Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Need Hosting Advice and Opinions

[mbif]

I currently host a web design assistance site that gets 15,000 to 32,000 visits daily. I host content and my site users simply copy-and-paste code to use backgrounds, cursors, etc. on their own websites or for use on sites like MySpace, Subeta Pets, and other things.

I use a LOT of bandwidth. I am currently getting my hosting from Dreamhost and it's been an absolute nightmare. I'm paying for 1.8 TB of bandwidth per cycle (and not using anywhere close to that, thank goodness) and conveniently enough, when I added a new section that quickly became popular and boosted my traffic, they found a reason to shut me down. They're claiming that I'm exceeding my CPU minutes, although an inquiry into that only a couple of days ago said that I was well within those limits. Aside from this -- which has me seriously angry -- their support has been atrocious and the downtime has been similarly bad.

I'm now on the prowl for a new host. I'm a disabled stay-at-home-er so I don't have a whole lot of cash (hence my use of Dreamhost, which was SUPPOSED to give me a lot of resources for very little money.) A friend of mine has steered me towards JaguarPC's semi-dedicated hosting, which he has had nothing but good experiences with. However, it is (of course) half again more expensive than Dreamhost and offers less bandwidth. It also doesn't have a referral program, which is unfortunate because I have previously managed to refer enough people to cover my hosting costs. (Dreamhost didn't always suck so badly for me.)

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a decent host, or if anyone has feedback on JaguarPC. Any other thoughts, comments, or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[MyDigitalHost]

Getting a lot of bandwidth with your hosting account and using too many CPU cycles are two completely different things. So while you may not have gotten close to using your bandwidth, it's quite possible that you threw such a load on your server, that they cut you off. It sounds to me like you might need to stay away from a shared hosting environment and look for a VPS or dedicated server.

[mbif]

Right, but I have an email from their staff from just a couple of days ago stating that I was within my CPU minute limits but that they didn't like the drain caused by the bandwidth useage. I'm getting a total runaround.

My site uses no MySQL and little to know PHP, so there should be no CPU drain. It sounds like they don't like my bandwidth usage, but I've got over 1.8TB per cycle and use less than 200gb per cycle.

The plan I'm looking at with JaguarPC is semi-dedicated hosting.

[HaAwK]

Unfortunately a lot of hosting providers oversell their resources, which causes problems like this...because they give their customers a sense of happiness when they are allowed a ton of bandwidth...but they don't actually expect you to reach it...and when their customers start reaching this limit...their server gets extremely overloaded... I would have to agree with botchka, you probably want to get a dedicated server yourself...or possibly a VPS...it sounds like your site may soon need a dedicated server anyway.

[wonderpoint]

VPS or at least a reseller is what you should be look at. Although with a reseller account cpu usage problems may occur in future as your website expands. If the site is critical, I would recommend a dedicated server/vps. Search this forum for hosting offers, shortlist a few webhosts, search/read reviews about them from members and then make a decision

[mbif]

I'm not sure I understand the deal with CPU usage ... it's my understanding that it should be basically nil with no PHP to create drain.

[HaAwK]

whether you have php or not, your website still causes cpu usage each time someone hits a page...apache alone will create processor usage...and if your talking 32,000 hits on a server per day...the processor is feeling it, a little...but as wonderpoint stated...as you grow, the more hits, the more activity, the more processor that gets used

[SamOwen]

I would stay away from JaguarPC. They have been having major problems lately. Just take a peek at their forums, lots of unhappy clients.

[Jag]

Originally Posted by SamOwen

I would stay away from JaguarPC. They have been having major problems lately. Just take a peek at their forums, lots of unhappy clients.

This is completely not true my friend. There are no "major problems lately" . Im guessing your talking about some clients that were on a shared server that had some hardware problems. 1 server of hundreds having a hardware issue is anything but major.

[SamOwen]

I'm not only talking about the recent server death and data loss.

I had a semi-dedicated account with you guys last month. It crashed too. I can't remember the server name, draco I think. There are complaint posts about it on your forums from other clients that were on the same server.

[KGIII]

There are a lot of things that can create an abundance of CPU cycles - PHP (believe it or not) isn't really one of them at your level from what I'm guessing.

Let me be more exact in case I'm missing something. Exactly, if you don't mind, how many page impressions per day are you getting? What is the site in question so that we can review the options?

