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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
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    Planet Earth
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    155

    * Review: DreamHost has been down and down and down

    From the last week up till now, my websites at DreamHost keep going down frequently, amounting to approximately 20% downtime according to a pinging service I use.

    In fact not just the last week but 1 or 2 months back, similar problems occurred again and again. And further back, .... Seems they are constantly haunted by server reliability problems all because of overselling.

    The control panel and the support are both not bad but I'm just sick of overselling, shame I have prepaid 2 years to them. But no more.

    Switching in a few days. God I want a truly worry-free host for my sites so I can focus on my job.

    I'm currently considering servint.net and linode.com, or a bargain introductory server at theplanet.com. Good move? Liquidweb seems decent too but not sure.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Edinburgh
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    3,883
    I think every hosting company should have an anthem....

    Here's one for Dreamhost...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNPJuJSVmNA

    On a serious note...have you tried looking in the offers section?

    owm
    ‹(¿)›
    Life's what you make it.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    10,629
    You paid prepay of 2yrs, Why?
    - Personally It is always best to pay on a monthly basis and that is a recommendation of my own because it would save you money in the long run if such problems as this occured...
    Have you tried contacting Dreamhost in regards to these server issues?

    Sean
    l Dedigeeks Shared Wordpress Dedicated Established 2006
    l Leading AUSTRALIAN Hosting Provider Sydney & Melbourne Datacentres
    l cPanel/WHM R1Soft Backups 24/7/365 Support SMS Hosting Alerts*
    l www.dedigeeks.com Managing Director Service Superstars

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Vancouver
    Posts
    973
    Quote Originally Posted by ATH-Sean View Post
    You paid prepay of 2yrs, Why?
    - Personally It is always best to pay on a monthly basis and that is a recommendation of my own because it would save you money in the long run if such problems as this occured...
    Have you tried contacting Dreamhost in regards to these server issues?

    Sean
    Its not like you can try Dreamhost out for a few months and see if you like it before going annually, considering they charge you $50 in setup fees if you want to go monthly. That and their control panel (perhaps to discourage people from switching) and overselling make for some questionable business practices. Regardless I hope the OP can resolve his/her issues.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Edinburgh
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    3,883
    Quote Originally Posted by ItsJustHosting View Post
    considering they charge you $50 in setup fees if you want to go monthly.
    That's just bad. Smells like a rip off.

    owm
    ‹(¿)›
    Life's what you make it.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    10,629
    Its not like you can try Dreamhost out for a few months and see if you like it before going annually, considering they charge you $50 in setup fees if you want to go monthly. That and their control panel (perhaps to discourage people from switching) and overselling make for some questionable business practices. Regardless I hope the OP can resolve his/her issues.
    Shows that not much research was taken, Don't you think?
    - They may be a successful service but would you signup with a service that was charging $50.00 setup fee to where many mnay others charge $0.00 for a monthly service?

    Seriously that just shows you there business practise.
    l Dedigeeks Shared Wordpress Dedicated Established 2006
    l Leading AUSTRALIAN Hosting Provider Sydney & Melbourne Datacentres
    l cPanel/WHM R1Soft Backups 24/7/365 Support SMS Hosting Alerts*
    l www.dedigeeks.com Managing Director Service Superstars

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Vancouver
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    973
    Quote Originally Posted by ATH-Sean View Post
    Shows that not much research was taken, Don't you think?
    - They may be a successful service but would you signup with a service that was charging $50.00 setup fee to where many mnay others charge $0.00 for a monthly service?

    Seriously that just shows you there business practise.
    Big name hosting companies are too influential, Dreamhost doesn't need to care if it charges $50 in setup fees while other hosts charge $0, they know many clueless people are coming to them for hosting (thanks in part to a large advertising budget), and will be convinced due to the $50 setup fee to instead go via the annual route, without knowing fully what they're getting into. And it's not like Dreamhost is cheap either, even if you go the annual route.

    I stick by my philosophy that you can get better service for cheaper prices with more honest practices from smaller hosts who can't rely on their size and marketing budget to attract clients and must instead do so by providing good service and support.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Posts
    3,878
    Quote Originally Posted by ItsJustHosting View Post
    Big name hosting companies are too influential, Dreamhost doesn't need to care if it charges $50 in setup fees while other hosts charge $0, they know many clueless people are coming to them for hosting (thanks in part to a large advertising budget), and will be convinced due to the $50 setup fee to instead go via the annual route, without knowing fully what they're getting into. And it's not like Dreamhost is cheap either, even if you go the annual route.

    I stick by my philosophy that you can get better service for cheaper prices with more honest practices from smaller hosts who can't rely on their size and marketing budget to attract clients and must instead do so by providing good service and support.
    I'm not the praying type, but AMEN!

