With respect to Unix/Linux/Apache/cobaltraq and shared /virtual hosting
and with respect to this shortlist I will obliged if existing users of these services can throw some light on the below-mentioned points FROM THEIR practical day to day use and experience:

www.tera-byte.com
www.valuablehost.com
www.aletiahosting.com
www.palmversa.com
www.nuke.to
www.aphosting.com

[common ground I chose- all offer reasonably good amount of bandwidth at less than $9 per month - monthly budget not exceeding the cut-off of $10 - and also charge of excess bandwidth is reasonable ]



HOW FAST AND UPTIME
===========================

% of uptime ( THIS INCLUDES REDUNDANCY)

connectivity( how fast) -T3 or OC 12

hardware - what machine ( p3, harddrive and** HOW MANY accounts on it)

{{ for example - dellz say higher the $ I pay lesser the no.of accounts on a shared server}}
=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================

OWN NOC OR NOT
==============

how many years in business - how reliable the noc is if a 3rdpart noc

{{ for example - terabyte assures that it is their own noc}}

=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================


BANDWIDTH AND CPU /SYS RESOURCES
=================================

[A]i) IS WHAT I SEE on admin/control panel is what I pay for
{{ tera-byte says NO , valuablehost says YES to this question }}

ii)if exceeded [a]do you email me to offer the next higher plan
[b]straightway charge my cc
[c]the account is shut for rest of month
[d] daily throttle limit
[e] do 100 mbs extra in a month accumulate till they become 1gb or
payment has to be made straightway for that month ?

[B] what percentage of sys resources I am allowed to use
=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================


SITE MONITORING
==================

Is it compatible with internetseer or qwkmon.net
{{ the last two sites listed on valuable host client list are never found by qwkmon.net}}


=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================


SUPPORT - HOW SPECIFIC AND HOW FAST ( DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER IT IS FORUM OR EMAIL)
===============
...
=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================


ONLINE BILLING/ACCOUNT INFO
=============================
........
change of email add,res add,cc nos thru member area
do they send a copy of billing by email

=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================


### FEATURES ###
================
CRON JOBS ALLOWED OR NOT ( if they allow do they allow everyminute cronjobs)
UNLIMITED or limited subdomains ( not wildcards)
free MX change
Https
cpanel allows mime-naming acc to my choice
individual IP ?
perl - all modules/modules on request/compatible with IB and IB allowed
php 4 - gd libraries /comatible with VBB and VBB allowed
MySQL - how many ?
access - FTP, telnet ,shell

how many megs of space - price of extra megs

some extras : real audio video,WML, any free chat rooms {{ eg nuke.to offers 2 free chat rooms }}



=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================

MONEY MATTERS
==============
monthly/yearly/ or something like 11 year contracts {{ we enter your cc for 11 years but you may discontinue anytime}}

price -

setup free
pricefreeze
price/excess bnd


=============================================================================================
=============================================================================================

Asking for opinions from members about past experiences with these hosts is fine, however the last part (the majority) fo your questions seem to be something that should be directly mailed. Hosts will not be able to answer these questions here.

I have some experience with valuablehost, but not enough to answer all your questions.
I can tell you, I have been quite pleased with their service thus far.
Any support issues are promptly addressed and with satisfaction.
Server speed has never been a problem. And I like the ensim control panel features.
I wish I could tell you more, but I can't. :rolleyes:

I signed up with aphosting.com about a week ago, and have great response with support takes around 4 hours max to get an answer. They don't own their own nic but the current server I'm on is hosted on vdi's network, and lastnight I moved a 300mb file for a site backup to the new account and it took around 4 minutes for complete transfer.

On my account I got my own IP, cpanel, php4, mysql, ftp, and ssh, which as I remember is standard for all linux accounts. I don't have https, but I'm sure if you ask they will setup your cert for free, they made all of my domain changes and even install perl and apache modules I needed for my site.


Andy said that if my site happens to use over the 12gig aloted to me, that he'll just bill me for the cost of the bandwidth which is 3.50 a gig. I've looked around the server, and since its a new server its not loaded at all.

