How realistic is the offer $7.95 per month for
1000 mb disc and 20 gb transfer ?

ie is it realistic to expect 99.5 + % uptime, good speed, 24 x 7 support ? any other features to look for ? any presales questions or any litmus test ?

i say becoz of these offers and still not much review in these boards -

mesopia.com - premium package
doteasy.com - ultra package
infinology.com - premium package ( 9 gb + 50 gb !! but ??lots of ifs )
worldwebhosters.com - professional plus

does long or short years of their stay in business affect this realisticity ??

If its just a personal website. I'd say got for it.

If its a mission critical business website, go with a provider with a 99.9% uptime SLA.

20 GB for 7.95 doesn't sound too unrealistic.

Just my two cents. :)

hia --- thankx

Some hosts do sell high amounts of bandwidth for a low cost because they are betting that most clients will only use a mere fraction of it since these types of sites tend to be low bandwidth, eg. personal sites.

You should also ask the potential host what the 24/7 support is? It's unlikely to be phone support, so is that e-mail support or a chat function that is perhaps outsourced to an area like India.

outsourced to an area like India. ???

Many hosts offer large amounts of space and bandwidth for a very low price to attract more customers. They usually think that most customers would onyl use very little of the space and bandwidth. Ask the host how their support goes and if they have a money back gurauntee or trial periods. You can always try it out and if you arent satisfied, you can get a refund.

overselling like mad. You may try them out since it won't cost you must trying out.

Originally posted by sona
outsourced to an area like India. ???

Even outsourced to India, doesn't make the hardware any less expensive, only the labour.

You can still only fit a finite number of accounts on a single machine and handing away those resources ( 1000 MB disc and 20 GB transfer) at $7.95 isn't going to pay for the hardware and infrastructure unless a bit of overselling is taking place.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers
Jeff

I'm paying 9.95 for 500 mb of space and 20 gb of bandwidth with my host and they have been great! So I guess it is possible to offer such plans as those prices.

Cheers,
Richie

Perhaps they haven't oversold... "yet"

It's impossible to say... would it be possible now? Maybe, but as the host grows the math starts to get worse. Newer/Smaller hosts have a tendency to start out with REALLY low pricing, to get customers. A lot of times they will then increase prices or force the "cheap" accounts to upgrade.
I've always said, go with a respected host that's pricing isn't that low, then you won't have to worry about whether that deal is good.

Also, watch out for uptime "guarantees" that refer to their entire network. If the guarantee doesn't refer to the server you are on, it's useless in my opinion. You're site could be down for a while, but as long as their other servers were running fine, they wouldn't violate their guarantee.

richie - -- who is ur host ?

Realistically as far as bandwidth goes, with lower pricing, it is possible. End of the day, most sites never go near 20GB anyway. However there's always the problem of CPU resources and such. Due to the lower pricing, there's a need to overload it with more sites, and that can cause more problems in future.

This is probably not the best guage.... but just for comparison sake, our 7.95 plan for example is giving 100mb and 3gb bandwidth. That's the level we are comfortable with. As for the hosts you listed, you can do a search here and find if any of them have a history you wouldn't want to associate with. I can imagine some of those would throw up negative threads.

Due to the lower pricing, there's a need to overload it with more sites, and that can cause more problems in future.

Yep, that's correct. Think long term. You can get allmost everything for nothing but that would not be a good idea. :)

John

lets see...rackshack offers servers with 700GB bw and at least 40GB space all for 99$/month...

99/7.95=12.45 about 13 accounts @ 7.95 to recoup the cost.
700/13=53.8 == 53 GB bandwidth for each account.
Space? I think it is obvious there will be at least 1 GB of space for each account...

so is it possible? easily.

unfortunately, that's the kind of calculations many hosts-in-the-bedroom does. Nothing but server cost, only to discover that the returns are not worth their time or sitting in front of the computer providing support, and neither does it leave room for any additional investment or growth, and certainly celeries are not my idea of a server.

But if you notice there is lots of room for more than minimum per server using my calculations. So that is where your other costs would be fit in.

and based on those offerings, either

1. Your server gets overloaded.
2. You still don't make enough money.

unfortunately, that's the kind of calculations many hosts-in-the-bedroom does. Nothing but server cost, only to discover that the returns are not worth their time or sitting in front of the computer providing support, and neither does it leave room for any additional investment or growth, and certainly celeries are not my idea of a server.

I strongly agree with that. You shouldn't base price setting on server costs alone. There are other costs to be covered, than the cost of a machine, if you run a business. Man I experience that right now! So many things can happen. I don't want to list my personal experiences here though. So be wise and base price setting on more than just the server cost.

John