Ok, just like a few others... i saw the hype around gearhost, i investigated, was intrigued and joined... but I didn't just move my msg board or a sample site... this is my main community site.. as I said in the previous thread... i would return and provide me feedback about my implementation experiences... here's my review... and my url is at the end:

Here are my existing stats to give you an idea about the traffic on my site...

NT + MS SQL and ColdFusion
3500 sessions/day
2+mill hits/month
13,000 pageview/day
Msg Board - DCFORUM - only post messages in the "TEST" area to test response..

Support: B+ (Hosting companies rarely get an A... but these guyz have been helpful despite the absence of their control panel and some initial config issues... but all were resolved within 24hrz... but the best was when I called after 10pm and a technical NT rep answered the phone who fixed my prob... instead of just a brainless body... Everyone knows that if you have a NT virtual account... you can only pray for good support... There was only one time that someone didn't answer the phone ... but who does at 2am...

Packages: A (again... the "flavour of the month" is good so far... packages are great... my price is locked in... can't complain about that....

Service: A- (Real friendly people over there that alwayz get back to you... I only hope that this can be maintained a year from now... hopefully I will be on a dedicated UNIX box by then... their account creation was quick/smooth... would only recommend a better formatted welcome letter with more content... but that's just formatting...)

Suggestions/Frustrations:Don't give no release date for iControl or Unix accounts... take your time, cuz you might disappoint people with possible delays. Knowledge base should be on a DB backend... not HTM files. Remove bad links ASAP.
Include Dedicated server info ASAP. Create support forum for users. I have to be honest and say the only frustration was my CF setup which was quickly resolved... but if you are setting up a new account w/ ColdFusion... ensure that you request your SQL DSN and CF DSN at the same time... hmm.. what else... navigating their site with an old browser IE 5.0 was a challenge (had JS errors... but they cleaned most of it up)

Here's my extra two centz:

I don't mean to knock anyone but I have read a few posting and SOME (not ALL) posts are about people emailing for support or submitting a ticket request and not getting replies. This is not the
place for you to get your problem resolved... People, read the fine print... it says to submit a ticket and call them after 24hourz if no response.

Also, some common sense has to be used. GEARHOST is obviously
getting alot of requests... hmmmmmm... so it obviously might take more than 24hours to get back to you...

Remember be smart about transferring your domains... give yourself atleast 2 weeks to test and get through the initial support/configuration issues... and then make your decision to stay or go...

but if your original account is being cancelled within 48hours and you need a host ASAP... forget about the phrase "smooth transition"... and that applies to any new host...

I dunno... that's my two cents... if I offend some... oh well... here's my URL http://www.islandmix.com - feel free to look around... give me some feedback if you like...

p.s. Hey... i have been with the worst and best of them... we'll see how this goes... hopefully my Dedicated server
will be hosted with them in the future... the following might be editted... the only thing I can say is if my site performance and convinces you to make the switch.. then you could use me as a referrer when you sign up... hehehe... i should benefit somehow for taking the plunge... am I happy?? For sure... so far so good... all my testing has been good...and I will closely monitor the site this week as my users go on it...


SpiceMan
IslandMix.com

Will come back in a month after a do a large promotion even after Feb.13th... when my stats will spike... hope they handle it ok...pls note: IslandMix.com is in know way affiliated to gearhost... just sharing my experience... besides... b4 GearHost I was with Communitech... yep... been with the worst of em... said I was taking up too many resources... LOL!! we all heard that before...


For reference... the initial thread...

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=32401

SpiceMan-
I appreciate your candidness in your post. Yes, we are extremely busy right now working around the clock on getting iControl and other things configured let alone support requests. We are working on our site as well since we are changing it to be DB driven thus the broken links to the .html files and such.

I'm glad everything is working out ... let us know if anything becomes an issue. We've also implemented some of your suggestions to Josh the other day as well ;) regarding your initial CF config questions.

Good too here, now i have someplace to recommend leads too... keep up the good work gear host.

I just signed up with them recently. As many users have already said, aside from some minor setup problems and broken links on the website, there have been no problems for me. I have had an excellent experience with the support team who answered my questions thoroughly. The support ticket had a short delay but after I called them, everything was resolved in a matter of minutes.
The packages offer great value IMHO. I think that gearhost is definitely a great option.

Hrmm, they got CF working on your account? I signed up on the 24th and had no CF. I submitted a ticket on the 25th - I thought I was being a nice customer by waiting patiently for it to be fixed but I guess I better e-mail them or submit another ticket or something :) (I'm in Australia so calling them isn't an option)

I have posted about GearHost before and now that all my sites in the LotR Fanatics Network are transferred I can tell you my experiences. My sites and stats:

www.lordotrings.com
www.lordoftheringsshop.com
www.lotrplaza.com (will link to dedicated server in waiting of DNS transfer. You are free to browse around but I have deactived account creation for two days to work out some things with the current memberbase)

10-15K visitors/day
1-2 GB transfer/day
4M pageviews/month
for all sites in the LotR Network on a dedicated server

I have had my share of hosting misery and since may 2001 I have set up a total of 7 accounts at 4 different companies and 3,5 weeks ago I finally went for my own server at GearHost and if things stay as they are I will probably stay there forever. Ryan and the other guys at GearHost have helped me to transfer each site and I have been on the phone with them for I think an average of 15 minutes/day for the last 10 days. Their support went so far that they even helped me to correct the scripts in the Forum code of the Plaza which is hardly the responsibility of a hosting company (and don't start calling them up expecting such services.... ) Their dedication to get me back up again has been almost touching. I think I have been a hosting company's nightmare with all kinds of issues, questions and problems and not once did they turn my requests down or tell me to find professional help. Now that I am all set up I am going to give them a rest of my constant calling and can only advise everybody to try them out as I have had exactly 0 bad experiences with them and I cannot imagine anyone having other stories (besides the iControl is late/incomplete and where are the Unix plans issues, give them some time...)