I have to say, after being burnt by a few other hosts, which will remain nameless, I'm impressed....

Hi,

Venture online is very good, and reliable. Best of all great support. Sorry you didn't ask for VO but I thought their services should be mentioned. Best support I experienced(not much experience =Þ)

Aletia Hosting is great !

I've been with them for 2 months and very please with their support (via e-mail and AIM).

Their hosting features are great, too. There's only 1 thing that I'm looking for but they don't have : JSP & Servlets. They told me that they will install Tomcat but I'm still waiting...

I RECOMMEND ALETIA !

Is www.palmversa.com a reseller of www.atomhost.com ?

Does any one has experiences with AtomHost ?

Thanks everyone for the helpful response. I do wish I can hear more from you. Sorry Chicken - the last part about price is useless to post here - I should not have done that. Also the features part could have been excluded. What I was more interested in knowing perhaps is

## how fast my clients get to see my site and how much uptime thru'out the year ( not just 2 or 3 months experience)

## how the hosts deal with bandwidth issue
importantly this part
IS IT WHAT I SEE on admin/control panel is what I pay for
{{ tera-byte says NO , valuablehost says YES to this question }}

## whether they own their noc/has been stably in business 4 the past few years

## also most hosts dont answer directly how many accounts on a server or how much sys resources I am allowed - so the direct users will be able to tell better ( a few supposedly have the experience of their acc.s stopped on the excuse of excessive use of sys.rsrs)

## also theoritically all hosts allow perl and php - however those who are using will be able to tell better whether this is suitable 4 running VBB or IKonboard , and related things like every-minute cron job

Thanks all - anyone with more experience eg 1 year or more if can help or trow some light will be appreciated a lot. :)

for tera-byte, you can go to https://ssl.tera-byte.com/bandwidth/ to check your real bandwidth usage

www.nuke.to on their website says they are in Asia. I'd be a little sceptical about that. Also, www.aphosting.com just started this month so hopfully they won't run into any bugs or stuff like that.

Originally posted by tlik
Is www.palmversa.com a reseller of www.atomhost.com ?

Does any one has experiences with AtomHost ?

We do NOT resell for noone. :D

Well it depends on the type of machines the hosts are using. Some hosts use low end machines like celeron 700 and 256 ram, therefore they can't put as much users in a single box vice versa to host that run on P3 1000 mhz and 1000 MB of ram can hold alot more.

As far as the bandwidth issue.... Hosts operating with CPanel would most likely charge you by the amount of bandwidth stated in the control panel. TeraByte uses the Cobalt Raq Panel and thats why they don't charge what you see in the panel.

Most little webhosting providers often lease or rent their servers from NOCs. Tera-Byte, Worldcom owns their own noc. Some hosts don't neccesarily own their noc because they just have a Cabinet or suite of servers in that building.... Companies like Verio Datacenters own the NOC and rent out suites.

As for many users per machine and how the resources are shared... Its very hard to say. By default on most dedicated servers(this may be food for though for people running vBulletin), max mysql connections are limited to 500 shared between all the users. So for the people getting too many connection errors, its time to tell your host to put the limit higher. Most hosts stuff many users in one machine until it causes problems but I believe 120-200 users max per machine is acceptable and move high resource consuming users to another machine to balance server load.

Hope this helps.

-Andy

Here's my take on some of your questions....

Originally posted by randolf
## how the hosts deal with bandwidth issue
importantly this part
IS IT WHAT I SEE on admin/control panel is what I pay for
{{ tera-byte says NO , valuablehost says YES to this question }}

As someone mentioned, tera has a place for you to see stats on this. This has been a hot topic here recently. My opinion on this is that the control panel should be used as a guide, but it seems no control panel directly measures and reports all transfer, and thus isn't accurate 100%. Nature of the beast.

## whether they own their noc/has been stably in business 4 the past few years

The only one on the list that runs the NOC themselves is tera, but I don't feel that is much of an issue. Most things are handled remotely and so long as the server is in a decent NOC (with decent support for the host should they need a hard reboot, etc.), then all should be well.

