Hi -

After 4+ years with cihost.com, I'm looking for a new hosting service, and wanted to know if anyone can recommend one that has dedicated unix servers and >500 gigs/month transfer for <$200/month?

Or, anyone know any good, unbiased/non-aff review sites?

epinions.com also has a few reviews

a decent review site is Web Hosting Reviews - User Reviews on Web Hosting Jury , many of the others are simply affiliate front-end sites without user reviews.. It would be great to get a listing of the best dedicated hosting sites.

My understanding is that rackspace.com is the best hosting site, but they quoted me $600/month for 300 gigs of transfer, which is outrageous. I'd try godaddy hosting, but there's a lot of complaints about them. I had also used interland.com/web.com , but they've raised rates a lot. Dellhost.com also looked interesting. I remember too, for self-managed, which I don't want, rackshack.com had looked decent, years ago.

Anyways, much appreciated if anyone can recommend a high-end, superb managed hosting with 24/7 great service provider, for >400-500 gigs/month transfer running a unix box, 2g ram, large >20 person non-outsourced usa tech support team etc..

From many of the reviews I've been reading, it seems there "were" decent hosts, which have mostly gone downhill lately.

With all the video I stream, having a dedicated unix server (and >50 unique IP addresses for sites etc) with >500 gigs/transfer a month is needed.

probably a good idea too, is to go do whois checks for sites that do run very well w/a lot of video, and see who their host is, in the admin data fields...though most big companies have their own IT depts/servers, mid-size and small/entrepreneurs who do well, would outsource that.

Ideas/recommendations, from anyone who's used a host to deliver >100gigs/content/month for a dedicated unix box? I could check the adult site hosts too, but those are probably slower due to high bandwidth on their other accounts.

(or, recommendations for webmaster type forums I can go, to ask around?)


thanks,

Ken

I use Pair.com and have been using them for years, and this is after jumping from host to host for 2 years prior, about 5-6 times. Pair and especially Quickserve (their dedicated servers, which is what I have) can handle high bandwidth, and tons of traffic. To give you an example this board as well as ContextCash (with 40,000 users/websites) are all on Pair.com.

There's also an entire community of people who help each other out called Pair Users (more than just a board), Pair emergency support (I get answers within seconds, not minutes or hours), and more.

pair Networks - World Class Web Hosting

Thanks, Michel, I'll take a look at pair.com .. appreciate it! Sounds like they have a great support team/community, which is great.

Ken

Ken, drop me a line.

Edited to add, I used to be with CIHost. They killed my e-mail for 3 weeks, right before Christmas, then my whole site went down for over 2 weeks. A couple months before that, they had charged my credit card 3 times for annual hosting fees -- I should have been charged about $320 but I had nearly $1000 in charges ... CIHost was my inspiration for getting into the hosting biz. I couldn't believe companies like that could be in business and treat people that way.

And now you know.... the rest of the story!!

Bailey

Ken,

The budget you are quoting for the hardware specs you need, would be attainable maybe with a unmanaged budget host, but is not realistic for a truly quality host as you state you're seeking.

If you want more than 20 on-site techs, you've ruled out more than 95% of the data centers/providers out there. Really, you're down to about 5 or 6 left, and rackspace -- who is outstanding and not at all overpriced -- is one of them. I should also point out that if they have 20+ on-site techs, you are now in the realm of company where as a customer, you are "just a number," one of masses at a server farm. If you don't mind that, cool, but you're not going to get any continuity of service. Every time you open a ticket, it's going to be a different tech, and they're going to have no idea what was done 5 minutes ago, 5 days ago, or 5 months ago. You will need to explain everything over from scratch because they don't read ticket history. If you want personal and attentive service, to be remembered by your techs and treated like a person, a huge host is not going to be able to meet those expectations. I've hosted at a couple of those places trust me, been there/done that/experienced it firsthand...

As I eluded to above, Rackspace's reputation and prices are entirely earned and well-deserved. $600/mo. for 300 GB top-quality bandwidth, and for the level of redundancy, support and service they offer, is completely par for the course. Ken, if you are truly looking for "high-end, superb managed hosting" -- rackspace is your ticket, and that's what high-end superb managed hosting costs. It ain't cheap. Just as you want to be paid fairly for your time and expertise, that's the rate that the high-end "superb" full-managed hosts charge. Cadillacs don't have a Honda pricetag.

