Hosting questions

[Kacey Green]

Is it better to be your own host?
Is it cheaper in the long-run to go with managed hosting?
What are the disadvantages to each?
I'm looking at Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprize (thank that OEM title, too bad you have to pay tax once you use it for personal or your own buisness use, but they aren't too steep)
Any tips for either methods
If there is a firewall between you and the web server and the webserver and the web, do you need more than one server, or is it that much safer to just build two servers, one for the domain, and one for the website?

Thanks for your help,
Kacey Green

[arnage2]

being ur own host can have security issues

[Jon Westfall]

Being a web host reseller for communitech and interland, and being a tech for a web hosting company, I can see both sides.

Personally, I use Communitech/Interland to host my websites. Its inexpensive (~20 a month), I get enough space/bandwidth for everything, backups and security are all done for me (with no complaints - they have a fast service dept. that can restore a file or db that I errantly deleted). I could have windows but elect to still have unix, and have a shell account to mess around in if I have to.

On the other end, having control over one's own server is nice. You decide what's going where and how to run it. If you're inexperienced, it can be a major problem too, as the most intuitive thing isn't always the best. Hosting a domain on one server and website on another isn't necessary, as I've done both from one machine (it was an exchange mail server too!).

In the end, it breaks down to how much of a hassle do you want to deal with for how much control.

Jon.

[Jason Dunn]

Having your own dedicated hosting box is expensive, so you need to have a lot of traffic to justify the expenses. Do you need to start out that way?

[Kacey Green]

Having your own dedicated hosting box is expensive, so you need to have a lot of traffic to justify the expenses. Do you need to start out that way?

It's a relaunch/refocus, but no, I don't anticipate that kind of traffic no.

How flexible are they if you go from a shared server to a dedicated one?

How bad you have to worry about black hat hackers?

Does anyone here do security? (mabey a free or inexpencive test if I decide to host my own)

[Pony99CA]

Some places I've looked into for hosting include:

Affordable Host (http://affordablehost.com)
Lowest Hosting (http://www.lowesthosting.com)
Total Choice Hosting (http://www.totalchoicehosting.com)

Each of those companies has a fairly comprehensive plan with 1 GB or more bandwidth and lots of disk space for $6.00 or less per month.

There's also a review site I've found for some hosting companies, The Hosting Chart (http://thehostingchart.com).

Does anybody have experience with any of these companies?

Jason, out of curiosity, what kind of bandwidth does a really popular site like yours use a month?

Steve

[Jason Dunn]

Jason, out of curiosity, what kind of bandwidth does a really popular site like yours use a month?

Last month for all three sites we used 485 GB. Pocket PC Thoughts is probably 85% of that. Thankfully we have 1500 on our account. Bandwidth is no longer the problem - server performance and resources are the real bottleneck.

[Pony99CA]

Jason, out of curiosity, what kind of bandwidth does a really popular site like yours use a month?
Last month for all three sites we used 485 GB. Pocket PC Thoughts is probably 85% of that. Thankfully we have 1500 on our account. Bandwidth is no longer the problem - server performance and resources are the real bottleneck.
Wow, almost half a terabyte. When you hit a terabyte, will there be a party? :lol:

I guess 10 GB would be enough for most small sites, then.

Steve

[kellybelly]

Does anybody have experience with any of these companies?
I've been using TotalChoice Hosting (http://www.totalchoicehosting.com) for my websites for well over a year now, and I haven't been happier.

They can claim 99.9% uptime, and just take a peek at the forums (http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/) to see some examples of the fantasic support clients get. If that isn't enough ... just yesterday it was announced that all hosting plans will be upgraded; twice the bandwidth and 1.5 times the disk space ... for free.

I highly recommend them.

[karen]

. .
In the end, it breaks down to how much of a hassle do you want to deal with for how much control.

Jon.

As someone with a website and some client websites hosted at interland, I'd say that their hosting is a tremendous amount of hassle.

