Web hosting redux...
Posted by: canuckInOR
Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 04:34
Hi all,
I'm looking at web hosting providers. After searching the BBS, I basically came across a handful of candidates. I see that some of them are "powered by cPanel", which is a very nice looking control tool. However, after a bit of playing, I see that cPanel looks to Matt's Script Archive as a source of inspiration, rather than the stinking cesspool of shite code that it really is. Consequently, I'm a bit leery of any hosting provider that uses cPanel. I think that leaves Dreamhost.
Any other good recommendations that have sprung into existence since the last time this topic was aired?
The control-freak in me says I have to have full access -- ssh and the works (Dreamhost is good for this). The realist in me says good gosh, I don't need all those other features, nor that much storage or bandwidth (of course, perhaps I could use it for offsite backups).
Cheers,
Edit: Since I'm expecting low-bandwith usage, I'm even tempted to just use DynDNS's CustomDNS option to run things off a machine in my closet...
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 11:29
My old host had cPanel, I think. I hated that. I'm currently a big fan of Dreamhost, though many here are not, for some reason (and I admit that their newsletters are extremely off-putting and some of the oddest professional communications I've ever seen).
Others here like 1and1.
*edit*
Quote:
that much storage or bandwidth
I signed on during a brief period when they were giving 400GB of storage for whatever plan now has 200GB. I LOVE having that much space. I back up all my MP3s, photos, and other documents to my web space (among other places). And I still have a about 80% of my space free 
Posted by: hybrid8
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 12:18
I may just send all my MP3s and Digital Photos up to a private directory on Dreamhost...
Their support staff has been good at communicating once you get beyond the first message, which is often quick and may not really be exactly the solution you were looking for.
They have also been more stable recently, but fr a long time had severe mail issues that lasted for weeks at a time. The most recent issue caused slow outbound mail delivery for about 6 to 12 hours. At least one of the messages I sent didn't get out that day (but no warnings or other signes were produced - I luckily BCC myself on some of these).
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 16:20
Bruno - I think you may have been affected by the problems they were having a while ago. Have you attempted to read their newsletters? I tried once, and they talked about having serious problems for a while, but have since moved to a new facility, and have scaled back on the amount of space/bandwidth that they offer.
*edit*
I found a description of what their problems were:
http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/09/19/anatomy-of-a-disaster-part-2/
Posted by: canuckInOR
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 18:56
Any other issues besides the mail? I don't really plan to use the domain for email accounts.
My current thought is to register a domain with a CNAME record (via interNIC's directDNS for $5/year), pointing to my current dynDNS account. Although, looking at namecheap.com (which Rob recommended in another thread), they give you all that functionality for free when registering a domain.
So I guess now it boils down to... do I want to have continued payments of $10/month... hmm...
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/04/2007 20:32
Do you plan on having only one domain name? Dreamhost gives you one registration free, for as long as you host with them. At least they do for me...
Posted by: SuperQ
Re: Web hosting redux... - 03/04/2007 04:14
Not that I'm trying to be a corp-whore or anything, but you could try Google hosted applications :-)
The only thing that it doesn't do well is the web page hosting... the mail/chat/etc hosting is great tho.
Posted by: canuckInOR
Re: Web hosting redux... - 03/04/2007 15:04
Yup. One domain name. I've always been fine just using my dyndns subdomain in the past, but in this particular instance, I need something a little nicer.
Posted by: canuckInOR
Re: Web hosting redux... - 03/04/2007 15:20
Quote:
Not that I'm trying to be a corp-whore or anything, but you could try Google hosted applications :-)
The only thing that it doesn't do well is the web page hosting... the mail/chat/etc hosting is great tho.
Heh. I don't actually need any of the mail/chat/etc part -- all I want is the web page hosting.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 10/05/2007 20:41
I've started using DreamHost as more than just a place to backup my photos. I have to say it isn't going that smoothly.
On their support wiki they say that they aim to keep load averages below 3. This just doesn't appear to be true. The web server that I have been on regularly has load averages over 20 (seen it much higher than that as well), very rarely does it drop below 5. The result of this is that my Wordpress pages can often take 10-15 seconds to process, even with wp-cache turned on.
When I raised this with support they told me that the load on the server wasn't an issue. They ignore any comment I make that maybe they should update their "below 3" claim on the wiki.
This morning I had another big problem. All of a sudden all my websites had stopped working.
