www.cwihosting.com (http://www.cwihosting.com) seems to be a great deal, their hosting plans are nice, and their website is easy to understand. The control pannel for site administration is great, so we signed up.
While we were mailing with questions before subscrption, we got answers, but once registrerd, the waiting time for getting an answer got longer...

First we noticed we could login with root privileges so we considered it normal and created our mySQL databases, but they probably noticed that, erased everything and reinstalled the server without prior warning so only THEY had root access (which should always have been so anyway). Of course they did it without warning or backup so we lost all our databases... Later they had a crash and we lost everything again... later they claimed to have been hacked and that's why nothing had been online for 72 hours, they also removed all our configuration so we had to redo it... later we couldn't login so we mailed for explanations and got a message with our new passwords. They didn't even think of sending the new passwords right away... no, they waited until we had to ask them why our passwords are refused. We still don't get why they had to chhange the passwords. By that time, all our users had been erased, no more POP accounts, only our administrator could login and had to recreate all users... no backup of course !

Today we have no more database, our site isn't up, and when up, PHP3 shows source code (including server passwords) instead of being executed on the server !!
All that happened during the past 3 months.
We are leaving CWI at once !
We have to find a GOOD host and fast, so has anyone found a really honest host we could trust ?

Don't waste your time telling us how great your services are.. I don't trust host managers anymore, I'd like the advice of some customers which have a hosted website and can say "I have found a good host".

thanks in advance,
Jones.

Mr Jones, Why post anon if you feel so pissed at the company?. let them know who you are.

Well anywayz recommended hosts : -
http://www.tera-byte.com - Fast Technical Support, Reliable stable servers, Cheap host with lots of features, You cannot go wrong with these guys.
http://www.ghoulnet.com - a UK based host prices are fairly cheap, You pay yearly on all accounts however but they do provided support if you get them during british working hours youll get an answer to your support question within an hour outside work hours upto 8 hours.

Those are the only real hosts i could recommend that use cobalt servers.

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Kind Regards
Edward Dalladay
Email - eddie@kchat.org or DjSy99@netscape.net
Web Address - http://www.kchat.org or http://www.flashtechnics.com

I'd like to get on Tera-Byte, but they use RaQ3's, which scares me. Though if anyone has some re-assuring words here, I may go with them.

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Adam "fibroptikl" Lysne
adam@motion5.com
Questions?
fibroptikl
73218345

The only big downside to a RaQ3 is that there is no backups. It comes with a built-in archiving type program, but you have to FTP the backup off of the server.

Also, if you run heavy CGI, it tends to bog down the RaQ3.


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Mike Astin
WebAuthorities
http://www.webauthorities.com

What do you wish for me to say to reassure you *lol*

I find that RAQ3's process cgi programs rather quick :-).

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Kind Regards
Edward Dalladay
Email - eddie@kchat.org or DjSy99@netscape.net
Web Address - http://www.kchat.org or http://www.flashtechnics.com

[This message has been edited by FlashTechnics (edited 08-01-2000).]

Eddie, RAQ3s process CGI scripts extremely well - to a point. Once you have a script (or two or three) running consecutively and doing hundreds of forks at the same time then the RAQ can't cope and bogs down badly.

As for Adam, you'll get plenty of re-assuring words about Tera-byte from a number of us (Chicken, me, Eddie, etc.) - they're awesome. You won't be disappointed.

(just as an aside, I had a few questions which I e-mailed Steve overnight - he's answered them at 7 a.m. American EST this morning (about an hour ago) and he's based in Edmonton (a few hours behind) - someone's working late! :D)

Maybe he just starts work early :P i remember what its like to run a hosting firm *xsigh* up early bed late. 3 or 4 hours sleep maximum lol. And i was only a freewebspace provider i'm wondering what im letting myself infor setting up as a paid host lol.

Originally posted by BC:
Eddie, RAQ3s process CGI scripts extremely well - to a point. Once you have a script (or two or three) running consecutively and doing hundreds of forks at the same time then the RAQ can't cope and bogs down badly.

As for Adam, you'll get plenty of re-assuring words about Tera-byte from a number of us (Chicken, me, Eddie, etc.) - they're awesome. You won't be disappointed.

(just as an aside, I had a few questions which I e-mailed Steve overnight - he's answered them at 7 a.m. American EST this morning (about an hour ago) and he's based in Edmonton (a few hours behind) - someone's working late! :D)



------------------
Kind Regards
Edward Dalladay
Email - eddie@kchat.org or DjSy99@netscape.net
Web Address - http://www.kchat.org or http://www.flashtechnics.com

I notice the RAQ's have only 128 Ram, wouldn't take much to bog that down, i got 256 in my home PC.