We (and our clients) went for 2 months with only half our email getting through. Interland blocks all e-mail from servers that are not 100% RFC compliant. They only half completed their DNS entries. Corporate organizations (such as my non-hosted clients are RARELY RFC compliant. Our 8000 member community was amost completely dead due the e-mail problem . I requested several bill adjustments during this time, but to my shock, e-mail service at interland has no guarantee and I was told by a tech support person that interland had no obligation to even support e-mail. I have several messages from customer service that also indicates that e-mail hosting at interland is not part of their service level agreement.

Support tickets appear to be closed at random with no resolution. I'm guessing that support people are compensated on how many tix they close.

I will be moving away from interland and so will my clients. They are very bad news. They make their money buying up small providers, not hosting, so I don't think they really care if your website is down or you e-mail is bouncing for 50% or 100% of your mail.

STAY AWAY FROM INTERLAND.

[Kacey Green]

8O , good ness thats scary

Karen, thanks for the warning

KC

[Pony99CA]

I've been using TotalChoice Hosting (http://www.totalchoicehosting.com) for my websites for well over a year now, and I haven't been happier.

They can claim 99.9% uptime, and just take a peek at the forums (http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/) to see some examples of the fantasic support clients get.
I had actually been in the forums and asked some questions. They seem to have a lot of happy clients.

If that isn't enough ... just yesterday it was announced that all hosting plans will be upgraded; twice the bandwidth and 1.5 times the disk space ... for free.
When I posted in their forums, the one complaint I had was that their bandwidth limits seemed a bit low, especially for their reseller plans. I'm glad they boosted them.

It's kind of funny, actually, because I went there yesterday before I posted my question here and noticed that they had increased their bandwidth limits. I didn't know they had just done it that day, though.

Steve

[Zack Mahdavi]

I use surpasshosting.com. I've used a lot of web hosting companies over the past years, and these guys have the most awesome service I've ever seen. Plus, they offer tons of stuff with their packages.

For others, check out www.findmyhosting.com for good reviews.

[Kacey Green]

One of my clients is going on the thirty day trial with total choice. (26 days) from yahoo web hosting.

Depending on how that goes and any further comments from you all, I may decide to host there myself, at least untill I can justify a dedicated server(s)

[Kacey Green]

Update: had such a good initial experiance that I went ahed and joined myself. I've had total choice hosting for about 2 weeks now and it is so awesome, they are very quick to respond to questions and support tickets also. It's not a breach of trust to tell you that the particular client is www.yourtitleresources.com it's not much and its but that homey feel no extra fluff.

What I like best about TCH's pricing is that the only difference between plans is the amount of space, and the amount of transfers, and of course the $ per month.

[Tricia]

Update: had such a good initial experiance that I went ahed and joined myself. I've had total choice hosting for about 2 weeks now and it is so awesome, they are very quick to respond to questions and support tickets also. It's not a breach of trust to tell you that the particular client is www.yourtitleresources.com it's not much and its but that homey feel no extra fluff.

What I like best about TCH's pricing is that the only difference between plans is the amount of space, and the amount of transfers, and of course the $ per month.
is it the cheapest place? my dad wants to make a family web site *gag* and hes looking for cheap.

[Zack Mahdavi]

is it the cheapest place? my dad wants to make a family web site *gag* and hes looking for cheap.

If you're looking for super-cheap sites that don't rip you off, research on www.findmyhosting.com. They provide lots of user reviews, uptime statistics. One of the super-cheap sites that I recommend to a lot of people is SiteFlip.com (http://www.siteflip.com/specials/fmh101.html?source=findmyhosting.com). They have web hosting for as cheap as $11 a year! :)

[GoldKey]

I've been using Page Zone http://www.page-zone.com/ for about a year after a recommendation from this site and have been very happy with them. I have a reseller account and sell part of my space to some friends. They use very little bandwith, but help offset my costs for hosting my sites.

[Kacey Green]

They only charge me $4 per month at my current sucscription