I've had the same hosting service for years and for years they've been just fine. Very little down time and they gave me a pretty good deal on a reseller account so I could host multiple domains and host sites for my web design clients.
Well. Ahem.
Two weekends ago, the SQL server at my hosting service crashed and I lost several days worth of blog posts and comments -- the service crashed on the 18th and hadn't performed a back-up after the 12th. Also that weekend, their email server went down, and though that's back up and running, the Mailman listservs haven't worked since. I was patient. I was going to give them a second chance.
Not anymore. Today, everything's down again, and while this may be a glitch and my sites may be back up and running soon, I've had it. I can't even get to the hosting service's main website to file a tech support request -- not that this will do any good: they used to respond quickly to tech issues, but since this last crash two weeks ago, they've been deathly silent.
All of this brings me to say: HELP! I need to find a new hosting service and I need it ASAP.
What I'm looking for is a reliable but inexpensive service that allows for multiple (25 at least) domains and the ability to continue purchasing added space & bandwidth as needed. I'm used to cPanel as a control interface, so that would be preferable. Also, I must have PHP and SQL installed, and various other scripting options & add-ons, like Fantastico Scripts.
If any of you techie types have recommendations for me, please let me know! I'm eager for personal recommendations and not just links to "top hosting services" rankings. (And I hope this info will be helpful to others who want to move to their own domains or from their current hosting services.)
The worst part of all this is that it's fallen during a week when Chopper's lost his temp job and we're still trying to dig out from all the wretched stuff the tenants did to our house while we were gone. Feh. Sometimes bad luck runs in streaks a mile long!
Many Thanks in advance,
Robin aka MizD of Belly-Timber.com
14 comments:
I forgot to mention: this also means belly timber email is down. If anyone needs to reach me for any reason, try catesby at sff dot net instead. Thanks!
Oh man, I knew this was you based on just the title! I'm so sorry you're still having hassles like this. The name that comes up again and again in discussions around my geeky friends is Dreamhost. I haven't used them so have no personal experience, but they have lots of fans.
Lest you feel alone, I was on the phone with Hughesnet's idiots (oops, i mean tech support) at 3am because our link died. They tried to convince me they had to send someone out (at 120 hr) to repoint the dish because they could tell from Florida that it was bad. I finally convinced them to send a replacement modem (since we've recently had to swap the last broken one and it's still under warranty, whereas the "pointing" is not) and lo and behold my link is back. LOL (my mail server is down and snowed in up north but tht's another story)
I'm using a company called nexcess.net
The prices are a smidge more, but they have excellent service - I'm serious, when I file a help ticket, not only do I get a reply within 5 minutes (almost always from the same tech) but they actually fix the problem.
They actually moved my whole site for me for no charge - I just gave him the log in for my old host and Greg moved the whole thing and all I needed to do was repoint the domain.
The reason I moved from my old host was because of one of those issues with using too much server resources (you know, computing) - they had a cap of something like .5% but hosted over a thousand sites on one server, so there was no way a site that got any traffic would possibly stay within limits (so don't EVER use lunarpages.com).
So ... my recommendation - www.Nexcess.net.
I'm crazy about mine, which is ICDSoft.com. It seems to have everything you require, though I don't know specifically about Fantastico Scripts. The customer service is excellent. Every time I've had a question, I ask through their online help center and receive a reply within minutes. The starting rates are not bad, but if you have multiple accounts, the discounts are really good. I have a reseller account with them and have never had a problem with any of my sites. You can buy extra bandwidth by the GB or upgrade to another plan right from your control panel at any time. I recently upgraded one of mine, and it took effect immediately.
Sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope this helps some with the hosting situation.
Thanks, all! I'll look into those options. The server's back up, but I'm still so frustrated with the previous crash and subsequent unresponsiveness that I'm definitely in the market to change. Now, cross fingers the dang thing stays up tonight so I can actually post!
PS to kitchenmage: I so hear you about the satellite thing. We had to beg Direct TV to move our dish to the top of the roof after the first bozo put it at the bottom (obscured by the fig tree) because he was afraid to climb our roof. Second guy they sent also refused and told us to cut down more tree branches! Finally, Chopper complained till blue in the face and the third guy moved it to the top.
I had something similar happen to me in April and I moved to Bluehost. You can almost instantly, 24 hours a day get hold of a real and helpful person on the phone. They also offer a great package of software including Wordpress that is easy to install through Fantastico and a load of bandwidth for $6.95 a month. I couldn't be happier. I should also declare that i also have some of their affiliate advertising which pays $65 a click!
I'm using VR Hosted. I had similar issues with my prior hosting company. Disclaimer: I know the guy that owns this but I really don't think I'm getting any special service. Everything has been UP 100% and whenever they do any maintenance they tell you ahead of time just so you can be aware, although there have NEVER been any issues. Fantastico is htere, WordPress, etc.
CrystalTech. They are great. I have been hosting websites there for years.
More good suggestions -- thank you! I've compiled a big list from here and from another resource (a friend who works at a Very Geeky Company), and I should be able to find what I need from all these options. Thanks again, everyone!
I'm new to this but not a total Luddite. I use BlueHost and love them. The telephone support has been superb and when we moved my blog from our apache server here at home to BlueHost it took us about 30 minutes to have it up and running.
I use Site5 for all my sites (business and personal) and also happily recommend it to clients and friends. Their basic package allows for multiple sites through pointers, or you can get true multisite hosting.
I get it different type of hosting services detail through your blog. VPS is best choice for small and large organization. It's more security..
Hi,
If you have a proper domain name then you should have a good hosting service for your domain without it your domain is worthless.
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