After a bit of digging I realised what had happened. They had moved me from one web server to another without warning. I host the DNS for my domains, so my websites were all pointed at the IP address of the server I was on before.
There was no warning (or even notification after the event) of this move. The support people I am talking to don't seem to see that this is a big problem.
So now I have to go an update the DNS for all my domains and change all my rsync backup scripts to point to the new server (and setup my ssh keys again).
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 10/05/2007 20:47
And I've noticed that my crontab got binned during the move as well.
Apparently there is supposed to be an automated message before a move, which isn't working.
Posted by: canuckInOR
Re: Web hosting redux... - 10/05/2007 21:12
Quote:
I've started using DreamHost as more than just a place to backup my photos. I have to say it isn't going that smoothly.
Ugh. Well, if it's any consolation, they're not getting any of my money -- I ended up going with the box-in-my-closet solution.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 06:36
Quote:
Ugh. Well, if it's any consolation, they're not getting any of my money -- I ended up going with the box-in-my-closet solution.
These domains that failed today were moved from a box-in-my-friend-closet solution to Dreamhosts because the DSL line that they were connected via was proving to be unreliable...
Posted by: Roger
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 09:30
Quote:
These domains that failed today were moved from a box-in-my-friend-closet solution to Dreamhosts because the DSL line that they were connected via was proving to be unreliable...
I moved my domains to a VPS at Spry (they also do shared hosting and dedicated physical boxes). I've had no problem with them.
Posted by: music
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 14:46
I'm a little puzzled that DreamHost keeps getting mentioned here so much.
I looked into it a few months ago solely because people here kept mentioning it.
I was, uh, not to put too fine a point on it, "sorely non-plussed".
From my point of view it seems they have a long legacy of vast incompetence and total disregard for their customers.
They like to frequently write up long memos about "here's what happened, but it wasn't really our fault, and it was just a one-time thing, and nothing like this will ever happen again" until the next "one-time thing" happens -- usually within a month or two.
I mean, come on! Until just a few months ago they didn't even have the default directory permissions set up right. Any user could poke around in other users' directories and grab their database passwords, etc. Yet you feel secure, because they offer you the charade of letting you use secure ftp and ssh.
Right....
Let's be honest here. These guys have been around for a decade. And if they STILL don't have their stuff together, then it just ain't gonna happen.
That being said, I have never been a DreamHost customer, so this is just rampant speculation on my part.
But THAT being said, it's scary enough speculation that I seriously doubt I will ever BE a DreamHost customer.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 14:49
Their unique selling point for me is their vast storage space for almost no money. That was why I started using them, purely as a place to back up 60GB of photos etc
That they also offer web hosting to me is a bonus. I wouldn't really recommend them for web hosting unless it really didn't matter if the websites were available or not.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 14:51
I'm confused. If you've never been a Dreamhost customer, how do you know about all these problems they've been having? I can't speak to the security aspect, which is something that concerns me a little, but as for the service they provide I haven't had any problems. Sometimes it seems a little slow, but that's mostly my internet connection at work.
*edit*
And what Andy said...
Posted by: hybrid8
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 15:38
We haven't had availability problems with our site at Dreamhost, but it's not something that's going to be hit by thousands of people every minute. A few thousand in a day has been no problem though.
Bigger issues come with mail. I've written about it a few times before. SMTP and POP servers going down all the time for at least a month. Now mail connection issues just happen infrequently. But mail, both outgoing and incoming is still being lost. I can't tell how much of it though. The most recent manifestation ended just last week when I noticed that mail generated by our own contact form wasn't always being delivered. Sometimes I'd get the debug log version of the message but not the proper message itself. I have a logging procedure in place to help with fighting spam atttacks. And other times I'd get a BOUNCE back from my own mail server saying that I had reached some SENDER QUOTA. They got back to my support request and claimed there was some misconfiguration on their end and it was now fixed. This took 2 weeks though.
The thought of moving the site right now makes my skin crawl though. Custom PHP installation, a hand full of SQL databases and a large selection of files, most of which are html and php and don't rely on any server-specific paths. Still more than I wan to think about for now.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 15:48
Every ISP/host I haver ever let look after my email has let me down in the end. I have run my own email for years now, I don't trust anyone else with it.
Posted by: music
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 17:44
Quote:
I'm confused. If you've never been a Dreamhost customer, how do you know about all these problems they've been having?
