Badmovies.org Forum

Other Topics => Off Topic Discussion => Topic started by: Shadow on January 04, 2007, 02:10:15 AM



Title: Web Hosting
Post by: Shadow on January 04, 2007, 02:10:15 AM
I recently moved my site to a new webhost, but their uptime has turned out to be rather crappy. As I type this, I have been home from work for nearly 9 hours and my site has been down the entire time. This is not the first time it has happened. I am considering moving again. Does anyone have any suggestions for a reliable webhost?


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: Menard on January 04, 2007, 06:17:53 AM
I have not used them, as I presently use free hosting, but HostGator has been highly recommended to me as a paid host. Of course, I am interested to see what recommendations others have as well.


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: Andrew on January 04, 2007, 06:43:18 AM
I am with Knownhost.net, on a VPS (with added RAM) in the CA datacenter.  I have monitoring in place to watch for downtime.  I have had one downtime that lasted about 30 minutes, caused by a routing problem at the DC which they had already spotted and reported to the on-site techs when I submitted a trouble ticket (after about 15 minutes).

Knownhost also does shared and reseller hosting, so you do not have to go all the way to a VPS.

Used Hostgator for a number of years and they were very good.  I left them, because they use The Planet as their datacenter and it is blocked by the USMC firewall.  The reason is probably that there are many adult sites hosted at The Planet.  Knownhost does not accept adult sites.


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: ulthar on January 04, 2007, 09:58:28 AM
I run my servers for hosting**.  What kind of geek would I be otherwise?   :teddyr:

I have one commercial client on Bluehost, and I think the service has been pretty good so far.  The plan this client is on is pricey, but was built around e-commerce not simply hosting.  We went with them because they are one of the few BIG outfits that support Ruby on Rails.  It's a shared host running on a 4P Opteron system with 4 GB RAM, but we do have a dedicated IP address (you pay extra for that).

I will continue to recommend Bluehost for commercial use.  If you site is not a money making venture, I'm not sure how good a fit it would be, however (I have not researched that side).

**(Actually, running your own server is not that hard if you've got the bandwidth to support your load; it can be a real money-saver in the long term, or even money-maker if you want it to be.  A friend hosts a bunch of smallish, low traffic sites plus a bunch of email clients on one computer behind a cable connection.  The computer is not high-horsepower, either, it's probably 4-5 years old.  If you are realistic about your needs, you MIGHT find this a good fit).


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: Andrew on January 04, 2007, 11:34:15 AM
Ulthar, I am guessing that you mean Bluehost.org vice Bluehost.com?  I ask, because Bluehost.com appears to be a hideous overseller.  200 GB space and 2000 GB bandwidth for $6.95 a month.  Impossible, because those are the stats for a decent mid-range dedicated server (vice shared), which will run you around $200 to $250 a month if I have to guess.  A user would have their account terminated, for TOS, before they even hit a fraction of that usage.

Bluehost.org seems to have reasonable prices.

Badmovies.org ran on an old server in a friend's house for years.  He could get a 1.1 Mbps, unmetered, SDSL line where he was.  I finally moved it to a low end dedicated with Hostgator, because there are some nice benefits to being in a datacenter.  Backup power, backup connectivity, 24-hour staff, remote backup, etc.  Running a website off a line from your home is certainly a possibility.  It helps if you work or go to school close to home (or someone is always there if you need a reboot).  I would also always suggest having a remote backup plan, even if it is just writing the site to DVD or CD once a week and keeping that at a friend's house, desk at work, etc.

Always be careful of hosts that oversell.  Knownhost seems very good so far and their prices are reasonable.  I know that Dreamhost seems to have had some problems with overselling.  Hostgator has always seemed pretty good about not overselling.


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: ulthar on January 04, 2007, 12:55:42 PM
Ulthar, I am guessing that you mean Bluehost.org vice Bluehost.com?  I ask, because Bluehost.com appears to be a hideous overseller.  200 GB space and 2000 GB bandwidth for $6.95 a month.  Impossible, because those are the stats for a decent mid-range dedicated server (vice shared), which will run you around $200 to $250 a month if I have to guess.  A user would have their account terminated, for TOS, before they even hit a fraction of that usage.

I don't know...theymight be overselling, but it seems like they have the juice to back it up.  The box we are on is a quad opteron with a TON of disk space.   The 200 GB storage is no problem.  The current disk usage on the /home partition appears to be about 1/4 of that available.  RAM wise, the 4 GB seems to be holding up pretty good (little swap).  By my rudimentary measurements of actual serve times on our application, it should handle a skosh under 3 million GET requests per day - and... we are serving a lot of hi-res images of product offerings and tapping MySQL on every request.  We'll see probably about half that rate on our SSL pages.  It's extremely unlikely we'll ever hit that level of traffic.  Bluehost has a fairly solid reputation, so I don't think they've been terminating accounts for big usage.  They are only one of three 'recommended' sites for Rails, and iirc one of the three was not really recommended.

Also, they have (so far) very good service and have provided good support.   I've only noticed one lapse of service (since being with them in September) and that was yesterday morning when the name servers appeared to be down for about two hours.

Ask me in a year to see if the client is still happy with the service.

Edit: After doing some research via Google "bluehost overselling," one of the forum discussions I found made reference to the fact that Bluehost WILL provide the advertised service - if you use it.  In other words, technically they are overselling and count on the fact that most are not going to use the resources in the package.  But, if you DO happen to knock on the limits, they will add hardware, put you on a dedicated box if need be, to give what you are paying.  If this is true, that puts them outside the typical image of "overseller."  I've found no references of anyone getting dumped for using the resources they bought.

Like I said, ask me in a year...


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: Gerry on January 04, 2007, 12:58:50 PM
I've been with Coastland Tech (www.coastlandtech.com (http://http:www.coastlandtech.com) for 6 years and have been happy with their service and pricing.


Title: Re: Web Hosting
Post by: Shadow on January 05, 2007, 12:02:29 AM
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. My site was down for at least 15 hours yesterday and today, possibly even much higher. It was back up earlier today but now it is out again. I am really annoyed by this. :hatred: