Hello,

We are looking for a host for our web site that requires about 300 MB of disk space and data transfer of about 40-50 GB per month. It uses a lot of cgi based applications.

We don't have any experience in the security aspects of managing a server (well versed with linux/apache otherwise), and therefore were looking for a shared hosting option. However, at 40-50 GB per month, they are difficult to find.

Price is a concern, but quality of the service is of greater importance.

What is our best option in terms of quality hosting. Which way should we go for a scalable solution: shared/dedicated/vds? Also, are there pitfalls in using VDS compared to dedicated?

Thanks in advance for all help.
Sincerely,

joegargery

Pitfall: If another vds user on the same machine has some script that consumes all of the cpu/mem or crashes the server... that affects you in the same way.

I think you are still able to find host to offers shared hosting for 40-50GB of transfer a month. Although as you have mentioned, price is concern. But if you can pay that much, you can look for a quality host and be in shared hosting.

VDS is much better if you want to be able to scale. Since it is essentially a mini-dedicated server, it would be easier to migrate to a real dedicated server. How, a lot of this also depends the specific VDS technology. Some VDS give you very little control, while other give you almost full root access.

Peter

Thanks for your advice guys. We are still inclined to continue with shared hosting for the time being, until we find providers that have good security management included in their dedicated or VDS solutions. Perhaps I should post in the requests folder to get some additional information.

jg