As I said, my knowledge is purely second-hand and should be weighted as such.
Here is how I gathered my knowledge about these problems:
- Their own blog and website -- which makes them look:
- like unprofessional buffoons,
- quite dismissive of user questions, and
- unresponsive to user problems.
- Several "Hosting Provider Reviews" websites.
- Various message boards where people post their good and bad experiences with various providers. You can find horror stories about any hosting provider. But the Dreamhost ones seemed particularly poignant and painful.
But to be honest, #1 alone would have kept me away from them.
As far as big, cheap space goes, GoDaddy offers 100GB for about $6/month
and a 99.9% uptime guarantee -- assuming you don't object to their advertising approach, or their occasional heavy-handed knee-jerk DNS takedowns whenever people complain about your content. (Again not personal experience; I just read about it in the papers.)
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 17:57
I do agree with you about how they present themselves. I tend to read most of their newsletters simply out of disbelief that this is actually a real business.
I will say that I don't trust host review sites anymore. I used one of those to find my previous web host, and was informed that paying $90 a year for 200MB was a really great deal. Back then I wasn't aware of how to shop for hosts, and that review site didn't help any.
Anyway, I defer to the other posters as to the quality of their service. I also don't use them for email, except for unimportant accounts that get forwarded to my Gmail address.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 18:05
Quote:
a 99.9% uptime guarantee
Just FYI, that's over eight hours of downtime a year.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 18:10
And it is only a network uptime guarantee, which means it doesn't cover server uptime.
Posted by: hybrid8
Re: Web hosting redux... - 11/05/2007 20:22
How about the issue I'm gaving now...
People who have never contacted me before can do so through a form on the web. Because spammers were trying to abuse the form I implemented some logging after my last round of security tuning. As an aside, all spam through that channel is now 100% gone.
The logging is in the form of an email that gets sent to our support2007 address containing details about the real contact email (it's headers, user's IP, etc..). Both the log email and proper email are sent in the same way with the same mail command only a few lines apart in the same script. The server the PHP is running on is Dreamhost's and the mailboxes are also at Dreamhost.
Over the past few weeks I will receive the log message but won't receive the real contact message. This doesn't always happen, but has happened enough that it's been a real nuissance. A couple of times neither message has come through - this I know because someone wrote a second time to ask why I hadn't replied to the first message.
I suppose it's due time I create a log FILE on disk at the server rather than a second email which can also be hosed. It wasn't an issue before since outgoing and incoming mail wasn't the issue I was trying to log.
Posted by: music
Re: Web hosting redux... - 12/05/2007 19:22
Quote:
Quote:
a 99.9% uptime guarantee
Just FYI, that's over eight hours of downtime a year.
Dreamhost has had more downtime than that on a single weekend.
So, yeah, only eight hours downtime per year would be "dreamy" for some.
And 40 minutes a month is probably OK for me and for most "recreational" users.
If you want to get the 4th or 5th nine in your reliability, I believe you are now edging out of the realm of sub-ten-dollar per month hosting!
A serious enterprise should expect to pay more substantial costs for serious enterprise level reliability.
Though, many(most) of you know this area far better than I -- and will correct me if I am totally off-base on that assumption.
But cheap peons such as myself still deserve some courtesy and not to have their site down one day every month for <insert-bogus-reason>. But fifteen minutes a week probably won't kill me, especially if it is during off-peak hours.
Quote:
andym: And it is only a network uptime guarantee, which means it doesn't cover server uptime.
According to GoDaddy's legal mumbo jumbo, it's both somewhat better than that, and oh so very much worse.
I.e., they do guarantee that your website is accessible, but they specifically don't guarantee email or ftp.
Go Daddy offers a service uptime guarantee for the Services of 99.9% ("Service Uptime") of available time. If Go Daddy fails to maintain this level of service availability, You may contact Go Daddy and request a credit of 5% of Your monthly hosting fee from Go Daddy for that month. The credit may be used only for the purchase of further products and services from Go Daddy , and is exclusive of any applicable taxes. The credit does not apply to service interruptions caused by (i) periodic scheduled maintenance or repairs that Go Daddy may undertake from time to time; (ii) errors caused by You from custom scripting or coding; (iii) outages that do not affect the appearance of the web site but merely affect access to the web site such as FTP and email; (iv) causes beyond the control of Go Daddy or that are not reasonably foreseeable by Go Daddy ; and (v) outages related to the reliability of certain programming environments. Total Service Uptime shall be solely determined by Go Daddy and shall be calculated on a monthly basis.