Next question, you mentioned 50 IPs... why do you need 50 IPs? Do you have 50 SSL certificates? SSL certs and personalized nameservers are the only two technical justifications for a dedicated IP on a site, according to ARIN, which is the organization which doles out IP addresses. You are not going to find a reputable host who just hands over 50 IPs for sites that don't have a technical justification for them. If the host says "sure, no problem" and hands them over -- that's a big red flag -- run, run away! Now if you have 50 SSL certs, awesome. But otherwise just that you're running a particular file type (videos) is no reason the sites can't (or shouldn't) go on a shared IP. The sites should be on a shared IP. CIHost's practice of allowing customers to waste IPs only means (a) they are wasting IPs, and (b) pain for customers down the road when they must be dragged kicking & screaming to the industry-standard practice of using shared IPs. It's really a shame they are doing this.

Ken, what control panel do you need?

What kind of CPU power do you need? Are you just pushing videos (which uses little CPU time), or are you also crunching data, doing high-volume SQL queries (like running forums)?

What kind of data volume are you pushing, mbit/sec? I'm wondering if you need a standard 10 mbit/sec connection, or a 100 mbit/sec card. The latter costs more, but the result is that if you have a surge in traffic, your server is not stifled by the speed of its network connection.

Do you need a backup service? A 2nd drive for backups or do you use an off-network/3rd-party provider for your backups?

What level of management do you need? Most "managed" hosts, aren't actually managed. 99% of them are reactive and only do work when you request it. That means you still need to know enough about running your server to know what is installed, know when exploits have been identified on that server software, and therefore know when to ask to have it updated. That's not very managed, eh? So don't just go by the tag "managed," because that is a word which is not defined in the industry. Anybody can claim managed, and it means basically nothing. You need to dig into their SLAs to see what exactly they do, when they do it, how they do it.

Ken I hope this helps. These are all great questions to ask a prospective host. Picking a good host isn't easy, especially for a layperson who doesn't know much about hosting... I liken it to me trying to buy ... power tools. I wouldn't even know what features to look for, or what to ask about, in order to compare the models the right way and make a good choice?? So I would ask my friend who is in construction to help me pick out a good model. Please think of me as that "friend in construction" (well, web hosting) I truly hope that this has been helpful to you.

Bailey

Welcome to EV1Serversâ„¢

This is a brick and mortar company that owns their own equipment. They have an excellent reputation.

You can get a dedicated Intel Xeon 3060 with 250GB HD, 2GB Memory and 2000GB a month for $199.

They have lots of packages under $200 a month.

Ken, we love ServInt Internet Services - Managed Dedicated Server & VPS Provider

We got a dedicated server for $199.00 per month. Here's what's included:

$199 Monthly
$99 Setup
1600 GB Monthly Transfer
100 Mbps Uplink Port
4 IP Addresses

Server Specs

Dual Core Pentium D 950
2 Total 3.4 GHz Cores
800 MHz Front Side Bus (FSB)
4 MB (2 MB Per Core) L2 Cache
2 GB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM
250 GB SATA HD

Available Options:

Extra Bandwidth: $1 for each 1 GB over 1600 GB
Add cPanel for $30.00/Month
Add Plesk for $30.00/Month
Upgrade to 4 GB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM for $50 setup $50/Month
Upgrade to 500 GB SATA HD for $0 setup $25.00/Month
Add 250 GB SATA HD for $150.00 setup $0/Month
Add 250 GB SATA HD (No Setup) for $0 setup $25.00/Month
Add 500 GB SATA HD (No Setup) for $0 setup $50.00/Month
Cisco PIX 501 for $0 setup $99.00/Month
Cisco PIX 506e for $0 setup $199.00/Month

I can vouch for ServInt, I know a lot of people who host there and they have been very happy there. I've heard ServInt is very good about answering questions, explaining to people how things work, and doing requested work. I don't know if their management is pro-active or reactive though -- that'd be a great question for their sales staff.

I do not recommend EV1 in this case, they are not going to meet Ken's stated needs. They are not managed; Ken will need to know how to admin a server -- or hire a management company (the pro-active ones are $100+/mo.) -- in order to host there. Also, quite a few of EV1's IPs are on spam blacklists. EV1 is one of those server farms I was referring to. Don't get me wrong, server farms meet a purpose, they (EV1, ThePlanet, ServerMatrix, LayeredTech, etc.) are just not a fit in this case.


Bailey

Ricky, may I ask, what do you guys do for back-ups? Just curious -- I'm always on the lookout for new back-up services.

Bailey

I use https://www.liquidweb.com/cart/content/dedicated/. They return my email within 2 hours, and I get a live person within 2 minutes on the phone.

If you're going to a dedicated server make sure you get a managed server. Many dedicated hosting packages are unmanaged which means you have to do all the software updates.

I've also heard great things about Rackspace