OK, i've had sites of various sizes for a number of years...

My first host way back when was 9netave who got bought out a few times since.

I then moved to Interland where I stayed for a number of years. After having major issues with them on one domain (the others ran flawlessly) and having some storage/vs price issues I started shopping around..

I ended up at rackshack for a few reasons. One of them just to have my own box and never again have to fight with tech support to update things. (a long story that i won't get into)

I learned as I went, installed the firewall, updates, blah blah blah. After a few weeks of testing and reading, making sure all the updates I needed were installed I put the first domain on it.

Everything went so smoothly it was almost scarey. I now have I guess around 10 domains on it. All of them doing moderate traffic (though that is highly subjective)

So this brings me to my questions...

I see all these offers on these boards...

$5 a month for a gig of storage and 20 gigs of bandwidth

1GB diskspace
15GB Bandwith
for like $17

I just don't understand the thought process behind a lot of these offers.

One domain i have used 21gigs of transfer and only has 50 megs of content (IF THAT)

Another used 5 gigs and might have 20 megs of content...

I ask you this. Any site will eat up bandwidth and clock cycles much faster than it will eat up storage. Will it not?

Can someone explain what hosting companies are thinking with some of the offers they put out there?

Are some of you higher priced hosts banking on a lot of the really cheap ones going under within a year or so?

If a couple small sites can use 50ish gigs per month, why do hosts offer reseller packages with 10000000000 domains (exagerating obviously) but then only 50 gigs of transfer?

Why would a site of any kind need a higher end server than rackshack offers if bandwidth is the biggest expense? (the dependability of the system withstanding)

As for support and claimed support...

Many people bash RS for support issues. Some may even have merit. I expect them to reboot my server and restore it if i really screw up. Nothing else. I know I leased an unmanaged server, I expect to have to deal with all software issues on my own. What else should I, or do you, expect from an unmanaged dedicated host?

keep in mind that I'm hosting only my own sites, and so far 2 others for friends. I am not now nor am I looking to make a profit. Though covering my own hosting costs wouldn't be bad ;)

Thanks for any insight you may be able to give.

****Edited to remove exact example, replaced with a more general wording.

no one huh? too much for one topic?

Very nice words, and clearly shows up how some people badly run their biz!

As for the Rackshack part...well couldn't agree more with you on that one too ;)

guess i affended too many people :(

Originally posted by Shin
no one huh? too much for one topic? Sometimes it takes more than a half hour before the thread is viewed by someone that feels they can contribute.

I'm just posting now to say :pimp: I'll be back. Much too busy today.

Originally posted by Shin
guess i affended too many people :( Uh... been around forums much? My experience has always been that offending people guarantees dozens of replies, ongoing flamewars, and days of controversy. No or few replies means one or more of the following probably apply:
1) you offended no one,
2) no one cares,
3) as SWR points out, it takes some amount of time,
or the one that best applies to me...
4) it's hard to figure out from your post exactly what your point might be.

The reason companies give more space than you could ever possibly use, if because most people simply won't use it. With bandwidth as a limiting factor, most of their space will stay unused.

Why not do this? It helps the company when users don't use their alloted storage and bandwidth. The reason you think the offers don't make sense, is because you are looking at them from the eyes of a consumer.

1) you offended no one,

Good, I didn't really want to....

2) no one cares,

Well that would suck...I care

3) as SWR points out, it takes some amount of time,
or the one that best applies to me...

That's reasonable I guess...

4) it's hard to figure out from your post exactly what your point might be.

I don't have a point. A point implies a statement. I have questions.

Greetings:

"Can someone explain what hosting companies are thinking with some of the offers they put out there?"

In my opinion, they are not thinking in terms of business sense.

Some common mistakes we see all of the time:

* It is only "my" time. I don't have to charge for my time.

* Overhead is low.

* People buy on price, therefore I have to be the cheapest.

* It is only a hobby.

* I will make money on volume.

* It wasn't selling when I priced it higher; I need to price it lower.

Without any business sense of allowing for growth -- office space, proper insurance coverage, employee growth, employee benefits, fair profit, etc.

"Are some of you higher priced hosts banking on a lot of the really cheap ones going under within a year or so? "

We don't bank on any one going out of business, and see those types of activities as a black eye against the industry more than "another one bites the dust."