And if they "fail to provide" the 99.9%, your only compensation is a 5% credit on that month's hosting fee. Woo-hoo, 30 cents!
So, yes, uptime guarantees are pretty much nonsense at the low end of the market.
So you kind of have to go on track record.
And since GoDaddy is now one of the top few largest hosting providers in the world (believe it or not), if (or rather, when) they have a major outage, you WILL hear about it.
Now reverting to our previously scheduled question, here is what I'm looking for in a hosting provider and have yet to find, unfortunately. 
Do any of you know of anyone that meets the following requirements?
- Less than $10/month, preferably less than $5.
- 100 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth.
- 99.9% uptime
- host unlimited domains and subdomains from one account
- hundreds of email accounts and email forwards
- at least a dozen MySQL databases
- PHP4,PHP5, Perl CGI, Java, Python, eventually PHP6
- Apache configured to look at local .htaccess files
- Apache should have an up-to-date and extensive set of modules
- Should suck less than Dreamhost in terms of security and reliability.
- ssh/sftp/rsync and cronjobs, and preferably complete shell access
Go Daddy fails to provide the last bullet. And that's a rather important bullet, in my opinion!
But so far, everyone else I've found that satisfies that criterion, fails on one of the others.
Help! 
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/10/2007 23:31
So, have any of you guys found a good hosting solution? I'm going on my 3rd year of service with Dreamhost, and I'm starting to tire of the myriad problems. I can deal with the occasional downtime, as my sites aren't mission-critical, but the last straw is the notice they recently sent out to their customers saying that we can't use the storage space for network backup purposes. Why allow all that space if you can't use it for anything? (The real answer, of course, is they don't intend to actually allow you to use all of that space.)
The things I absolutely need are Apache, PHP5, a decent amount of space (my current DreamHost disk usage is 12GB) and ssh access. A really flexible control panel with custom DNS config, etc. would also be nice. Anyone have anything they're happy with that fits these requirements?
Posted by: robricc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/10/2007 23:49
I currently run a site with
Bluehost.com. I bought it mainly to throw large files up there, but I'm not really pushing the limits at this time. At one time, I had 90GB on there as a backup of some of my FLACs. My cable modem upstream made this difficult to set up/maintain, but I didn't really try anything fancy like rsync. I was just syncing with WinSCP.
I briefly played with a Gallery2 installation on there, but doing a mass resize would spike my CPU usage enough to shut my site down for 10 minutes each time as a penalty. I heard that this limit has been raised, but I haven't tested again. Normal usage of Gallery2 seemed to operate fine.
SSH required me to send some personal info, IIRC. I'm not sure why I agreed to that, but my access was granted promptly.
Overall, I'm happy with the price and storage but I would never use them for anything critical.
Posted by: RobotCaleb
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 01:03
Quote:
... but the last straw is the notice they recently sent out to their customers saying that we can't use the storage space for network backup purposes. Why allow all that space if you can't use it for anything? (The real answer, of course, is they don't intend to actually allow you to use all of that space.)
Strange. I didn't receive that. Could you forward it on?
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 01:32
Er, actually, it wasn't an email, but it was posted to their status page:
http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/10/17/policy-clarification-personal-storage-back-ups/Something tells me that if someone was actually using their site to serve the amount of data they give you with their plans, they wouldn't exactly allow it. Network backup is an obvious benefit of Dreamhost, and, at this point, the only one, now that my $10/year pricing has expired and I'm on the hook for $10/mo.
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 02:01
From an online review I found of BlueHost:
Quote:
BlueHost doesn't allow SSH/Shell Access by default, but says it will enable shell access for your account if you fax a copy of your driver's license, passport, etc. to them.
Aieeee, no sale. Driver's license? Passport? You've got to be kidding. Why could they possibly need this? I don't suggest they're doing anything nefarious with it, but really, we're talking about getting ssh access, which is just another network service you can connect on and do the same things you can do otherwise.
The rest of their package sounds great, but something about sending a hosting company a copy of my driver's license rubs me the wrong way. Anyone have any other suggestions?