Also, I have been calling from the Netherlands and have reached them almost everytime so try it from Australia and who knows.....

Thanks for the post Philip, it was fun ... let me know how things roll out ;). I guess we should remove the custom filter for CF accounts because of the problems heh ;)? I'll look into your issues catharsis, could be the same as the others which is a simple fix.

I too have switched one of my domains, specializedpc.net, over to GearHost. I originally had the domain setup as a sub of another account to save some cash. It's a new company that until recently, couldn't afford all the nice things :D

Then, upon recommendation, I setup an account with Saturn Services. Mistake. Outside of them taking my money and then doing nothing else, they were useless. I just switched today to GearHost and will also monitor everything. My site still directs to Saturns servers but once the DNS changes, it will finally be on a host that seems to have everything working great. I plan to switch another domain shortly if everything works out well. Plus for that domain, I'm waiting on the Unix servers.

Originally posted by ryank
I guess we should remove the custom filter for CF accounts because of the problems heh ;)? I'll look into your issues catharsis, could be the same as the others which is a simple fix.

Thanks for your interest, ryank. I don't expect to get support on these boards, but if you want to look into it, my account name is 'cfgeek'. I can't find an email address in your support section anywhere - is there an alternate way to contact someone when tickets are left open and/or unresolved? Obviously I'd like to avoid expensive international calls.

<<Please feel free to PM your host as an alternative, rather than posting to the forums>>

Bad for me :

I have many times email gearhost support and no reply untill now.
Phone :??, thats very expensive from here.

It's been a week since I registered with them and had no good experience so far,,,

The first problem of me is that I couldn't login to my account for the first 3 days just after the registration.
I contacted them wi th issue, not bad supports but quite slow response. (As many people suggested, it's always good idea to call them rather than email, but am not able to do because of the costs and time differences.)

Then, now I'm having DNS modification problem,, I confirmed with my domain registerar that my domain was pointed at Gearhost's name servers but it doesn't work at all.

fortunately, my site is not started yet, but I can't use my email and this costs me a lot.

As far as I read this forum, I am the only person who has problems with them,,, Am I just unlucky?


:bawling:

I have been looking around at affordable NT hosting lately and Gearhost is looking pretty good. I have been wondering onr about them. Where are there servers located and what is there network infrastructure like? Who are they buying bandwidth from?

-Joe

I transfered a domain and am building a second domain on GearHost. I got caught in the glitch a week or so ago that caused both accounts to not get created peoperly.

I waited a couple of days and then called (and natually spoke with Ryan). The accounts were corrected within the hour. Ryan followed up with a call and an e-mail letting me know things were working. He also gave me some free time on both accounts.

I later figured out the DNS records were incorrect and FrontPage extentsions were not installed. I submitted support tickets and all were resolved in less than 30 minutes.

I have nothing but praise for them at this point. Keep up the good work.

Jim

++++++++++++
I submitted support tickets and all were resolved in less than 30 minutes.

+++++++++

Less than 30 minutes ???!!, thats good.
I have been wait for all this day, and no response !!!

I thing Gearhost is not fully 24 hours to support customer !!, or may be not everyday to check the email !

If this is no response one day again, perhaps I have to find other hosting that provide CF.

I think I am not the one that wait the Gearhost response email :::

For Ryan :

If you still around here please response all this thread complain, or you will lost your client ....and the respect.

Erda,

I'm sorry support hasn't gotten back to. Could you please email your request to ryan@gearhost.com. Not to excuse us or anything but we are answering a lot of requests and if your ticket is not an account issue but rather a question there is more latency in the reply.

The issue regarding my domain modification was worked out.
It's been in an hour since I opened ticket manager and now everything's working pretty well.

May be because I also sent a message to Ryank so that he looked after my issue or they just worked quickly to solve my problem,,, not sure but the fact is that my problem is now solved with great support unlike before.

Erda,
Hope you get some support from them.

Takalien

Finally, GearHost send me an email........, I hope they can improve the support.
Thanks Ryan, keep your support.

I have used Gearhost for the last couple of months and have spoke to Ryan on a few occasions personally.

I have nothing but good things to say about them.

___________________
Keith

I have been with Gearhost since the end of December 2001. I also had problems with the initial setup of my account. I emailed Support after I found out and got a response within the hour. They also setup my account to use 3 domains, one pointed.

In the weeks since signing up with them, I've had numerous questions and requests. All were taken of in a reasonable amount of time. The shortest wait for a response to a trouble ticket was 20 minutes and the longest 24 hours. I really have no complaints, but then my sites are small compared to others. Also, I have called their 800 number to ask a billing question and was able to speak with someone after 3 rings. :D