

1 GB RAM

250GB Hard Drive

1.5TB Bandwidth

HostGator Standard Dedicated
US$219

Intel Xeon 3040 (Dual Core)

4 GB RAM

2 x 250GB Hard Drive

1.5TB Bandwidth

GoDaddy Premium VPS (Please Don't Waste Your Time With This)
US$95 - $115 (Price varies on length of time you signup)

Such quality* they don't tell you what core is handling your VPS

512 MB RAM Guaranteed / (2 GB RAM Bursted)

50GB Space

2TB Bandwidth

Honestly* anyone who hosts with GoDaddy* please get out of there. Seriously* that is dismal.

ServInt Enterprise VPS (Essential / Signature / Ultimate)
US$49 / $89 /$129

Dual Quad Core Intel Xeon L5300/L5400 Series CPUs

Guaranteed RAM - 768MB / 1.5GB / 2GB (667 MHz DDR2 Dual Rank* Fully Buffered RAM)

Burst RAM - 1.5GB / 3GB / 4GB

Hard Disk - 30GB / 45GB / 60GB (15K RPM SCSI/SAS Hard Drives in RAID 10)

Bandwidth - 1TB / 1.5TB / 2TB

ServInt Super VPS

Starting price is $200* but you begin getting into dedicated specs with guaranteed CPU cores with up-to four core bursts. Using the above CPU's and RAM specs... from a VPS you get better than what many offer as a sole dedicated solution* yet still you get full dedicated access* install what you want onto your server* etc.

Dedicated from ServInt begin at $300 monthly.

Comes back too... you get what you pay for.

Tips For Newbies

90% of hosting solutions you find around the web are small one man operations who rent server space and sell it forward to try and make some money. The trick is to identify just where your host sits in the scheme of things from you to the server. The closer you get to dealing directly with the people who own the servers* the people who are true server techs* usually the better service you will get.

For your average forum installation* all you need is one of these shared hosting solutions. As your forum grows* you will then usually need to begin thinking of upgrading because your users will be suffering the consequences of a shared hosting environment* usually dropouts* etc.

Reseller hosting is not a VPS. I once thought that reseller hosting was an upgrade from my shared hosting... It's not. Typically* nothing changes or you end up worse. A true VPS is the same as having a dedicated* except that you do not have the full server to yourself* you have a part of a server to yourself* shared with x number of other users* though typically always less than shared hosting. A VPS should have full root access* so you can treat it like a dedicated* well* very close to dedicated. You should be able to install and uninstall software directly* etc. You have guaranteed resources allocated to you with no other restrictions typically than your CPU* RAM* Space and Bandwidth limits. With full access* you can upgrade and run the latest MYSQL* PHP* etc... full access* no restrictions.

A good host will never oversell server resources* so you really do have your guaranteed specifications and burst specs always available. Many do not give this* so be careful. Specs are oversold for marketing* so be weary of such things. Bigger is not always better.

Price & Performance

This is what it usually comes down to... price. There is no right solution or one solution that fits all with hosting. The majority of people who ask me about hosting for their website* I will ask them a few basic questions and usually I would send them to a large scale shared hosting provider* such as HostGater* PowWeb* etc. Never GoDaddy though... please stay away from them for hosting. Domains are one thing* hosting another.

For a $100 a year the majority of people can run their websites on a shared hosting solution. When you out grow that is when the issues start* because suddenly people find out that no longer can they upgrade for just a few bucks more a year* but suddenly you need to go from $10 per month to $50 per month. So people typically go looking for the cheapest solution and find more problems than they had with the shared hosting.

Unfortunately* when you outgrow shared hosting* you have to make a decision. Stick with shared at a low cost and suck up the downtime and dropouts* or live with the fact that your hosting has now just drastically increased to continue your sites growth.

My above examples are a demonstration of variation in price and performance. If someone asked me where they could get hosting with 100% uptime guaranteed* and price was not an option* then I would only send them to the one place* RackSpace. When you want the ultimate in server solutions* that is where you go. A bit much though for your average website hosting... definitely more high end corporate* being their target market* with servers starting around $400+ monthly. The quality of product and service that you will get for that money is completely worth it.

This is just what comes to mind on hosting from my experience and perceptions... I know there are server techs here who could go much further than I on this subject* and hopefully they may share their experience to help people in the future with the direction they choose* even to begin thinking about now when you begin your forum.

Further Thought

Maybe for those who are struggling with the cost of upgrades and the performance they require* should post something here to reduce the cost and go into a VPS or dedicated solution with a group of forum owners... that is one way you could get better performance for your forum and reduce the cost drastically from having it to yourself. __DEFINE_LIKE_SHARE__

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