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 10:29
Quote:
Er, actually, it wasn't an email, but it was posted to their status page:
http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/10/17/policy-clarification-personal-storage-back-ups/
Something tells me that if someone was actually using their site to serve the amount of data they give you with their plans, they wouldn't exactly allow it. Network backup is an obvious benefit of Dreamhost, and, at this point, the only one, now that my $10/year pricing has expired and I'm on the hook for $10/mo.
Well, until they send me a notice, I'm not even going to begin to worry.
That's pretty much all I use Dreamhost for anymore. I back up my photos, music, etc. What else am I going to do with over 560GB?
Posted by: mlord
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 12:06
These guys look really good to me. No first hand experience with them, though:
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 12:47
Wow, that looks great. The prices for disk and bandwidth are unbelievable. I just hope they're sustainable as they grow.
Mostly positive reviews here:
http://hostingfu.com/article/nearlyfreespeech-net-2-weeks-reviewLack of cron jobs and no support for Gallery (need to use php "safe mode") are the missing pieces, but I think these guys could at least be useful for network backup until those things are addressed.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 12:57
I fear they aren't for me, though they do look good. Using them as I do Dreamhosts (50GB of photos etc) would be very expensive, it would be cheaper to colocate my own server somewhere.
Posted by: tman
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 12:58
Quote:
Something tells me that if someone was actually using their site to serve the amount of data they give you with their plans, they wouldn't exactly allow it. Network backup is an obvious benefit of Dreamhost, and, at this point, the only one, now that my $10/year pricing has expired and I'm on the hook for $10/mo.
Why web hosting is a gamble
Quote:
We both offer crazy deals (5TB a month for $7.95 / just pull this lever and get $1,000,000!) that seemingly should put us out of business in an instant.. and yet, thanks again to that Law of Large Numbers we both are perfectly safe from that ever happening.
And yet, nobody gets their Internets all in a bunch, posting “Ha, The Venetian is such a scam… no way can they offer double your money just because the ball lands on BLACK!” all over the coolest industry’s forums.
Somehow, people can easily grok that not everybody wins in a casino; and yet they can’t seem to grasp that not everybody uses 5TB a month. Even though there are a lot more of the former than the latter, this fact seems to elude the general populace. And it kind of sucks for PR!
Quote:
It’s just serendipity, baby, that the biggest bandwidth and disk sucks on this wide world of webs are pretty much all copyrighted material and illegal porn. We also have a much easier time than casinos in spotting the offenders (we use “computers”) … which means we have the luxury of only cracking down on the illegals.
They don't expect you to use up your allocation and if you do, then you must be hosting porn, movies or music...
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 23/10/2007 14:33
The problem is that when someone does win by betting on black at the casino, they don't tell them that they are not allowed to collect their winnings.
Either you're allowed to use the space they've said you can or you can't. If you can't then they're lying to you. If they need to reduce that amount, that's understandable. But telling you a lie about how much you can use is not.
Posted by: Roger
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 06:40
Quote:
Either you're allowed to use the space they've said you can or you can't. If you can't then they're lying to you.
To this point, I've not seen anything that shows they're lying. They're gambling that not everyone is going to use the full 5TB allocation, but they're not preventing them from using it.
If everyone does use it, then they're going to have to buy some more storage, and incur the costs associated with managing that. But, odds are that most people won't be using anything like that much.
They've said that when people do use more than expected, they can investigate, and it usually turns out that it is copyrighted content, and so they can (presumably) legally turf them out and get that space back.
Where this gets sticky is when you're using that space for backing up your PC, which seems fair enough. But, I guarantee that a whole bunch of your stuff could be considered copyrighted (MP3s, ripped DVDs, etc.). Can you prove that you're not using their space to share that with other people?
As an analogue in the real world, consider (unmetered) water supply. The water company guarantees to provide you with as much water as you want: just turn on the tap. However, if everyone turned on the tap at the same time, and left them on all day, we'd soon run out of fresh water...
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 08:00
The problem I have is that they changed the rules and they are trying to pretend they haven't. When I signed up all it said was the account was primarily for hosting websites, which is what I primaryily bought it for. Coincidentally it also served as a handy offsite backup location.
Now they have changed the rules to have an explicit ban on backups and are claiming that they haven't changed the rules.
