Hi All,

I am looking for a web host. I have read many good comments about HostRocket.com from this forum. I went HostRocket.com site, and found out that they only have 17 servers for shared hosting. They seem to be a bit small. Do you think the size of the company is an issue? Does the size of the company correlate to its survivability in this dot.com environment? Thanks for your imput!

17 servers for shared hosting is not "small." I'd say that's a pretty good size, considering I think they are the ones that stuff 256 accounts per server. Multiply that -- that's not small. Even if it's 100 accounts per server, that's 1700 total accounts. I wouldn't call them large, by far, but not small either. :) It takes a lot to manage 17 servers and at least 1700 accounts.

Thanks for the reply, Allera. From the way you put it, it is not that small.

Just a note there are servers out there that you can fit 10,000 accounts on if u feel like shelling out for the hardware for them... you cant necessarily say that putting 256 or any one number of accounts on one server is 'stuffing' it. It all depends on the combination of hardware and sites that use it, how much any one server can handle.

I also dont think you are going to find too many shared server hosts going under anytime soon, the market really is not bad at all. The companies going under are the ones who shelled out millions of other peoples dollars building 300k sq. ft. datacenters... its really mostly the big boys who are having troubles.

-Brendan

Originally posted by bbrader
Just a note there are servers out there that you can fit 10,000 accounts on if u feel like shelling out for the hardware for them... you cant necessarily say that putting 256 or any one number of accounts on one server is 'stuffing' it. It all depends on the combination of hardware and sites that use it, how much any one server can handle.
I really didn't mean "stuffing" in a bad way. It was just the first word that popped out of me at the time. I know of servers that host over 500 accounts and run just fine. I mentioned "256" because there is a company out there, and I'm not sure which, that puts 255 or so IPs on a single machine, then goes on to the next machine for another 255 or so. I could have sworn it was HostRocket, but perhaps it is someone else. :) It was merely an example that 17 servers is not small.

Oh ok :) I believe it is companies that run the spehra control panel that are limited to 254 IP's per machine...

-Brendan

***** does this. They drop a Class C on each box.

I also dont think you are going to find too many shared server hosts going under anytime soon, the market really is not bad at all.

I somewhat disagree. I think it is bad in that too many host start up with no business plan or understanding of business. They sell ridiculous packages for $12.00/yr with 20 GB's of transfer, then fold after a year. It is these host that cause customers to expect way too much, for far too little.

As far as the 17 web servers being small, I would take a guess nd say that out of the 18,000 host, that only 1 - 5% even have that many servers. Just a guess.