I've been reading through a lot of these forums and threads. I'm 'with' Bluehill.com (BHCom.com) and have been for almost 3 years. I ran out of server space on my 'virtual' server and have spent 2 weeks looking for a good host. I'm not particularly unhappy with BlueHill - but for more disk space they wanted $$$$$.

I just set up with GSP (GSP.com). A nice little outfit. Everything was set up and ready to go in less than 2 hours and - monitoring the server with TOP - the server appears to be well balanced and the cpu and memory don't appear to be over taxed. I'm putting some files for download on the GSP server for paying members while maintaining my BlueHill account for mail and the 'regular' site files, UltimateBBS, etc. The price is cheaper than BlueHill and I may switch everything over (taking the 800 meg 'C' virtual server deal - I have the little 100 meg 'A' server) in the next month. I do want to monitor them for a while.

I'm writing this for anyone looking for a virtual server as opposed to a virtual host (like the behemoth ***** which everyone here loves to hate sells). This way you can access and change config files and the whole works. This was the cheapest place I've found for a virtual server. I'm not ready for the 'Big Dog' dedicated yet. Although I did talk to the folks at RackShack about their US$99 special. I would have done it, but I just keep up my own site and I'm not yet in the experiene league - I chickened out. I want to be monitored as well, so a virtual fits the bill for me.

If anything untold happens, I'll be back to complain here.

Marc Smith
16949.com

Nope - I don't work for GSP and it's not my wife's brother's company. I found them on about page 20 something of an Altavista search for "unix virtual server" or something, as I remember. This is my first post because I've been lurking and really - searches in the forums provided all the info I needed for most of the companies I was curious about. Ther's a lot of knowledgeable folks who post and help here - my kudos to you.

I'm adding this as an edit. I do want to say there are some people really down on *****. Almost to the point of it being funny - like republicans on Clinton. That said, I should add that despite all the warnings from everyone here, their disk space and list of 'features' attracted me and I figured it would be worth a US$100 'experiment'. I spoke with a fella there and then went through the web signup for a 'virtual host' account. It was online in a flash. I logged on and played around a bit and found I really wanted the root access of a virtual server so that I could customize and such. They have a 30 day money back guarantee. Their site had a 'cancel account' form and I canceled it. I received an e-mail confirmation this morning (I signed on with them yesterday afternoon and a few hours later canceled). I got the cancellation acknowledgement e-mail sometime in mid-morning. And in about 3 weeks when my VISA bill comes I'll find out if I was charged or how that plays out. So far my 'experience' with their systems has been positive. But - you never know. Everyone there may wear pirate hats. I don't know.

Well, let us know how it works out for you.
And welcome here.;)

Originally posted by AnIdiot
Well, let us know how it works out for you.
And welcome here.;) Yeah - I'm bookmarked here and will be stopping by. I've read a lot of posts here in the last week. I've got a 1" stack of printouts and I've been dreaming: *****! Burst.net! RackShack! HostPro! Superb Internet! Communitech! Turbowebs! QWK.net! Site5.com! Blueberry Hill! I've got 'facts' and promises from a heck of a lot of 'em.

And again, I do appreciate this site as well as all the posters. With the search feature, one can really dig out some good info here. I learned one heck of a lot over the last few weeks. It's been almost 3 years since I had to look for a new host. What a pain. That said, BlueHill has been very good. Just expensive. The jump was from US$100 a month for 400 megs to US$260 a month for 800 megs. Well, I really need about 600 megs. 800 would be a luxury. GSP has the exact same setup as BlueHill but they're only about US$170 a month for 800 megs. Vitrual servers are a bit light on the disk space per dollar than virtual hosts. But - like I say - it's 'not quite' a 'monitored dedicated', but it's close.

Originally posted by Cayman


GSP has the exact same setup as BlueHill but they're only about US$170 a month for 800 megs. Vitrual servers are a bit light on the disk space per dollar than virtual hosts. But - like I say - it's 'not quite' a 'monitored dedicated', but it's close.

Both companies are Iserver/Verio resellers. I find Iserver/Verio to be very fast and reliable. Well worth the extra money.

-Mike

-> Both companies are Iserver/Verio resellers. I find
-> Iserver/Verio to be very fast and reliable. Well worth
-> the extra money.

I assumed Bluehill was a Verio sub as my traceroutes always show Verio on that end. Bluehill has, all in all, provided good service. In the year before I got the Bluehill account I went through 3 hosts. It was a nighmare year. I remember One.net in Cincinnati and Erinet in Dayton, Ohio were two stinkers back then.

GSP apears to be quite small, but I figured they're worth a try. I'll find out quick enough if I made a dumb-and-dumber choice. I've made plenty of stupid decisions in my life. I'm sure I still have a few screw-up's left in me.

Now ERI.NET was bought by Voyager, so am guessing it is even worse now than 3 years ago.

I'm basing that on my experience with Voyager (now CoreComm).
We used another southern Ohio host that used to be great until Voyager bought them
around the same time they bought ERI.

Good luck with GSP. We had problems when Verio bought our old
CA based host 3 years ago. Service plummeted. Billing was screwed
up for months. But maybe a reseller gets better service than a small
customer and can then provide better service.

As I said, I've been with BlueHill going on 3 years. The only 'real' problem I have had with them was last winter when they switched me to one of their new servers. It was hell for about 2 weeks and then not good for about 3 months. The server was overloaded and/or not balanced / tuned. Really bogging down. I run UltimateBB and it was S-L-O-W. I finally yelled and screamed REAL loud and they switched me to another server (or so they said). All has been good since then. But - none of the problems I had with BlueHill have been related to Verio s far as I can tell. Traceroutes to my server are always pretty good - the Verio hops are typically around 40 to 80 ms. The hops on Broadwing to Verio typically run 15 to 35 ms. Before I bitched at BlueHill I always do traces to make sure it's 'not a network thing'.

I've heard many 'bad' things about Verio. I can't say one way or the other other than my experience through BlueHill which all in all has been very good.

I never followed what happened to eri.net. I know they didn't know too much about servers. The folks at One.net were real tight a--es who hid 'conditions' in some real fine print opn a web page that was buried deep in the bowels of their site (I left them 6 weeks after signing on).