    If only I had a gigantic piggy bank for marketing

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    EU - east side
    Posts
    21,920
    amounting to approximately 20% downtime according to a pinging service I use.
    Are you witnessing this downtime yourself? 20% downtime sounds terrible, and I would imagine that there would be more than one complaint about it around if this has been going on for months.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    245
    Huh,i though noone hosting on dreamhost anymore.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Indiana, USA
    Posts
    19,199
    Quote Originally Posted by ItsJustHosting View Post
    I stick by my philosophy that you can get better service for cheaper prices with more honest practices from smaller hosts who can't rely on their size and marketing budget to attract clients and must instead do so by providing good service and support.
    This is (in my personal experiences) true.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    61

    Thumbs up

    Quote Originally Posted by ItsJustHosting View Post
    Big name hosting companies are too influential, Dreamhost doesn't need to care if it charges $50 in setup fees while other hosts charge $0, they know many clueless people are coming to them for hosting (thanks in part to a large advertising budget)...
    Too true, too true. And its a source of frustration, to say the least, as overselling hosts gobble up customers with relentless guerilla marketing, and smaller hosts with higher quality and service standards struggle.

    But that's the trap too....ever try to be a new host and get noticed without spending much money (in a reasonable timeframe)? Forums like this sometimes help, but they often sport rather tight rules about what you can say and what you can't say, and in what color or font and every so many days, etc.

    So your choices seem to be: 1. Spend several years establishing yourself and posting in the "Offers" sections of various websites hoping to get noticed among the crowd of others (a gamble, to put it mildly), 2. Spend a lot of money on marketing/SEO (not always an option), or 3. Hire some salespeople and give away chunks of what little profit you actually make early on.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia
    Posts
    10,629
    Huh,i though noone hosting on dreamhost anymore.
    Who is a naughty little boy, Been living in the stone age!
    l Dedigeeks Shared Wordpress Dedicated Established 2006
    l Leading AUSTRALIAN Hosting Provider Sydney & Melbourne Datacentres
    l cPanel/WHM R1Soft Backups 24/7/365 Support SMS Hosting Alerts*
    l www.dedigeeks.com Managing Director Service Superstars

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Posts
    639
    I'm also curious if you experienced the downtime yourself. Otherwise, my advice is just to move.
    bihira.com | 10+ Years of Web Hosting Experience!
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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    East Coast
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    2,082
    dreamhost... Who is that? Oh yeah that's where I get half my customers from lol.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    61
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave - Just199 View Post
    dreamhost... Who is that? Oh yeah that's where I get half my customers from lol.
    Funny how that works; several of my customers came from GoDaddy hosting, where they said it was slow and awful.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Planet Earth
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    155
    Quote Originally Posted by ldcdc View Post
    Are you witnessing this downtime yourself? 20% downtime sounds terrible, and I would imagine that there would be more than one complaint about it around if this has been going on for months.
    Yep, 20% is just for this week though, with reports from a pinging service I signed up. I'm online for like 12 hours a day and check my site frequently so pretty much sure the downtime estimate is correct.

    You can click on my sig to see that the sites are still down for now. I've given up contacting the support.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Indiana, USA
    Posts
    19,199
    As of right now both of your sites are loading for me Of course downtime is usually intermittent.
    Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
    Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
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    Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Posts
    31
    It is normal where sometimes the hosting server are undergoing some maintenance which can due to downtime. But you mentioned that your website went down few times on 1 week? It is better you work with them to sort this problems out. Maybe they can transfer your hosting account to another server which are more stable.
    You can either work together with them or find yourself a new host.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    As of right now both of your sites are loading for me Of course downtime is usually intermittent.
    Indeed and that can be due to your ISP as well and your web hosting provider sometimes have nothing to do about that.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    UK: Oxford
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    1,259
    sorry to hear about that. If you want a truly solid host, go with 1 of the big 1's. Thats your best bet.
    Garbott Ltd - Exceptional web development, hosting & consultancy services

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB View Post
    As of right now both of your sites are loading for me Of course downtime is usually intermittent.
    It is. I too saw it come back online for like 30 minutes and now it's down again.

  23. #23
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    Apr 2006
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    Planet Earth
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    Quote Originally Posted by SiberForum View Post
    Indeed and that can be due to your ISP as well and your web hosting provider sometimes have nothing to do about that.
    I'm pretty tech oriented and I don't think it's that easy to fail to distinguish the real downtime to the fault of my ISP.

    FTP and SSH also keeps going down. Everytime I contact the support they say they are rebooting the server and everything should be all right in a few minutes but it just keeps going down again and again. Maybe they are rebooting the servers for fun?

  24. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by ATH-Sean View Post
    You paid prepay of 2yrs, Why?
    - Personally It is always best to pay on a monthly basis and that is a recommendation of my own because it would save you money in the long run if such problems as this occured...
    Have you tried contacting Dreamhost in regards to these server issues?

    Sean
    I don't agree that paying monthly is better due to the lose of discounts if you pay yearly. I think you should contact DreamHost managers and ask for reimbursing your expenses when you were down.

  25. #25
    You originally posted you were thinking about the Planet and a couple others.

    I moved from Bluehost to a reseller account with HostGators whose servers are housed by The Planet. Out of the choices you listed, I would personally pick the Planet. Whatever you do, get out of Dreamhost. Had a friend with similar issues a year ago. Its not a good spot to be in, with any host provider.

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