host recomendations

[Blue Cat Buxton]

I need a reccomendation for a good host. I have been with dotable.com for a while now, following a reccomendation here, but the owners have sold the business and since then there have obviously been a number of changes and the service ahs gone down hill with server crashes and othre problems.

The ifnal straw is that they have 'upgraded' the server to run something called suphp, which has trashed any of my sites that run the force type rewrite for seo friendly urls.

I have to cut my losses on this now as I have had 3 days of hassle, countless hours I have spent trying to understand a technology I do not need - suphp - and no income from these sites. Thankfully I only have 10 or so sites with dotable, (which is partly why I like to spread sites accross a number of smaller reseller acounts, so that if there is a problem, not all my sites are effected).

Anyway if dotable can't / won't move me onto a non suphp site then I will move elsewhere.

And for anyone looking to move to dotable, I wouldn't at the moment.

[Chris]

You have 10 sites with them? How many sites do you have overall.

I think once you get into double digits it is time to start thinking about dedicated servers.

https://www.theplanet.com/servers/

As low as $89, and you make all the decisions. Looks like right now they're running a first-3-months-free sale.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Thanks Chris.

Moving to a dedicated server has always seemed too much of an additional learning curve, but I suspect I need to make this swap now. I sorted the current problem after about 4 hours of messing around, but at least that gives me some time to find a new host and migrate sites in an orderley manner until my current contract expires

[agua]

I'm in the same sh*t situation as you (dotable) - and don't want to move to a dedicated server yet neither.

I've had an account at theprimehost.com for a while - which hasn't had any downtime... but I'm not sure about the server setup as I get 100's of domains on a reverse IP of my IP.

After reading Webhostingtalk.com I am now looking at www.hawkhost.com - which seems to be getting rave reviews - and has done for a while

Hope that helps

[Chris]

Dedicated servers really are not as complicated as you might think, if you're comfortable enough with linux commands. You don't need to be a linux guru, but being comfortable in the OS (ie, knowing how to navigate the file system, use a text editor, very simple things like that) is what you need to get started.

I recommend a cpanel (whm) server as their upgrade procedure is the best, then I recommend getting it setup (wherever you buy it) by configserver.net. This is a one time fee that optimizes your server for web use, makes it more secure, etc. Good stuff.

Then if you have a big problem, which is going to be relatively rare, you can hire places like that at an hourly rate.

[agua]

if you're comfortable enough with linux commands.

Do you know of any good resources, websites or books which I can look at, because I'm pretty sure I know nothing

I recommend getting it setup (wherever you buy it) by configserver.net. This is a one time fee that optimizes your server for web use, makes it more secure, etc. Good stuff.

Thanks for the link, so basically get a unmangaged Cpanel server - and get these guys to set it up for you... what about upgrades, do you have to keep up with all the software and things?

Also what about RAM - will a server with 512MB or 1gig or RAM have the same speed as shared hosting or will it be slower?

[KLB]

What are the technical requirements for your websites? I've been with Pair Networks (http://pair.com) for almost ten years and have been pretty happy with them. They are strictly a FreeBSD/Apache hosting provider so won't work if you need Microsoft solutions. They aren't the cheapest host in the world, but they are rock solid with lots standard back up features.

[mobilebadboy]

Chris, is that who you are with? I've been with Gnax (tranxact global) for 3 or 4 years now, and at first I was happy with them (and they got nothing but high praise at WHT) but for the last couple of years my server has gone down frequently.

They do respond and get it back up quickly (within a few minutes), that's beside the point. And I really haven't had any other need to contact them. And I'm only paying $92/month, with included WHM/cPanel and being managed.

While I seriously hate to have to make a move [lots of databases, lots of files], I'm almost feeling it's about time, but don't want to have to go through it again.

[Chris]

I am with theplanet. But I use configserver.net for server management stuff. They're the third such company I've tried, and by far the best.

Agua, Cpanel makes upgrades both simple and automatic. You do it all from the web based control panel and its all point and click.

As for a book, I learned all the linux/unix I needed to know back in the day when many college computer classes used it as the in-class OS. I'm still learning today, its been gradual really. I have one book called "Linux system administration" but I haven't opened it in years. I also have a little quick reference command book, but ditto on that. and I have sitepoint's linux book, which I think I got for free because at the time I was staff. Really, nowadays you can find all the info you need online, so rather than buy a book maybe look for an online tutorial.

Now, really, you CAN use cpanel's web based interface for almost everything. But by becoming familiar with using the linux shell directly you will gain more power and flexibility. If cpanel crashes you can use it to go in and do a restart, if you have odd activity you can go in and manually check log files. You can use it to go in and use some repair commands on the raw mysql tables. I prefer the direct interface for things like cron jobs and backups too, but those can be done in cpanel.

Really, cpanel makes running a dedicated server much easier.

[BGray]

This is too easy of a call now: Amazon EC2

Assuming you can manage yourself around, nothing compares in terms of flexibility, scalability, reliability and price. It's bad ***.

[agua]

Thanks Chris - so it sounds like when you have a dedicated server with cpanel - you don't really need to know much about linux - so long as you get your server set up correctly in the beginning - Cool Thanks

[Chris]

This is too easy of a call now: Amazon EC2

Assuming you can manage yourself around, nothing compares in terms of flexibility, scalability, reliability and price. It's bad ***.

You should explain more how you use them. Don't they merely act as data storage?

[BGray]

No. They have storage (s3) and they have full fledged hosting (ec2) and it is killer. Cheap, flexible, scalable and reliable.

To this point Amazon has done a poor job of promoting it IMO but it's the future. There is a bit of a learning curve and it's pretty raw getting going but you can do whatever you want with the instances (servers) you create including a control panel install such as cpanel.

It's all here: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

[mobilebadboy]

It's all here: http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

After viewing that, I can understand why it hasn't taken off. I don't need (or want) pricing by the hour for this, per GB for this, per X for this, per Y for this. I want a company to say we have X server with Y features for Z price. Fancy, new terminology won't get my business.

Elastic Compute Cloud, Instance, what?

[Blue Cat Buxton]

After viewing that, I can understand why it hasn't taken off. I don't need (or want) pricing by the hour for this, per GB for this, per X for this, per Y for this. I want a company to say we have X server with Y features for Z price. Fancy, new terminology won't get my business.

Elastic Compute Cloud, Instance, what?

I would agree - Unless you have a lot of existing useage data, you have no way of telling if they would be competetive or not.