I went through all this nonsense with broadband ISPs and their unlimited accounts. They would also start out with terms and conditions that really were unlimited and as soon as people actually started using the bandwidth they started changing the terms and conditions. Plusnet got to the point where they were changing them every couple of months, not telling the customers and still claiming that the contract between them and the customer hadn't changed
Posted by: tman
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 09:10
Quote:
I went through all this nonsense with broadband ISPs and their unlimited accounts. They would also start out with terms and conditions that really were unlimited and as soon as people actually started using the bandwidth they started changing the terms and conditions. Plusnet got to the point where they were changing them every couple of months, not telling the customers and still claiming that the contract between them and the customer hadn't changed
Orange have an "unlimited" 3G data plan which is actually limited to 30MB a month. I can easily rack up over 1MB a day just downloading emails and whatnot.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 09:44
Quote:
Orange have an "unlimited" 3G data plan which is actually limited to 30MB a month. I can easily rack up over 1MB a day just downloading emails and whatnot.
I know, I'm on it
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 12:34
Quote:
To this point, I've not seen anything that shows they're lying.
Okay, fair enough. They've just changed their contract so that things that used to be allowed now aren't. I understand their point of view, and I understand the concept of oversubscription, but they really should have taken this sort of thing into account to begin with.
Quote:
As an analogue in the real world, consider (unmetered) water supply.
Do Brits have unmetered water?
Posted by: tman
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 12:48
Quote:
Quote:
As an analogue in the real world, consider (unmetered) water supply.
Do Brits have unmetered water?
Sort of. Newer houses tend to have metered water but older places will be unmetered. If you don't use much then it can be cheaper to convert from unmetered to metered but you can't change back later on if you don't like it.
Posted by: Roger
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 12:56
Quote:
Do Brits have unmetered water?
As tman says, older houses tend to be unmetered, newer ones metered. We recently got our house converted to metered (it's cheaper that way), but it wasn't available for Jen's flat (not enough space around the water main inlet).
If you have unmetered water, you just pay a flat monthly/quarterly/yearly fee for fresh water. I think everyone pays a flat fee for sewerage.
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 24/10/2007 17:18
Well, after playing around with my nearlyfreespeech.net account, I've crossed them off the list. Their pricing model is fantastic, but the features just aren't there. They have significant restrictions on what you can do with the shell account, everything must run in PHP's "Safe mode" so things like Gallery are right out, and they state that the ssh account should only be used for things directly relate to the hosted sites, so it would seem rsync backup would be frowned upon and eventually lead to a nastygram.
It's a shame, because I really like their philosophy and business model. I just wish they had another higher pricing tier that gave you legitimate ssh access and less restricted PHP hosting.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 25/10/2007 11:53
Quote:
Wow, that looks great. The prices for disk and bandwidth are unbelievable. I just hope they're sustainable as they grow.
I don't see how those prices are good at all. Maybe if you're just putting 100MB up there, sure, but if you use that service for storage, the prices get ridiculous. I'm using 30GB of my allotted 560GB on Dreamhost, and 30GB on that service would cost $350 per month, instead of the $380 I paid for two years.
Here's what I recall about Dreamhost: at one point they went a little crazy, and decided to offer double the storage and bandwidth they had been advertising, and they applied this to everyone who was already signed up in addition to new people. They quickly realized that they couldn't support this, and consequently went through a couple months of very poor service (which is, I believe, the period that most of the people here were complaining about). Since then, they cut back on what they were offering to new people, but they let the people they had upgraded (me, for example) keep the new plan. I went from ~220GB to ~440GB of storage. That was cool.
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 25/10/2007 15:30
Yeah,.for some reason when I read the pricing I read megabyte-month as gigabyte-month. Obviously that's not sustainable. $0.01 per megabyte-month would not be good with the 12GB I currently have on my Dreamhost account.
Then again, if Dreamhost does crack down on backups as they say they're going to, I will have to find something else eventually.
I also think you're understating the case of how bad Dreamhost's service has been in the last year or so. I'd say the service went from below average to extremely sucky and back to below average in terms of web server load averages and availability. The storage and bandwidth can't be beat, assuming they let you use them all, but the servers are WAAAY overloaded and that's before you hit CPU throttling.
[
[email protected]:~/tonyc.org]
uptime
10:29:20 up 3 days, 21:48, 6 users, load average: 54.77, 46.33, 31.39
Yowza! That's pretty typical, not just a spike.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 13:05
How about an online service specifically geared towards backups, like
Mozy,
MediaMax, or
Xdrive?
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 13:18
Last time I looked all the dedicated backup services didn't have Linux clients and that is where most of my data is now. Sure I could probably mount the Linux drive over the network on a Window box, but it isn't ideal (and some of the dedicated backup services don't backup network drives).
