Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Some reliable uk hosts?

[rsmarsha]

At present i am with oneandone.co.uk and have had no problems with downtime. I am paying £15pm on their pro package.

Have plenty of space and BW, but am not using much of it. I am looking around for a UK based host who provides a reliable service with good all round packages. In future i may need to scale up so am wondering about the options. I have a few sites such as my own domain, plus a couple of community sites which at present don't use much BW but may do so in future.

I noticed fasthosts offer some decent packages but onle 1 db. I know i can use the same db for mulitple sites but should usage grow does this cause any problems?

If anyone has some good UK hosts where you can host up to about 10 domains, i'd be interested to know some URL's.

Thanks in advance.

[The Napster]

A reseller plan from http://rshosting.co.uk/ May suit your needs, I believe they offer UK based servers

[rsmarsha]

Thanks.

Not actually looking to resell, just to host my own sites. I'm a php dev, and in future may want to host some larger sites, so something scalable and reliable would be nice.

One question is does it matter if i have more than one site using the same database?

[adamneal]

You don't have to resell to have the reseller accout. It'll allow you to keep your 10 or so sites totally seperate from each other whilst offering good value for money. Many people use the reseller packages for situations similar to yours as it offers a flexible solution where you can (normally) host all the domains you need

[The Napster]

Originally Posted by adamneal

You don't have to resell to have the reseller accout. It'll allow you to keep your 10 or so sites totally seperate from each other whilst offering good value for money. Many people use the reseller packages for situations similar to yours as it offers a flexible solution where you can (normally) host all the domains you need

Spot on
I suggested a reseller as you said you needed to an account that allowed you yo add 10 domains, Do you mean just add on domains or would like each account to be separate and not just have it redirect to a directory in your main acccount?

[WebMate]

...some decent packages...

If high space and bandwidth it your primary considerations for a decent package, then you'll have lots of options. Be careful though.

There is much more to hosting than just bandwidth and space (as I'm sure you know already).

Fortunately, most decent UK hosts that I've seen don't highlight space and bw as their primary features.

[rsmarsha]

Thanks for the input.

I have various domains pointing to different folders on my space as their home page. So only need the one account login.

I am happy enough with my host, most months are 100% uptime, had 1 hour downtime this month. I've plenty of bw and space, and 5 db's. I use 3 db's atm 2 for forum sites and 1 for my own, i could combine them not sure if it would matter.

I might end up staying with 1and1 in the end, but am looking about in case i can find something that suits me and is cheaper. At the moment i'm paying for a lot more than i'm using.

I've looked at fasthosts and servage. Fasthosts seem reliable but you only get the 1 db, would it matter if i ran 3 sites from the 1? Also servage seem too good to be true (the net version of the url), they offer lots but i'm wondering about how reliable their servers are.

[adamneal]

The 1 db shouldn't be a problem, just prefix the table names with the application names and you shouldn't run into any problems there.

I've no experience with servage but when an offer seems too good to be true you will often find it is. Having just looked at their site it is very obvious they are overselling their resources, whilst some hosts pull this off well you will often find that the system may become unstable or they find an excuse to cancel your accout when you try to use all the resources available. Again I'm not saying servage do this, I'm just making a general statement about massive overselling

[rsmarsha]

Yeah i agree with you on that. One problem i have with the db's is i have 2 phpbb forums and both are prefix'd with phpbb. I think i can change that in the config, not sure, any ideas?

Also will having 3 sites in 1 db cause problems if they become busy? Fast host set their db limit to 150mb. If a forum reaches this limit that could cause a problem.

[rumi]

Sure, It will be a problem 150MB for db and you running single DB for 3 sites you might reach that limit someday soon.

[adamneal]

I'm not 100% sure on the phpbb but I believe you can change the prefix, I seem to recall reading that somewhere. I think the database limit would be a blanket limit, so 150mb total space for all databases. The performance shouldn't suffer from being on the same database.

Just had a quick look at some phpbb code and it appears they reference tables using a $prefix variable so this should be configurable

[The Napster]

I wouldn't go from 1and1 to FastHosts, If you search the forums youll probably guess why im saying that. I would try looking into some smaller providers

[Weather]

ICUK Hosting provide a comprehensive reseller plan for £20 a month. Servers are based in Northern England IIRC.

[WireNine]

Try searching on http://uk.tophosts.com/

Once you find a few that meet your requirements, do a little research on them.

[Trip]

UnitedHosting.co.uk
Clook.net
Hostway.co.uk
....I haven't had the pleasure of hosting with any of them, but searches will yield years of good reviews of each at WHT, so I feel justified in pointing you towards them so you can see for yourself.

Good luck,
Trip