Dathorn and KnownHost Review

This thread is to give my impressions on the Reseller Hosting Services at http://www.Dathorn.com and http://www.KnownHost.com.

As you all may have noticed in my other threads I have been looking a number of Reseller Hosting plans over the past few months.

I narrowed down my search to three companies, these two and http://www.Innohosting.com. I must say choosing the final one and then two was hard since all three companies looked very good and I think I would be happy with any one as my solo host. Also, come September I may even sign up with InnoHosting for another project.

You may ask why I would sign up with more than one Reseller. Well, I could sign up with all three and pay less per month than what I have been paying. Then there is the concept of putting all my eggs in one basket. Perhaps there will be an advantage to dividing my clients over two or three severs at different data centers.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS CONCEPT? "Love to hear from you all."

In this review thread I hope to keep everyone up to date with reports on (1) Startup (2) First Month (3) Third Month (4) Sixth Month (5) Ninth Month (6) One Year.

I welcome others to add their experiences as well.

Start up Review:
The start up for both Dathorn and KnownHost went very smooth.

Dathorn - 4/60gb Basic Plan with Private Nameserver - I transferred 25 sites to Dathorn within the first 36 hours without any problem. I had only three support ticket questions and they were addressed within minutes and the longest time to resolve was 20 minutes. Their servers seem to be fast since my sites are loading faster than before. I did notice that the mail servers took about 2 hours longer (than the web site) to propagate each email account. Once that was done all has been working smooth. So with Dathorn my first impression at startup is very good.

KnownHost - 5/40gb KH Pro Plan with Private Nameserver - I transferred only 2 sites thus far to this server. All went just as smooth. I had only a couple support tickets and again they were addressed within minutes. Their WHM panel setup is a little different than Dathorn and that was a moment of confusing but not for long. When I set up email accounts they went active almost immediately and had no lapse to propagate on the mail server. Over the next few months I will be adding new clients to this server and will see how it responds. Again a very good first impression.

ADDED NOTE:
Even though all three of these Reseller Hosting companies offer Domain Registration I believe it is a good practice NOT to register your domains with the same company you host with. Thus I have a Domain Reseller account with StarGate and SRSPlus and you can read more about this in the Domain Forum on WHT.

All three very solid hosts with excellent reps, looking forward to your updated review after you've been with them 3+ months.

Interesting about the e-mail delay.

At the reseller level, it is arguably ok to divide your customers among different data centers, but only if you have a really good system in place for managing everything from one central location. The slightest bit of disorganization on your part and you could end up with some unhappy customers.

I could be more specific if I knew more about the platform/ control panel/ and how you sign-up / manage customer accounts.

At the reseller level, it is arguably ok to divide your customers among different data centers, but only if you have a really good system in place for managing everything from one central location. The slightest bit of disorganization on your part and you could end up with some unhappy customers.

I could be more specific if I knew more about the platform/ control panel/ and how you sign-up / manage customer accounts.


Say I have 50 clients and I place 25 on Dathorn Reseller account and 25 on a KnownHost Reseller account. Both use the same WHM/cPanel configuration.

I have a list of who is where.

Secondly, say those I manage are on one server (say Dathorn) an dthe ones clients have cPanel access to are on KnownHost.

These two Reseller Data Centers are in different centers.

Third idea is to have business site on a server in another part of the country. Perhaps even a third company just for customer contact should any of the first two servers go down.

Would it be a benefit or safe guard against major area power outage, etc...?

Just a thought..;)

Honestly, your best bet is to go with a good data center that has UPS power backups, diesel generators, protection against lightning, connections to multiple backbones, good security, etc. The DC I use is in Chicago and the area experienced a power outage of 3 or 4 days a couple years ago. We didn't lose service for even one second. UPS took over instantly, and they had Diesel generators that took over after that with zero interruption. They also have connections to over 40 carriers.

IMO, its better to put all in your eggs in one safe basket rather than spreading them out over baskets that aren't that safe.

In your case, the main advantage isn't safety so much as it is getting to try out different hosts/data centers over a prolonged period to find out which is most reliable.

It sounds like you almost expect to have problems. I hope this forum doesn't give people the impression that frequent downtimes and loss of data is normal, because with a good host it is not. Find a host/DC in which you can have faith.

As your company grows, you might consider off-site backups, where all data is backed up at a data center in another part of the country. That, IMO, is safer than spreading your customers out over multiple data centers but not having a comprehensive recovery plan.

Third idea is to have business site on a server in another part of the country. Perhaps even a third company just for customer contact should any of the first two servers go down.That's not a bad idea. Even some of the bigger companies do something like this.

As I have been looking at different Resellers I did find that Dathorn has a good uptime and service record. They seem to be solid.

Also, a friend of mine has been using them for years and reported to me he had only one problem which was a non-secure Form-Mail script. Andrew@Dathorn informed him to change the script and he did. So, Dathorn appears to be on top of their services and that is good news.

KnownHost is new and does not seem to have a long service record. But, they do have a nice price for what they offer. For ten bucks a month I can test them out.... I hope others will report the Good, the Bad and the ugly as well. ;)

My current host has great service but their price is high. The same package as Dathorn but $32/month more. I contact them to see if they would give a discount or increase features and got a polite NO. :eek:

So, one reason for me to look around at other products. More later as I will keep you all posted.

:popcorn:

Today I transfered 10 sites to KnownHost.

Started a 4PM est and all was complete with nameserver propagated by 5:30PM.

Had one small problem with one .org site and submitted a support ticket for help. Support replied within 2 minutes. Problem was resolved (my isp/browser catch) and all is smooth now.. :)

For those interested my signature site is on KnownHost Server.

So far so good for both KnownHost and Dathorn...

:popcorn: