Okay, my shortlist of 8 hosts offering 15-20Gb plans has been narrowed down to the following, I'd really appreciate any help on picking the one to go with. If anyone has any experience with, or comments on, or feature warnings etc etc please post.

HAHOST (http://www.hahost.com/)
HOSTROCKET (http://www.hostrocket.com/v2/)
PALMVERSA (http://www.palmversa.com/) (wow that's cheap)
SMARTHOSTING (http://smarthosting.com/)
TERRABYTE (http://www.tera-byte.com/) (wow that's cheap)

Thanks!

Alistair

I've been using palmversa and I like them, good prices, great support, havent seen any down time. I liked the fact that they have a 30 day money back offer if you don't like them. you should also do a search on this board.

Thank you
Jason Miller:homer:

I have had pleasant experience with the folks at Tera-Byte, can't comment on the others.

I might advise you watch your bandwidth closely if you go with HAHOST since they charge $20/G/mnth bandwidth once you go over your allotment.

Originally posted by NyteOwl
I might advise you watch your bandwidth closely if you go with HAHOST since they charge $20/G/mnth bandwidth once you go over your allotment.
yikes :eek:

Very poor service right now. Trouble Tickets do not get attention. Lots of troubles and they delete the messages about the troubles from their forums so you wont know.

Here's why you shouldn't go with Hostrocket.com:

I just signed up with them, and specifically checked to see if they offered shared SSL. They did, and I signed up. That was my first mistake. The second mistake was thinking that I would get any kind of support. They have no phone number on their site, and all support has to be done via a support form. I posted a support request on 8/5 asking why SSL was not enabled. After a long wait (2 days?) they responded and said they would need part of my credit card number for verification that I was me, which seems silly, since I had to login with my username and password. I provided this right away, and then waited again. They responded with something like "we will have to move your account to another server. let us know if this is OK." I responded right away saying to do this. And then waited, and waited, and waited, and got ZERO response. I updated the ticket, requesting a status. Nothing. Updated again. No response. I opened a new ticket, asking for a status, and they closed it with no response. They have a forum, where most users go to ask questions of other members. I posted a message similar to many others that have been on there for weeks, asking if anyone else has had problems with unanswered trouble tickets. They deleted my post. I desperately opened another trouble ticket, thinking something was wrong with the system. They then closed my account. If you are looking for a hosting company with no support, you should definitely give these guys a look see. If you want your site to actually stay up and running, and get occasional support, I would highly recommend you look elsewhere.

Sadly, many hosts delete uncomplimentary threads from their forums (those that have forums). It is a good idea from a marketing standpoint but one is always left with the bad "taste" of what was being hidden.

I can see both sides of the deleting posts issue. It is good there are places like this to read the negative as well as the postive. For that host you can read http://sitepointforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30985&perpage=25&pagenumber=1 and see some of what they deleted.

HAHOST is a reseller of *****!! STAY AWAY!!! HostRocket is improving, they are moving to a new NOC, their own office building, and hiring more staff for phone support and for their support form.

Yep, hahost is a reseller of *****:

hahost.com trace:____________________
CIHS (NETBLK-PROPAGATION2)
1851 Central Drive Suite 110
Bedford, TX 76021
US

Netname: PROPAGATION2
Netblock: 63.249.128.0 - 63.249.255.254

Coordinator:
Center, Network Operations (NC61-ARIN) noc@*****.COM
888-868-9931 (FAX) 888-242-7554

Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

NS.*****.COM 216.221.162.81
NS2.*****.COM 216.221.162.111
___________________________________

They have a really nice site too... oh well.

Uhm.... hahost.com has a distinct resemblance to VERIO's web site...I sniff a stolen design. :erm: :eek2:

:rolleyes:

Yeah, I guess so. At least they changed it a little.

Some good feedback there, thanks alot. I can rule out HaHost then, and HostRocket. Shame about HR I think they probably will be a good host, but are going through a transition right now.

So that leaves me with

PALMVERSA (http://www.palmversa.com/) | SMARTHOSTING (http://smarthosting.com/) | TERRABYTE (http://www.tera-byte.com/)

with Palmversa being the only host that had any good feedback in the thread.

Thanks for the advice.

Alistair

El Nino - Hostrocket is not improving. They are saying they are going to improve. All of those things you list are not there now and the transition to a new NOC, new phone support and other things will introduce new variables and new failures in their way of doing support. Who will train new people? People who were doing support. Who will answer the phone? I can not see volunteering to be part of that fallout. Wait until you see if anyone answers that phone or if they do start to tell customers what is going on with their problem. Then maybe recommend them. Eventually they might improve but they are not there now and will not be soon. I got out of there. Happy to have saved on here from that.

I would really wander how long that transition time would be. I had problems with them many months ago and left - now I can see that I made the right decision. Less problem, more sleep! :-)

They have a major problem and if they do not straighten that out pretty quick they will ...:-) I wonder why they improved the packages to attract more customers? Haven't they noticed that extremely fast growth can kill companies one the fly?! What do you think the Telecom Industry is going thru? Wall Street was saying first "Don't worry about making money - growth is what we're looking for!!" Now it is them to call for "Income!! not growth" :-)

C

You considering reselling packages? If you are you are in a similar position to one of the options I am considering. I took a look at your 3 shortlisted and one thing springs to mind, go look at venturesonline's reseller program and check their prices out. Theyre one of the ones on my shortlist.

Christoph – I think for Hostrocket it is a problem with both growth and attitude. Over our time there we saw them go form a couple of servers to a couple handfuls and the support problems were the same. They were often short and unfriendly in their replies. They did not answer all requests for help and often the response time was very slow when they did. The response time and number of ignored requests for help grew in July and August for us until we could not keep our sites up at all. They never answered out trouble tickets. Some of the worst support I have had.