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  1. #1

    First Time Going Dedicated...

    I currently have a semi-dedicated account with Hostgator. I'm very happy with my hosting there but unfortunately I need to go dedicated because my site is growing in popularity by the day. I was contacted by one of the managers of tech support there about my site needing to go to one of their dedicated plans because I am getting well over 10,000 visitors a day, using 15+GB of bandwidth a day and lots of MySQL connections. (I have a wordpress blog).

    So I'm a noob when it comes to server stuff. My question is, if I sign up with one of Hostgator's managed dedicated plans, do I need to know much more than how to use WHM/Cpanel? I'm so worried that I'll get a dedicated plan and have no clue how to use it and that my server will crash or something and I won't know how to fix it. Is it relatively easy to use managed dedicated hosting?

  2. #2
    It sounds like Hostgator is trying to dupe you into buying a dedicated server. 15+gb of traffic/day isn't that much. It's only 465gb/mo (based on a 31 day month), and dedicated servers usually come with 1000+gb/mo. Then again, I can't remember when the last time was that I actually used all my bandwidth.

    Managed servers are managed for a reason, and it's so people don't need to be sysadmins to run a dedicated server. If you don't know that much about administrating a server, but want one anyway then I would go with a managed server, and stay away from self-managed ones.

    As far as Hostgator is concerened, I've never delt with their company so I wouldn't know. You should definatly do some research on these forums for dedicated server companies, if that is the route you take.

  3. #3
    If this is your first time getting a dedicated server then a managed one would be best because you would probably have trouble using an unmanaged one.
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  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by SyrusMX
    It sounds like Hostgator is trying to dupe you into buying a dedicated server. 15+gb of traffic/day isn't that much. It's only 465gb/mo (based on a 31 day month), and dedicated servers usually come with 1000+gb/mo. Then again, I can't remember when the last time was that I actually used all my bandwidth.
    .....
    First off, learn to spell. Second off -- stop giving advice on something you don't know about. i've seen a few other of your posts and they really don't scream experience to me.

    Generally, they ask you quite soon to upgrade when you don't really need it at the moment; however, they could be telling the truth. From the looks of your site, it's mainly the MySQL and CPU cycles that are being eaten up. That's generally a VPS killer right there. So, it is indeed quite possible.

    It sounds like you need a fully managed dedicated server with cPanel. That's going to run you $150+ if not more for a decent provider.
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  5. #5
    Bandwidth intensive is not the same as CPU intensive. It is possible that the site is CPU intensive and thus the requirement to move on to a dedicated server.

    Managed dedicated server would be ideal in this case but you might want to check with Hostgator on what is included in their managed plan, ie what is their responsibility and what is yours. There are many definitions of managed so you definitely need to find out.
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  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by PrincessGeek
    I currently have a semi-dedicated account with Hostgator. I'm very happy with my hosting there but unfortunately I need to go dedicated because my site is growing in popularity by the day.
    You should be happy your site is growing in popularity. There are plenty of folks who would love to have your problem.
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  7. #7
    Join Date
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    It may not be just the bandwidth. Its more like CPU Load or lets say Resource Intensive??? You may try a VDS to start with??? Or some hosting company with clustering capability who can still cost less and you get what u need.
    Thats if you want to avoid a dedicated server
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    White Bear Lake, MN USA
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    Quote Originally Posted by PixelManual
    First off, learn to spell. Second off -- stop giving advice on something you don't know about. i've seen a few other of your posts and they really don't scream experience to me.

    Generally, they ask you quite soon to upgrade when you don't really need it at the moment; however, they could be telling the truth. From the looks of your site, it's mainly the MySQL and CPU cycles that are being eaten up. That's generally a VPS killer right there. So, it is indeed quite possible.

    It sounds like you need a fully managed dedicated server with cPanel. That's going to run you $150+ if not more for a decent provider.
    I think its quite funny that you yell at this person given that your signature specifically states that you reserve the right to be wrong and not to yell at you if you are.

    That being said I believe that the complications with having a dedicated server are over stated. I have had a dedicated server for years now, and although I am a linux system admin, I have not experienced any issues that a simple cpanel update or /scripts/easyapache compile did not fix.

    This is not to say that I have never used ssh to write custom shell scripts for backup, updates, zend optimizer install, and whmautopilot install, and various other tasks, but what I am trying to say is that for having one single website, it is not necessary to do all those things that I have done.

    In fact, if you are only going to have one single website on a dedicated server I see absolutely no reason to even have cpanel. Webmin will work perfectly fine and is free. The company at which you rent your dedicated server from will take care of the installation of linux with all of its updates etc..

    I would recommend going with server beach's 99/mo servers. You will get 900 gb/mo transfer a 80 GB hard drive, Athlon xp 2100+ cpu, and 1 GB DDR memory.

    Their support is great and they offer some very nice features that other companies don't have such as Peer 1's Rapid Edge technology which will allow your visotors to view your site at the closest available datacenter, by mirroring it at all of peer 1's datacenters around the country.

    http://www.serverbeach.com

    http://www.peer1.com/en/interactive/map2_1.html

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
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    Birmingham Alabama
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    Don't forget to backup! And make sure after you make the move that EVERYTHING is running smoothly before you part company with HostGator.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by agweb
    I think its quite funny that you yell at this person given that your signature specifically states that you reserve the right to be wrong and not to yell at you if you are.
    Hmm, true. I guess that reservation also protects me from that statement as well

    I reserve the right to be wrong to a certain degree, however this guy was spouting off knowledge as if he knew this, and that, and this. Whereas it seems like he knows nothing at all about the subject. If I don't know something, I admit it when posting and say this "might be right", or "I think", etc, etc.
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  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Phoenix, AZ
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    42
    If you get a dedicated server, they are supposed to support it with any questions or problems you may have. They won't log into your system if it is unmanaged but they still are supposed to point out resources etc and help you out.

    True managed server generally won't allow you into the system at all and the company will manage it 100% for you.

    If a company won't help you move your site/database if you got an unmanaged server, it means they are too busy to help you if your server fails one day and you may want to steer clear of such a company because you will need their help given you are not a sysadmin.

    IMHO its worth paying a few $$ more and getting a managed server if you are going to save hours and hours of your own time so you can focus on your business rather than fix issues on your system which a sysadmin could do it in matter of minutes rather than hours.

    As another person said over here, be sure to back everything up and move it out via FTP, rsync or ssh before you even give a cancellation notice to your current provider.

  12. #12
    I check my server load every day and it's usually above what it is supposed to be. So, they are obviously telling me to move my site because of CPU usage, etc. I get about 500GB of bandwidth a month on my semi plan and the way things are going will probably reach that next month, if not this month. So, I don't think they are being dishonest with me. I have had great experience with Hostgator and plan to stick with them.

    I'm just dreading the move to dedicated because I know it's a whole new ballgame- one I'm not familiar with!

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