Hi Guys! (2nd attempt at posting this, first time my post was cleared because included a smiley lol)


Anyways, i joined dreamhost yesterday, and found out about the cpu limits today. d'oh

My site has a low number of visitors right now 195718hits (400 uniques) a month - and is totally PHP/SQL/PHPBB driven

Im hoping that because my site is not that well known right now, the cpu limit wont do anything for a few months. -- i have submited my site to directorys, so i am trying to get it popular.

My question is, do i leave dreamhost now, before i even start uploading, and go with a host reccomended by one of you guys.

Or do i stay with dreamhosts high bandwidth large storage aslong as i can, then hopefully get a VPN?

My site is a games/videos/flash CMS, which is about 6gb. - the reason i chose DH was because of their high limits - i just wish i knew about the CPU usage. thing.

I dont really have much more then $9 a month right now (one of the reasons i went with DH), but im hoping that when its popular, it will pay for itself through advertising.

I cannot remember how much cpu usage they give you, but do you think its enough to get a site popular, running, and going, and basicly making enough to get a new host.

Sorry about the long confusing post - there are questions mixed in their somewhere.

Thanks very much to anyone who reads it and offers advice.

Regards.

well I think your main concern is what you stated:
My site is a games/videos/flash CMS, which is about 6gb. - the reason i chose DH was because of their high limits - i just wish i knew about the CPU usage. thing.

I dont really have much more then $9 a month right now (one of the reasons i went with DH), but im hoping that when its popular, it will pay for itself through advertising.

You talking files size total of 6Gb on the server, assume your visitors download/use half a percent of that "usage" each...you talking alot of bandwidth
((6 Gb * (.5%)) * 400) * 30 = 360 gigabits
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%28%286Gb+*+.5%25+%29+*400%29+*30+in+Gb&btnG=Search

With a budget of $10.00 your are going to be limited...but you really just need an idea of what your bandwidth usages really are.

And if you are getting 400 Uniques a day (as in visitors..not hits) you should be making closer to $15.00 a month of any type of avertising campaign. I have a site making $10+ a month thats content is from 2003, and has not been updated since then.

I would try getting a good host that won't limit you to much, but all shared host need to limit CPU usage is some fashion. Most won't do anything unless the server is put to a crawl because of a rogue script or such...and then most issue a warning, and then if the site owner can't fix it..then shut the site down.

I would stear away from bah hosts...but with such a limited budget you will be stuck with the budget hosts that oversell, use many small print restrictions, or just don't offer a good quality of service.

I dont really have much more then $9 a month right now (one of the reasons i went with DH), but im hoping that when its popular, it will pay for itself through advertising.


That's a good plan. Stick with it. It's most likely that you'll only hit their limits when you have on average 10-20 people on your board at one time. By that time, you should've made enough off advertising/contributions to get a larger budget for hosting.

they are an okay price but again you pay for what you get.

but with such a limited budget you will be stuck with the budget hosts that oversell, use many small print restrictions, or just don't offer a good quality of service.Excellent point.

samn, one thing that you have on your side is their 97 days moneyback guarantee (check the exact terms governing it). It will give you some time to see how your site performs and evolves.

It's a precarious, but potentially fun situation. Push to build your business and let the revenue keep you going. The beauty of a tiered or pay-as-you-use plan is that it only grows when you need it.

You probably need a lot more than that plan can offer you and need to increase your budget if you can afford it

Information about Dreamhost's CPU usage:
wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/CPU_Minutes_FAQ
In ordered to view CPU usage, go to your users menu in the Control Panel and enable CPU usage monitoring. You can then go to yourwebsite/stats/resources/ and view each days cpu usage, which is measured in seconds.
(I need 5 posts for quote to work)We typically like to see our shared customers keep to about 50-60 CPU minutes per day.(Quote)
On a side note, I use DreamHost also, no problems or complaints really(first week, I experienced a few problems).

Cheers guys!

I guess i'll stay with DH for now, and move when i can afford it. (prob to a dedicated DH server lol -- too much of a pain keep changing everything)

I just hope a games/videos site can make some money - theres already loads about.

Thanks again all.

Sam,

Just an additional note: Try getting some advertising deals that market directly to your viewers (targetted) -- you'll make a lot more this way compared to something like google ads.

Let us know how everything goes with dreamhost though! :)

My experience with DreamHost was a pretty good one (in terms of uptime), however it becomes blatantly obvious that they oversell their bandwidth since when loading BW intensive pages (I used to host a photobook), it would lag to all hell and take ages to load the images.

The guys on SomethingAwful used to love them but now seem to be pretty critical of their uptime and misc. problems. As said earlier, "you get what you pay for". They're extremely cheap and good for filedumping, but I wouldn't host any critical files/e-mail/etc. with them.

My experience with DreamHost was a pretty good one (in terms of uptime), however it becomes blatantly obvious that they oversell their bandwidth since when loading BW intensive pages (I used to host a photobook), it would lag to all hell and take ages to load the images.
I also have an image gallery on my DH account, I have never really noticed any slowness in loading the pages.
Information about Dreamhost's CPU usage:
wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/CPU_Minutes_FAQ
In ordered to view CPU usage, go to your users menu in the Control Panel and enable CPU usage monitoring. You can then go to yourwebsite/stats/resources/ and view each days cpu usage, which is measured in seconds. This is what I am always advocating: a CPU gauge should be included with every control panel! So as to give you an idea of how much you're actually using, just like bandwidth etc.
:)

In the future triple check what you are signing up for. If they have it documented, they are not to blame.

couldn't agree more with commit1Anthony, it just like ignoring an eula when installing "free" software and then complaining about spyware, etc.