Hello everyone!

1) How is it measured the "Uptime" claimed by hosting providers? Is it possible to verify it through some trustful 3rd party entity whether that claims are true or not?

2) Another different issue is the "Speed", i.e. how fast are the connections to the servers. How can we measure and verify the average connection speed, when evaluating a hosting solution?
What shall I ask for If I need an above the average speed?

Let's consider I have a page (including pics) with a total of 200 Kb, and 50,000 daily visitors, how fast can you serve that page to an average ADSL or Cable surfer?

1. Do yourself a PHP script :D

2. Ping test or test file.

3. Actually it depends on a lot of things

Hi :)

You can go to www.dnsstuff.com (http://www.dnsstuff.com) and do some tests there also. They have a host speed test available there. Its pretty nifty :D

Also, with regards to pinging a server to test for speed, you need to bear in mind that some hosts disable ping for security purposes.

additionally these tests are subject to the speed of your own internet connection. Many hosts also use monitoring services and they may allow you access to their monthly uptime report. However when reading uptime reports it is important to know how often the server/network is checked. Uptime checked every hour or half hour is not as accurate as uptime checked every 10 mins. Uptime checked every 30 mins or longer fails to record 90% of all downtime as most downtime does not last more than 10 mins.

In other words I would feel better about an uptime report with 5 outages lasting a total of 30 mins in one month that was checked every 10 mins than I would about a host with zero outages that was checked every hour or half hour.

Use alertra, it can do the uptime and gives a "rought" estimate of speed (latency anyway not necessarily bandwidth).

Here's the summary site for one server of mine to give you an idea:

http://uptime.alertra.com/uptime2?id2=1914&id1=113592