Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : Trying to stay alive

[Paprika]

Hi all.

I have this VPS that was donated to me for my site which is non-profit. I've been living on the VPS for quite some time now (no idea how long atm). Lately problems have been croping up costing my site stability and uptime. At one point the site was unacessable for an entire weekend becuase I tried to upgrade php on my own. I admit it, I don't know much about server administration or php. But I need about 2GB of storage space for my growing website and this is what they gave me. My MySQL databse is like 200MB right now and it's only going to get bigger, even after my much needed cleanup which i have yet to do.

Asking for a dedicated server is too much for my site I think... It's a growing website indeed but not that big. I don't think anyone would donate a dedicated anyway. Then I have the need for the latest version of php and mysql for the security of the site. Seeing as I don't have the ability to upgrade them myself I'd need some type of timely management. At this moment plesk si reporting that I am using 700MB of transfer data a month, so I'd guess I need a cap of 2GB/Month with 2GB of storage or about that. If I could, I'd run a windows server from home. That would be a piece of cake.. it's WINDOWS! but that wouldn't be the hottest idea.

Plesk doesn't help either. It seems useless in the matter half the time. Should I throw the ball at them and tell them to come up with the answer or should I reccomend something, if so then what? This host in question is VenturesOnline/Data393.

[WindyCity]

Hi,

I feel your pain but it is a touchy situation when you are on a freebie account. I would bite the bullet and ask the company what they think or if they have any alternatives. They may surprise you and come up with a solution.

Good Luck!

[BroadAndElmwood]

You may have to bite the bullet and pay for freelance admins to come in and upgrade stuff as you see fit.

Some mercenary admins charge a fair price for things like php upgrades etc. Just hunt around for some good ones.

That may be a better option than going to a fully managed vps $$$.

[HostingInsider]

You may have to bite the bullet and pay for freelance admins to come in and upgrade stuff as you see fit.

Some mercenary admins charge a fair price for things like php upgrades etc. Just hunt around for some good ones.

That may be a better option than going to a fully managed vps $$$.

We go to http://getafreelancer.com to find freelancers, its a good way to save on some freelancer work.

[BurstNET]

Even "Non-Profits" have a budget. You cannot expect to be able to grow and still have everything donated to you. Even if you get monetary donations from supporters of your cause, you still need to spend some of that to render the service and continue your efforts.
You should probably seek outside monetary support, and then purchase proper service as needed.

[Paprika]

Originally posted by BurstNET
Even "Non-Profits" have a budget. You cannot expect to be able to grow and still have everything donated to you. Even if you get monetary donations from supporters of your cause, you still need to spend some of that to render the service and continue your efforts.
You should probably seek outside monetary support, and then purchase proper service as needed.

Personally, I don't want to have to ask visitors for donations. I've never done it. Even when first started the site I was doing it out of my own pocket. I pay for the domain out of my pocket. Who wants to hire a freelance everytime you need to upgrade to php? that would add up really really quick. I'd do it myself but I don't know how. Like I said, i either learn how to administrate my current VPS or get one thats more user friendly - i hear WHM/Cpanel solutions can upgrade various compoents like php at the click of a mouse.

When disk space becomes the issue I can see your point then but right now it's about the server working to begin with, I am not even totally sure if my site takes up as much space as is being reported to me. But i can't investigate it or take time out to concentrate on bringing the size down if I can't go w/o worrying about something happening to the site live. i.e. it going down because all my disk space is mysteriously used up by qmail's queues or something stupid like that happening.

[BurstNET]

<< i hear WHM/Cpanel solutions can upgrade various compoents like php at the click of a mouse. >>

That is correct.
Also, many VPS packages are managed, or atleast semi-managed, so the provide should be able to handle that for you...

[Yaroslav]

What site are you talking about? Could we have a look at it?

[Paprika]

teen-moods.net is the site

[Steve Merkel]

Hello:

I'm sorry I'm running across this so late. Shoot me an email with your account details (you can get me via forums.data393.com and I will look into your particular issues. I'm guessing it is a resource issue with the size of your VPS.

Let me know, and we'll see what we can do.

Regards,

Steve

[LesJPC]

Originally posted by BurstNET
<< i hear WHM/Cpanel solutions can upgrade various compoents like php at the click of a mouse. >>

That is correct.
Also, many VPS packages are managed, or atleast semi-managed, so the provide should be able to handle that for you...

Just to emphasise this I have to say that upgrading PHP/apache in cpanel is among the easiest things I have ever done regarding upkeep of a server. While nothing is perfect, its almost foolproof and a great way to avoid a paying an outside source.

Cpanel offers cheaper liscenses for VPS guests so a cpanel host may be more inclined to donate the resources.