Hello all...first time poster, short time lurker. I'm somewhat new to the whole world of webhosting. I've never really had any sites hosted anywhere, but I am a huge computer nerd, so I can at least speak your lingo. I'm looking for a host for a band's website. It's an indie band, not major (obviously), so we won't be bringing in tons of traffic. I have a few questions and requirements, and perhaps from those you guys could recommend a site.

1. I don't want to pay more than $100 a year (including setup).
2. How much bandwith and disk space is enough? We're looking to have pictures of the band...other than that it'll be HTML. Perhaps hosting mp3s and perhaps video clips, but not necessary.
3. Also looking to possibly sell merchandise (CDs, tshirts) through the site...what's needed to do this?
4. The band will almost definitely need webbased email...it can be hosted offsite I suppose, but if we can find a host that does it onsite, that would be great.

Other than that, I don't have any special needs...just your basics...email accounts, raw logs, ftp...no special needs for ASP or PHP or anything. I've looked at tera-byte.com, readyhosting.com, gearhost.com, and ehostspro.com...they all look alright. Any and all help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

<< MOD EDIT >>

I suggest reading the rules here:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/misc.php?s=&action=forum-rules

<< /MOD EDIT >>

1) It may be possible to get this price, but you might give up some features

2) I'd say at least 200 MB of diskspace and depending on how popular your band is, anywhere form 7-20GB of bandwidth

3) Shopping cart software(most hosts come with this), as well as a payment processor to accept payment (PayPal.com and 2checkout.com for more information). An SSL certificiate is nice if you want to protect your customers' information. Most hosts allow you to use a shared SSL certificiate for free, but if you would like to provide greature assurance for your customers you can buy your own for as little as $49(if geotrust still has them on sale). You will need your own IP address from your host if you wish to use your own SSL certificate

4) webbased email is included with nearly all hosting packages.

As for the hosts you've preselected, i'd go with tera-byte.com based on their reputation around the industry. The first 3 hosts are rather large so you may not get the one - on -one support that other hosts might give you if you need help(but they will still provide great support)

Other places to look:
dixiesys.com (gary is a frequent poster here)
venturesonline.com
downtownhost.com (jorge is a frequent here)
hostculture.com (aron is here every once in awhile)

post a an actual request in the requests forum and you might be able to get some deals....;)

edit: i wouldn't recommend hosting with someone that can't read the forum rules. as a customer, this would lead me to beleive that they wouldn't be able to follow my simple requests either.....

El Barto, once you figure out exactly what sepcs you need, you can post a request in the appropriate forum. There, hosts will be able to offer you a deal based upon your specifications. You can always start out with a smaller plan and upgrade to a higher one as you grow bigger.

<< MOD EDIT >>

Sorry akash, I decided to move it back as El Barto was looking for suggestions, not really requesting a quote. Had to delete your post, sorry :)

<< /MOD EDIT >>

Price for merchant account:

I spent months researching this before deciding on: Webtranscat

<< http://webtransact.net/pages/pricing.htm >>>

The customer service is not great but once you get running you don't need them. I use the plug-n-pay cart, it is nice as well, can have all all kinds of features. plugnpay.com .

I used paypal and 2checkout.... 2checkout is better by far. Once I moved from paypal to a merchant account my sales went up about $700 to 900 a month. I do not take a store seriously if it uses paypal... I know this is not fair, but ...

The downside is that you pay about $30.00 a month for the account, 2checkout is free (I think it still is).

On host I would recommend either gearhost.com or site5.com . I've used both for the past 7 mths and they are both good. Site5.com only went down once for 30 minutes during that time.

If I where you I would get as much bandwidth as possible... 20 gig at least... I have three screensavers (large) on my site and that use a lot of bandwidth since a lot of people download. Your music files may kill you on download cost if you are not carefull... Also ensure someone check the bandwidth to ensure you don't go over....

I have over 1000 html files and over 1000 images on my site and use only about 50 meg. If you are carefull about how you save images you can place a lot on your site save as gif and jpeg.

A big deal on my site: everyone.net e-mail. Keep your customers coming back by giving them a free e-mail service! It works... easy to set up ... mx record change (most hosting companies will do this for free). Plus you get e-mail that never goes down... I changed webhost 2 times in 1 year and never had an e-mail problem since the e-mail is not hosted on my site. Plus you have control over the e-mail... it is nice....