CPU cycles start to climb when you're storing information in a database and having to pull that info with many requests. Hmm... Find, for instance, a phpBB forum that's pretty popular and modified to show the number of requests that were made per page impression and you'll begin to see. PHP is, for the most part, capable of being fairly low resource usage.

Check with your new hosting company before you move there if you can. You might even find that you can find some company that's willing to allow you to toss up a small temp redirect page saying that the site's down until you find a new hosting company and, if the site's popular, you might want to have a handy button on said page to POLITELY ask if people are interested in giving you donations. Before moving the most important thing you can do is to ask all the questions ahead of time and to take a while to make sure that you're also covering the POTENTIALS as well as the current situation. If you have that much traffic, for instance, there's no reason why you couldn't be generating a decent income from the site with just a few good ideas and some decent marketing.

WHT has some very good rules in place that prohibit folks from offering to assist you directly when you post questions like this. If, for instance, I were to say, "well, let ______ person know and they might help you" that might be misconstrued to being a case of me promoting something or someone that I may be involved with. Well placed questions and/or private messages might help you find some of the folks around this board who would be interested in making sure that you had the resources you needed at a price you can afford. I know of a few companies that I've been in contact with in the past who've been very good at providing personalized support.

If we knew exactly how much traffic and space you were needing (and maybe some information about the site itself so we can see what you're REALLY using for CPU cycles or at least estimate what you'd potentially use in a rush) then we might be able to give you more assistance or direct you to someone who's more friendly.

Right now the biggest issue I can think of might be, perhaps, finding someone who will accept the responsibility of providing the compute cycles for you at a price you can afford. Beyond that, something that (and pardon me if I go too far with this) you should probably consider is why you're using those cycles on a limited income and not generating an income from them. If you have that much traffic and that much initiative and skill then, well, there's no reason why you can't provide a means for the server to pay for itself.

I hate to say this but... Well, it's changed now.

It used to be that you couldn't rely on a number of the free hosting folks out there and that's still true today but you *might* be able to find someone - remember explain clearly and completely what they're looking at - who's willing to exchange free hosting for that amount of traffic? You have to have quite a number of page views if you're getting this complaint (well with normal companies - no accounting for that one you mention) and that's a beautiful chance at generating revenue. It might be a hard choice for you to make but, well, you can probably make a killing (guessing as I don't have any stats from you) from popups. I know, yes, they suck and fortunately the vast majority of browsers prevent them, but that's an option or, alternatively, one of the many ad agency sites that pay per impression for ads might be an option. It might go against every moral fiber you have but, at the same time, are the people who are making use of your site gaining enough benefit to warrant you adding ads to the site?

In short, I tend to digress or be long winded when I'm thinking, you have a bunch of traffic and that's eating CPU cycles (we'll not debate the truth here as it may be true) they claim and they want you out. If you have that many visits - enough to generate that type of complaint - is there any reason you've not sold some of the space for revenue?

Just food for thought.

On an ethical note - this section of my post might get deleted I don't know - I'll not take your business but I'll have a conversation either online here or offline via PM or email if you'd like to help you think of ways to create a revenue stream. To ensure that it's ethical I'll make it a point to avoid taking any money but I'll happily direct you to either ad companies I've worked with in the past and/or hosting companies I've worked with in the past. I'll do so here or I'll do so in a private message but it is an issue that really shouldn't be an issue in my opinion. Even if I don't then I'm 100% certain that there are countless other people here who'd offer to show you how to turn that many hits into a profit.

KGIII

[Jag]

Originally Posted by SamOwen

I'm not only talking about the recent server death and data loss.

I had a semi-dedicated account with you guys last month. It crashed too. I can't remember the server name, draco I think. There are complaint posts about it on your forums from other clients that were on the same server.

draco is a vps node, hardware fails...what would you have me say? Its still not a sign of "major problems".

[mripguru]

Originally Posted by SamOwen

I'm not only talking about the recent server death and data loss.

I had a semi-dedicated account with you guys last month. It crashed too. I can't remember the server name, draco I think. There are complaint posts about it on your forums from other clients that were on the same server.

A) draco is a VPS server, not a reseller/semi-dedicated server (and I happen to have an account on that node and it's been performing reasonably well, aside from a couple of abusive customers for a few days on the node causing problems).

B) draco hasn't actually crashed yet, it did go down for a couple hours due to a kernel issue about a month ago, but thats all I remember in terms of outages.

C) As Jag said, in the grand scheme of things, 1 node out of hundreds isn't that bad an average (though, when your on that node having issues - nothing else really matters).