However, with that stated we do question how long some of the cheap priced and poorly run businesses will stay in business.

Thank you.

well lets see, it also the way customers view things, they seem 2 assume that they need loads and loads of space. I cut the diskspace allowances on my packages several months ago and had one ustomer who said she would only sign up if increased the diskspace allowance to 400MB, i did and she actually uses about 20mb .
Hobbyists etc who run they own small sites often seem to think that because the site looks big to them it will use loads and loads of space.

Originally posted by Shin
guess i affended too many people :(

No, not at all. Your Post was actually helpful and good.

I too have wondered about the same things many times.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
Sometimes it takes more than a half hour before the thread is viewed by someone that feels they can contribute.

I'm just posting now to say :pimp: I'll be back. Much too busy today.

Ah... ditto.

A reply to a thread like this has to constitute more than a few lines.

I too will be back to voice my opinions if I get time before the thread dies down :)

I too don't understand some of these offers. See the thread I posted here:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53024

Originally posted by Shin
I see all these offers on these boards...

$5 a month for a gig of storage and 20 gigs of bandwidth

1GB diskspace
15GB Bandwith
for like $17

I just don't understand the thought process behind a lot of these offers.

One domain i have used 21gigs of transfer and only has 50 megs of content (IF THAT)

Another used 5 gigs and might have 20 megs of content...

I ask you this. Any site will eat up bandwidth and clock cycles much faster than it will eat up storage. Will it not?

Can someone explain what hosting companies are thinking with some of the offers they put out there?

Some people use a lot of disk space and not much data transfer while others use a lot of data transfer and not much disk space. Also, many people grossly overestimate their disk space and data transfer requirements or have no clue how much 1 GB of disk space or 20 GB of data transfer really is. A few people, such as artists or musicians, actually need 1 GB of disk space to show off their work or to store backups.

Are some of you higher priced hosts banking on a lot of the really cheap ones going under within a year or so?

The cheap ones that do it right don't go under. You usually get what you pay for, but that isn't always the case as there are exceptions to that rule. Businesses are willing to pay for reliability, and the people that choose the wrong cheap hosts are willing to pay more after being screwed enough.

If a couple small sites can use 50ish gigs per month, why do hosts offer reseller packages with 10000000000 domains (exagerating obviously) but then only 50 gigs of transfer?

Many sites don't use even 500 MB of data transfer. Someone can easily host over 200 domains with 50 GB of data transfer. It depends on the host's target audience. I've seen someone host over 300 domains with only 20 GB of data transfer.

Why would a site of any kind need a higher end server than rackshack offers if bandwidth is the biggest expense? (the dependability of the system withstanding)

Some people have CPU-intensive sites and need all the processing power and memory that they can get. Also, higher-end servers can handle more, which is good if you're going to be offering hosting.

As for support and claimed support...

Many people bash RS for support issues. Some may even have merit. I expect them to reboot my server and restore it if i really screw up. Nothing else. I know I leased an unmanaged server, I expect to have to deal with all software issues on my own. What else should I, or do you, expect from an unmanaged dedicated host?

Too many newbies are getting servers at RackShack without having a clue what they're doing. They don't understand what unmanaged means. They rely on the control panel software and then blame RackShack when they mess something up or when the control panel software screws something up. You have the right idea about what unmanaged means.

outrageous offers are a result of desperation or plain old averaging

with the advent of cpanel and plesk the only thing stopping many new 'hottest host' of the moments is the fact that after they sell themselves cheap they are stuck with minimal profit and much support

they dont last, but they do turn people off to hosting

:angry:

I have been running a web hosting company for about 7 months now, and I have tried selling hosting at the same rates as everyone else and that did not work at all.... I am now offering accounts starting at $29.99 per year for 1GB transfer and since I have started doing that everything has been working much better, I have grossed about $18,000 so far and am hosting about 900 domians. What people seem to not understand is that FEW people use anywhere near there quota, granted if they all maxed out their quotas I would have some problems, but that will never happen. So people alloting such high transfer rates and space limit is not unlegit; just few people use them so you can offer more for less to customers that really need and do uise the alloted quotas.