Want to change web hosts - Need Advice

I don't know if any of you are using media temple, but over the weekend an entire cluster went down. I've experienced quite a few issues with MT over my 2+ years of using them...but this was the final straw. Two of my sites have been down for over 4 days...and this occurred right after hitting the digg front page (not because of it mind you...this was an issue entirely their fault and nothing to do with the traffic). I have zero access to anything, and cannot even grab my automatic backups.

Not to bore you all with my whining...to sum it up I'm looking for a new host and need some advice.

Here are the details of my site:
1) The primary site is wordpress based
2) I need multiple domains, most of which are also wordpress blogs
3) I will be implementing a forum in the near future
4) Our traffic is typically between 1000 and 10,000 hits per day, though we've had days of upwards of 150,000.
5) I would like easy scalability as our site is growing rapidly
6) Our budget is max of $40


Any advice? All help is greatly appreciated, and if you are in our niche (movie reviews), I'll be more than happy to do some linking to anyone who can help us out.

Thanks

 

Try hawkhost.com

I been using them for a long time now, nearly year and a half, and they are great.

Support is very helpful and the prices are reasonable and the service is very good.

I would think about getting a VPS, that might be a good choice with that sort of traffic, more power and control.

But you could try there shared hosting then if it is not enough, there VPS is cheap and reliable

 

That is pretty cheap. Don't often see root access on a $20 server.

 

Oh yeah, I am on the VPS Basic and it gives you complete control over EVERYTHING.

Trust me, the price is great and the support team there will help you with absolutely anything you need

 

I've also thought of switching to a cheap dedicated server such as this:

http://www.eliterax.com/promos/dedicated-celeron.php

I've never run a dedicated server though, and getting the managed option isn't really in our budget. Has anyone gone this route before? I don't have any experience running a dedicated server. What are the potential pit falls, and how long do you think it might take to learn to overcome the likely problems that might occur.

I am an electrical engineer so I have a technical background...but as with all things, lack of experience could cost me dearly if I'm not careful.

Anyone have any advice on dedicated servers?

 

If your unsure, try a VPS as they are basically the same thing just cheaper

 

Yes, try VPS or dedicated Hosting

 

Well one thing I always ask people when they mention wordpress is are you using caching? My favorite is super-cache and if you're not using it you really should be. Serving html pages to digg users is a lot easier than doing php and mysql.

It's not really a hosting recommendation but with 150,000 hits in a day the majority of hosts will crash and burn especially if it's php based. Heck even a small VPS would have issues depending on how you have it setup.

 

If you are using their gridserver then this is an ongoing problem

but I have been with their Dedicated virtual server and its been working smootly for almost a year now