How to Measure a Web Host - Bandwidth, Transfer, and Disk Space

To me these are the most important things to consider when choosing a web host. What about you? How do you measure a good host from a bad host?

 

A host offering oodles of transfer and disk space could also have incompetant staff, poor servers, lots of down time, and more. I'm not saying they necessarily do, or that they are more likely to... just that transfer and disk space won't necessarily give you an idea of whether the host is any good or not.

For myself, the most important things in a host consist of a variety of factors, including good uptime, reliable servers, and staff that is both knowledgable and helpful. Good response times when you submit a support ticket is good too.

After that, then I basically look at my needs in terms of what they offer (including bandwidth and disk space limitations for my plan), and go from there. It's often helpful to search forums for a particular host to see what good/bad experiences others have had as well. I tend to look at hosts that either have a large name attached, or have been around for awhile, but that's just personal preference.

 

so what hosts come recommended by you guys?

 

bandwidth and disk space are offered generously these days by most hosts. what I look for is good customer support and prompt technical support. checking out others experiences with a particular host is also good as it gives you some idea of the host's reputation

 

so what do you recommend and could you give a brief description of your experience with your webhost?

 

Rank what's important to you out of the following:

Price
Uptime
High Diskspace
High Bandwidth
Response time to tickets
Quality of customer support
Fast host


Also, do you require any of the following?
Addon domains/Subdomains
Windows or Linux hosting
A certain preference in control panel
Number of MySQL databases
Dedicated IP
Ability to upgrade to a VPS/Dedicated in the future
# of email accounts
# of ftp accounts


I've used GoDaddy. Hated their control panel, their own web site was slow, and they had poor stats tracking (they like you to "upgrade" just about everything) but my site always loaded quickly. I've heard a lot of people having real issues with GoDaddy, but I'm not one of them, my experience wasn't that bad really.

I'm currently with asmallorange. Very good support so far, site's gone down a couple times for about 10-15 mins, but nothing to concern me. Unlimited MySQL databases, addon domains, fairly cost effective. They don't offer anywhere near the bandwith/diskspace of GoDaddy, but they also don't oversell from what I can tell, been pretty pleased. The bad news.. they're only allowing 25 people a day to sign up, because they're waiting for their new datacenter to open. That means there's about a 4 minute window every 24 hours where you might be able to sign up.

You'll probably need to answer at least some of the questions above to enable anyone to give you great suggestions. Someone could suggest a superb host, but it won't fit your needs because you might need 20 subdomains and that particular host only offers 5.

Let us know what your needs are and we can hopefully go from there.

 

Reasonably Priced
Good Uptime (close to 100%)
At least 100MB
High Bandwidth
Swift Response to tickets
Reasonable customer service support
At least 5 Subdomains support
Linux hosting will do
Unlimited Number of MySQL databases
Dedicated IP
Ability to upgrade to a VPS/Dedicated in the future
Unlimited email accounts
# of ftp accounts (this i not sure)

 

anybody have names ? and links?

 

I've hosted with HostGator for the past few months and they've gotten great reviews from others (me being one of them). Google them if you want to look. Other then that, check out webhostingtalk dot com, there are hundreds if not thousands of reviews on different hosting providers.

 

i'm with HostGator already.

so far, so good.

 

I use webcs.com for my hosting. They are great.

 

Hostgator's plan for $9.95 with unlimited domain names looks good. I don't know how they can stay in business with such a generous offer.

 

because we find them good, so we refer more ppl to them, so they stay in business?

 

Very good feedback and support from them

 

I love host gator and I am probably getting a dedicated server from them this week

but if you are running a lot of sites, on the $9.95 plan you may run into issues with cpu and/or mysql usage issues, if you are running database scripts. So try to cache any large scripts

Resellerzoom is another good host, at least so far.

They both answer support tickets usually within an hour, and hostgator has that im support but the people on im are mostly just for newbie problems

Resellerzoom allows over selling on their reselller plans(all?)

They both will install stuff etc ...

 

Is there a way to test how much cpu and mysql resources you are using and if you are in danger of using too much?

 

the only way to test is running it on a test server and gauge for the consumption. also be careful on the scripts that request database data. for it will probably use much of the resources

 

Scanning the internet and saw us mentioned here months ago. Thanks so much for this, it really is appreciated, esp when we stumble across it. Will (webcs.com)

 

Go with your mind not your wallet. IE there are a lot of hosts out there offering the moon. Unfortunately it costs something to get to the moon.

Think, OK, price is great but can that host support 100 even 10 users at that price? If the answer is no then there is a problem. We don't want you being one of those people where their host just goes away one day. Take care, Will

 

Kindly take a look at UC Hosting (sig)