## also most hosts dont answer directly how many accounts on a server or how much sys resources I am allowed - so the direct users will be able to tell better ( a few supposedly have the experience of their acc.s stopped on the excuse of excessive use of sys.rsrs)

It isn't an excuse, it is a good thing. Hosts have to do this, no matter what host you choose. Now, one thing I can see that might affect this is the server itself. If you are placed on a dual PIII 1.7 then the percent of server resources allowed will be higher than if you are placed on a RaQ4. I'm also fairly certain there is no exact formula, meaning that there isn't one way to determine whether a site has gone over the limit of acceptable resources, and thus it may depend on what resource. Could be processes, SQL connections, etc.

As for how many sites on a machine, that is really useless measurement of anything. It doesn't matter. Too many other factors weigh in there to make a flat amount (number) of sites per server useful. A dual PIII 1.7 with 2 gigs of ram could have 5 really, really busy sites on it and be overwhelmed, while a RaQ3 could have 200 small sites on it and be doing fine. You'd want to be the 201st site on the RaQ3, not the 6th site on the PIII 1.7 in this case.

Just a few things to consider...

Its your advantage if your host charge bandwidth by the panel... Some panels only measure httpd traffic. :D

Thanks again for all the response. I spend quite a lot of time whole day to read the details provided in the sites.

Dear Chicken,

You have written
"As someone mentioned, tera has a place for you to see stats on this. "
However I found on the site it is clearly stated billing stats are different - there is no way to know actual usgae in real time - the link provided by creepcolony is an email link - how many times I can email a host in a week or a month over a year - that is not fair !! they must be responding emails manually.:(
I did find a thread in valuable host forum which confirms that what is shown on panel is what is to be paid for.

Dear Synergy,
You have written that
I"ts your advantage if your host charge bandwidth by the panel"
I fully agree and I am wanting that only.

Re Mysql connections - I have seen quite a few times connection error messages on various sites
"max mysql connections are limited to 500 " - does it mean 500 simultaneuos users ( SORRY I AM RATHER NEWBIE TO SQL) - how many simultaneous users can be there then to my site on a shared account ? 20 ? 50 ? more ? If the value can be ^^ why it is not kept ^^ so that there are no connection error messages ?
And just curious how many users aphosting will allow ?

_________________________

Re sys resources - I found that in small print some sites do state a % which is the cut off value - my site if exceeding that gets shut off.

"As for how many sites on a machine that is really useless measurement of anything" - thats so true - however if sys resources are fixed at certain values/per site , then the assurance that "x" number of sites per machine of "xyz" configuration can have some meaning. ?? .


Thanks a lot :)

500 Users at this point... I only have 5 accounts on the server and no one is using mysql.... I will raise the limit if needed and after I upgraded more RAM (when time comes that is, current specs are p3 1000 with 512 MB of ram with CPanel if you wanted to know)...

Its like allowing 500 connections at a time for the whole server (concurrent connections). You get that error because on ur current host, I assume most of the users hosted are using vBulletin. How much bandwidth do you use per month anyways? All hosts give a reasonable amount of bandwidth for you to spend :)

-Andy

Well for load measuring... some host measure by how many accounts per server... Some wait till the server crashes then they find out you cant hold no more. :D

Other hosts monitor it by server load...

Whats good server speed to me is:

1) keep the server load under 3.00... anything higher can cause speed problems.

2)Once memory usage level reachs 70%... Its time to upgrade.

Randolf, a host should always have 2 servers so that they can balance load between servers.

For Example

1)SuperServer A : p3 866 / 256 RAM: 150 clients and is getting slow

2)Mini Server B: Celeron 500 / 128 RAM: Unoccupied or a couple of clients.

The host should let some resource consuming sites have a option to move to server B to balance the load until another SuperServerC comes up and moving sites from server to server have no downtime and your host can do it for you within minutes.

-Andy

Thanks a lot Synergy --- one thing beats me -- are U able to make good profit with just 5 accounts ??