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[mrwebmeister]

Dreamhost Review


Firstly, i would like to say a big “thank you” to all contributing members of this board. Your insight proved invaluable when selecting a hosting company.


Following the advice posted here, my host quest began by compiling a list of features i deemed important to my needs. This boiled down to: reliability (uptime), storage space, cost, and customer service quality/options. By process of elimination i narrowed the qualifiers down to three: hostmonster, servage, and dreamhost.


The next step i took was to email each and ask fairly mundane questions to guage their knowledge and response time. Results were as follows:
1. Servage – Never responded.
2. Hostmonster – Responded in 3 days with one wrong answer.
3. Dreamhost – Responded in 10 minutes with all questions answered correctly.
As you can see, it was pretty much a no-brainer.


So, as of 10-10-06 i became a dreamhost client with a 1 year plan.


Up to this point, i have no complaints. Had to contact customer service once for a minor glitch which was solved promptly. Other than that, performance has been quite good. According to host-tracker, my uptime is 99.12% on their fanta server. All in all, a positive experience for me.

<<snipped>>


Good luck and i hope this is of value to someone out there.


Carlos

[2Macs Jim]

Welcome to WHT mrwebmeister! It's great that you did your homework and am happy with your host. For the record, can you tell us the domain your hosting with them?

[mishu007]

One thing Could you plz tell me Do DreamHost support PAYPAL payment?

[tws]

Originally Posted by mishu007

One thing Could you plz tell me Do DreamHost support PAYPAL payment?

Yes: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/Payment_methods

[ldcdc]

As you can see, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

It most certainly was.

According to host-tracker, my uptime is 99.12% on their fanta server.

Assuming that number is accurate, many would not find it an acceptable level of uptime. Then again, some probably would. It's good you mentioned it though, so people can rely on a figure rather than excellent/good/satisfactory, which can be (unfortunately) very subjective measurements.

All in all, a positive experience for me.

Glad to hear you're happy with your web hosting choice.

[tws]

Originally Posted by ldcdc

Assuming that number is accurate, many would not find it an acceptable level of uptime. Then again, some probably would. It's good you mentioned it though, so people can rely on a figure rather than excellent/good/satisfactory, which can be (unfortunately) very subjective measurements.

Uptime is very subjective in itself. 99.12% for simply a blog and gallery might be fine. As with most everything in this industry, it's all about what the person's needs and uses are.

[extras]

Maybe because of this ....


Wanna Fanta!
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago (October 21st, 2006 at 3:14 pm PST) by Brian

It looks like Fanta’s network interface fizzled out, so, we decided to restore it to new hardware.

All of the network configuration scripts are furiously working to restore it’s … pop … so we should have it back up and working soon! Sorry about that!

Happy-not-soo-bubbly-server-restore-team!

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2006/10/21/wanna-fanta/

[SwiftModders]

Interestingly, some clients are very anal about uptime, but most are. Some people who have small website projects or just want to upload things to the web will not be the ones checking their site constantly to see if it is up. Everyone is different, but in many customers cases, 99.12% would be unacceptable. That is close to about over an hours worth of downtime.

However, good review and I am glad you took your time in finding the right host for you. After a little bit of reviewing you can easily find the right host, but some people are very quick to go with these "amazing deals" and not do their homework. Good luck with DreamHost!

[ldcdc]

That is close to about over an hours worth of downtime.

It is actually about 6 hours worth of downtime in a period of one month.

Uptime is very subjective in itself. 99.12% for simply a blog and gallery might be fine. As with most everything in this industry, it's all about what the person's needs and uses are.

Certainly very true, which is why the OPs objective measurement is so valuable.

[SwiftModders]

Originally Posted by ldcdc

It is actually about 6 hours worth of downtime in a period of one month.

Certainly very true, which is why the OPs objective measurement is so valuable.

Hehe, I didn't want to do the math. I was a bit lazy, but yes 6 hours is quite a while to be down. Most clients would come barging in those WHT revolving doors and say "HORRIBLE HORRIBLE SERVICE" which they are well in their right to do.

[Nadabrahma]

Glad you are pleased with DreamHost, they have had some bad feedback lately.
Now, personally I prefer a higher uptime than 99.12%.

More like 99.97% or so....

[Greedisgood]

Originally Posted by ldcdc

It is actually about 6 hours worth of downtime in a period of one month.

Certainly very true, which is why the OPs objective measurement is so valuable.

I would like to you thank you for your two webhosting review sites!

Top stuff mate

[valentin_nils]

Thank you for your review.
Is it o.k to ask which domain you host with them ?
Perhaps you can add it to your signature or profile.

Just a thought so.

[mrwebmeister]

The uptime stats i posted in the original review were for the 1st month of usage. Sorry about that. Here are the current numbers as of today:

Updated stats:

Week: 2006-12-11 = 99.48%

Month: 2006-12 = 99.73%

Quarter: 2006-10 = 99.51%

For those of you interested in the domain i host with them please contact me directly. Thanks.

[schmeg007]

Looks like it's averaging out to be a little bit better. I always expect the first month to be poor and your updated uptime stats seems to show that they're working the kinks out of that particular server you're on. Thanks for keeping us updated mrwebmeister!


I'd be interested in seeing more stats in the future