Tera-Byte's dedicated servers come with 1 single IP, and sells IP numbers at 30 for $10/month!!!

I guess all you hosts that have dedicated servers there don't use more than 1 IP number for all the clients?

Greg, have you not seen dedicated hosts offering IP's at +$2, $1, $0.50 per IP??? There are only a couple I can think of that either don't charge, or charge that little. It is only $0.33 per IP which isn't that unreasonable. I think you must have done the math wrong :)

Adam, the best thing I ever did was put my sites on a RaQ. I've offered space to you before, but I think you'd be better off there.

Chicken, when did you offer me space?

Though why would I be better off?

They seem to be fine for one or two of my sites.

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Adam "fibroptikl" Lysne
adam@motion5.com
Questions?
fibroptikl
73218345

They would be I think! I thought I had mentioned that I would be glad to host you a bunch a times, but you didn't seem interested?

You seem to like 1-2 hour support, which I don't offer (though neither do most hosts, heh).

I think you offered it to me once. When I first added you to my ICQ list.

Right now my Site5 e-mail DOES NOT work.
http://www.motion5.com/error.gif

That is the error I get.

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Adam "fibroptikl" Lysne
adam@motion5.com
Questions?
fibroptikl
73218345

I was thinking of Alabanza, everyone says they are super expensive, including you, but they give you 500 - 1000 IP's for no fee at all with every server. That's why i thought $0.33 each was alot, and that's per month too, not a flat fee.


So, at Alabanza you would spend $0 on IP's, and at tera-byte you spend $.33 x 1000 = $330 per month = $3960 per year, remember, alabanza costs $0 per year, and that's per server, so say you had 10 servers, that's a ton of money.


Originally posted by Chicken:
Greg, have you not seen dedicated hosts offering IP's at +$2, $1, $0.50 per IP??? There are only a couple I can think of that either don't charge, or charge that little. It is only $0.33 per IP which isn't that unreasonable. I think you must have done the math wrong :)

Adam, the best thing I ever did was put my sites on a RaQ. I've offered space to you before, but I think you'd be better off there.

I would like to address this post to clear the record. None of our servers at CWI Hosting were configured wrong or with open root access. CWI was in fact under attack, and the perpetrators have recently been pinpointed. We informed all customers possibly effected that we had detected suspicious activity.

In order to protect our customers, all passwords had to be changed, not to mention switching out the hard drives to have it checked out and leave no back doors for later attacks. What happened was a very rare case in our over 4 years of business hosting, and we took actions to keep it that way. Most effected customers applauded us for the swift action; and of course a few found the sudden password changes annoying. Please mind you that everyone’s data was restored by the most recent available backups, databases were also saved and available. Our staff worked around the clock till the crisis past, answering questions and concerns along the way.

If anyone has concerns, including the author of this topic, feel free to contact me. If anyone doubts that we put service and value first, please inform me, and I will arrange a complete risk free trial of our services myself. This way you can decide. Thank you for your time.

ceo@cwihosting.com

Yep Greg, you are correct there. Dialtone also does not charge for IPs as I am sure you know. There are quite a few small things that you have to figure in when considering the "cost" of a dedicated server. Obviusly just looking at the setup fee and the monthly is not the total picture.

You also mentioned about how a RaQ you were looking at only came with 128MB ram while your computer at home has 256. I believe that in a sense, this is comparing apples and oranges.

You can barely run a home computer off of 32 MB of ram these days, while a server with 32 MB of ram could serve up pages and handle many sites (that are non-cgi intensive). Not saying this would be ideal of course, nor recommended, just that this server could be 300x more functional than a home computer with 32MB ram. Get me?

Of course, I could be wrong and haven't exactly tried running a server with 32, so I am talking out my buttocks a bit. But I don't think I am wrong here.

if anyone knows differently PLEASE correct me and this post will be edited/deleted.

Side note: thinking of upgrading the ram just in case for my server currently (came with this much) running 64MB, and would like to up it before too many sites get on the server. Not sure of either 256, 512 ? Anyone with some experience with RaQs? Could you advise? I know this should be a new topic... ahhhh forget it- starting new topic, just look for it if you would...

*EDIT*
this is where I posted it: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000070.html
*/EDIT*

tangent tangent tangent

[This message has been edited by Chicken (edited 08-05-2000).]

Chicken, you are correct about the ram. Heck, I used a i486 with 20mb as a web server, and it worked fine.