The other issue is with the dedicated backup services that is all you can do, backup. With something like Dreamhost I can backup all my photos to there and then I can also serve the files over the web*.
At some point I need to get my own dedicated hosted server, I guess this Dreamhosts change will be another push towards it.
* doing this might make me escape the new Dreamhost terms, who knows ? I have 60GB of data on Dreamhosts, so I guess I'll be one of the first to find out how they actually police it.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 16:49
Linux: a good point. Anyone have any experience with
JungleDisk? It uses Amazon's S3 service for 15˘ per GB-month (plus some
other fees) and presents it as WebDAV, which Linux can mount via DAVfs.
Posted by: tman
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 16:56
Quote:
Linux: a good point. Anyone have any experience with JungleDisk? It uses Amazon's S3 service for 15˘ per GB-month (plus some other fees) and presents it as WebDAV, which Linux can mount via DAVfs.
Maximum per file is 5GB according to Amazon.
Posted by: wfaulk
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 17:06
And you have individual files over 5GB that you need to back up?
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 21:46
Quote:
And you have individual files over 5GB that you need to back up?
I do, several. They are mostly VMWare/Virtual PC hard disks. I also have some databases bigger than 5GB (customer databases that I need for testing).
Posted by: tman
Re: Web hosting redux... - 26/10/2007 21:58
I've got a couple DVD images that are > 5GB like my friends wedding video.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 01/11/2007 20:16
So, has anyone found any Dreamhost alternatives? I'm...kind of in need of one now. Long story, but now they are my least favorite company on the planet. I'm in pretty immediate need of a new host.
Does anyone have experience with at least domain registration on GoDaddy? I at least need my domains transferred ASAP, so I can get some of my email addresses back up and running quickly.
*edit*
Scratch that request: I really like the looks of Bluehost. At the moment, it seems like I can get a little more than half the disk space that Dreamhost provided, which is still a large amount of space, but I get MUCH greater peace of mind. Their 24-hour free phone support has sold me on their company.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 01/11/2007 20:40
Quote:
From an online review I found of BlueHost:
Quote:
BlueHost doesn't allow SSH/Shell Access by default, but says it will enable shell access for your account if you fax a copy of your driver's license, passport, etc. to them.
Aieeee, no sale. Driver's license? Passport? You've got to be kidding. Why could they possibly need this? I don't suggest they're doing anything nefarious with it, but really, we're talking about getting ssh access, which is just another network service you can connect on and do the same things you can do otherwise.
The rest of their package sounds great, but something about sending a hosting company a copy of my driver's license rubs me the wrong way. Anyone have any other suggestions?
It looks like that review might have been a little out of date. From the looks of it, SSH is now available by default, at least according to their features list.
Posted by: RobotCaleb
Re: Web hosting redux... - 01/11/2007 21:24
Could you perhaps make your short long story less short?
I'd like to know what they did, as I'm hosting stuff with them.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 02/11/2007 00:12
Quote:
Could you perhaps make your short long story less short?
I'd like to know what they did, as I'm hosting stuff with them.
Well, as long as you don't lose your cool like I did, you'll be fine. I sent a few too many emails to their tech support and they banned me for spamming. It was stupid, but after five hours without a single response to my urgent request (with call-back request) regarding non-functioning email addresses that I'd used on four resumes I sent out this morning, I was not in the happiest of moods.
Toss into the middle of this a generalized response (to everyone having problems today) that discounted my original ticket but didn't solve it, and I was one pissed customer.
They have since gone back on their ban (after chastising me a bit), but I told them I've already moved on to a company that I can get in touch with. Bluehost has a 24 hour support line, complete with constant voice prompts indicating your place in the queue. I was in front of my computer for four hours straight today, just hoping for someone to respond to my basic query. If I had been with Bluehost, at the very least I would have known how long it would be before they responded to me. With Dreamhost it seemed that my request was off in a void somewhere, and it was up to their whims as to whether they'd respond.
Like I said, I think I'm getting half the storage space for the money, but the rest is going to peace of mind.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 04/02/2008 04:09
Just a quick update, Bluehost recently upgraded their accounts in a similar manner to Dreamhost.
They now offer 1.5TB of disk space and 15TB/month for bandwidth. I've been very happy with them, my sites are served faster, and I
really like the 24 hour in-country phone support.
Posted by: robricc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 08/02/2008 18:25
Yahoo Web Hosting has an "unlimited" plan for $12 per month now. I'm sure there are some limits to what you can do, and they're probably not very friendly if you use it as massive file server.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/hosting3.php
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 08/02/2008 18:36
Looks good, but there's one problem: you can only use one domain name. It's not clear on the site, but I called them up to confirm.
That eliminates it as a possibility for me. I have about six domains hosted on my site right now, with four or five more in the future. Plus it's almost twice as expensive as my host.
Posted by: robricc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 12:43
Just a quick update, Bluehost recently upgraded their accounts in a similar manner to Dreamhost.
They now offer 1.5TB of disk space and 15TB/month for bandwidth. I've been very happy with them, my sites are served faster, and I
really like the 24 hour in-country phone support.
Just a word of warning. Bluehost recently suspended my account for hosting a 700MB CD image of the Rio Central software. This was the entirety of the suspension email:
Dear Rob:
Your web hosting account for robricc.com has been deactivated (reason: terms of service violation).
Although your web site has been disabled, your data may still be available.
If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact customer support as
soon as possible.
Thank you,
BlueHost.Com Support
http://www.bluehost.comFor support go to
http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/Toll-Free: (888) 401-4678
No mention of why, no trouble ticket opened. It took 2 days to be able to get at my data, and then another day after that to get the site back live.
I still don't know if their objection to my hosting of the CD was because of space/bandwidth or a potential copyright violation. Anyway, I'm done with them. There's no point in paying for gobs of space that's unusable.
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 12:56
There's no point in paying for gobs of space that's unusable.
Yeah, that's pretty much the same as the Dreamhost scam, though they seem to be letting me slide (for now) on my rsync backups. I still would like to find something more cost-effective, and was hoping the Bluehost experiment would work out for you guys, but the weird "send us your driver's license for SSH access" was keeping me away. With this news, I think I'll stay away.
Where are you headed next, post-Bluehost?
Posted by: robricc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 13:41
Where are you headed next, post-Bluehost?
I only used Bluehost as an experiment and was actually with them for almost a year now without incident.
I run a bit of a hosting company myself by buying a reseller account with
Dathorn and then cutting-up the space and bandwidth into a bunch of 500MB, 1GB, 2GB, or 5GB accounts. Clients that make up one tenth of my space usage pretty-much pay for my monthly cost of $200 for 60GB of space.
I don't absolutely love Dathorn, but in over 3 years I really can't complain with the service. Any problems are handled/resolved quickly and professionally. Boxes are not oversold, and are upgraded regularly.
I would love to find a cheap host with massive space that doesn't oversell, place heavy restrictions on CPU time, and has professional support, but it's not going to happen right now.
Posted by: Dignan
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 14:50
Wow, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm a little surprised, too.
It looks like Blue/Dreamhost both have the problem that they will suspend your account without warning, which is completely absurd and unnecessary. I know it's in their terms of service that they can do it that suddenly, but why do they need to? Why not send a warning email and at least give the person a day or two to "make it right" or at least straighten it out over the phone.
I have two positive things to say about your situation: at least with Bluehost, you can get in touch with someone immediately via phone. When Dreamhost cut off my account, they were completely unreachable and emails went unanswered for a day or two. Also, with Dreamhost, they didn't just temporarily disable my account, they dropped the bomb and eliminated me as a customer. It took quite a bit of pleading to get them to put my data back long enough for me to download it all and backup my databases. ...I despise Dreamhost
Anyway, I'm doing well with Bluehost so far. I'll be sure to update this thread if the same thing happens to me.
Posted by: andy
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 15:07
Yeah, that's pretty much the same as the Dreamhost scam, though they seem to be letting me slide (for now) on my rsync backups.
Same here, I am still hosting 60GB of rsync backups with them.
Posted by: hybrid8
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 15:30
Rob, have you looked at Media Temple? I'm considering them for running a dozen or more web sites under my one account. I've got some 4 sites or so running in my Dreamhost account right now without a problem. The sites other than my own are extremely low bandwidth and storage.
Posted by: robricc
Re: Web hosting redux... - 22/02/2008 16:01
Wow, Media Temple is pretty impressive looking. I will have to check them out some more. It's cheap enough to run my service with Dathorn side-by-side for a while so I can determine how reliable they are.