How Much Do You Pay to Host Your Website? 748
DosGusanos asks: "I was curious how much people around the U.S. and around the world pay for hosting. Obviously size in cabinets/rack units/square feet, included features such as bandwidth, UPS/generator, management, etc. factor in. The configuration I am particularly interested in is three machines, one www, one search, and one database. The machines would be hooked up to a T1 and networked to one another over Ethernet. Anyone paying for colo or hosting in this same ballpark? How happy/upset are you with your provider?"
Rackspace (Score:3, Informative)
Two words: Rackspace Rules
"Free" hosting... (Score:3, Informative)
I get DSL through Speakeasy [speakeasy.net] and they allow hosting of Web sites. I pay $160/month for 4 static IPs and 768Kbps SDSL. Medium speed hosting and I host dozens of Web sites off my connection. Great deal!
HostBaby plug (Score:2, Informative)
It's $20/month for 200MB, no set up and the first month is free. I know about them because their service works with Andromeda [turnstyle.com].
They're good guys.
T1 and local hosting (Score:2, Informative)
Rack Shack (Score:1, Informative)
And no - I don't work for them...
Small businesses with Real People Support (Score:3, Informative)
Check out epinions.com for other people's opinions on hosting providers.
Three machines for a dual T1 ? (Score:3, Informative)
This may seem obvious (Score:5, Informative)
ServePath has been GREAT! (Score:2, Informative)
I have a couple of dedicated servers with them and their prices are great. They have UPS/Generator, and I can even remotely power cycle my box with a web site. They have a cool site too that tells me how much transfer I've used and that good stuff.
They're located in SanFran too, so they're pretty well connected. I heard that's like the best place in the US to host a box.
I'd recommend them to anyone. They do colo's too.
I know I'm happy when I have a 140+ day uptime.
Later.
Re:Rackspace (Score:4, Informative)
Politech got blacklisted [politechbot.com] several times.
Beware of Rip-Offs... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the WebHostingTalk forums have a dedicated forum subsection for having companies compete over you... it was somewhat amusing when I did so. I got like 5 responses within an hour, plus 5 or so e-mails. But then I realized that the bandwidth I'd require was much greater than I anticipated (or could afford), so I edited my post saying something like that. And they're still e-mailing me. Like once a week...
There are a couple ways to look at this... (Score:2, Informative)
$300 a month, one tile, unlimited power, T3 connectivity. You provide the UPS, Rack, and Servers, they provide a chair and an ashtray. Works for me, and you can sublease the rack space.
Hurricane Electric, Baby (Score:5, Informative)
Running your own server loads of fun, don't get me wrong, but $10 a month for all this stuff seems worth it. Unless you really have money to burn, it's impossible to the same kind of performance out of your own server... Do you think Verizon will run a gigabit backone and Hubble power connector to my house for $10?
Hurricane Electric http://www.he.net/ [he.net]
Re:Work == lots of bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
Just curious.
C//
Actual answer with actual $$$ here (Score:3, Informative)
We [premieragendas.com] (and we [mydiscoverzone.com]) host about 5 major sites at a 3-server setup with this service provider [netnation.com].
Our cost is less than $1100 US a month. If we use more than 300 GB a month we start paying extra, but not too much ...
Not sure why you were going to do 1 web, 1 search, 1 db box; we do 2 http and one db, and when we add, we'll be adding http boxes, as putting our (extensively customized per user) pages together takes a bit of horsepower.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Another Web hosting rating service . . . (Score:2, Informative)
JohnCompanies - Collocation Services - SWEET (Score:5, Informative)
I pay $65 / Month
- root on your own server
- Full FreeBSD Filesystem
- 2 gigabytes disk space
- 40 Gigs transfer / Month
- Firewall access
- Unlimited tech support
- We supply the hardware
I'm currently running a very kickass apache box with an incredible uptime (they've been down once and they weren't really down, just a network problem, 90% of my customers were able to still reach the sites)
I'm hosting over 30 domains on there, not low bandwidth either. And I'm probably going to be buying more boxes to setup a web serving cluster as the number of users increases
The support is fast fast fast. I get replies in less than 5 minutes in some cases.
http://www.johncompanies.com/
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I paid $200 for a lifetime hosting.... (Score:3, Informative)
how to buy a dedicated (Score:5, Informative)
Ask how many internet connections they have and what speed with each one.
Ask how many NIC cards will be in your machine.
Ask what your max Mbps is
(This always gets you put on hold) Ask what the machines bus speed is
Ask if RAM upgrades/HD additions are priced per month or if there is a one time fee.
Ask if they will search your box for illegal materials. (you be surprised how many said yes) That means you are not the only one with root. so throw them out of the list.
Ask if you get unlimited users accounts. (dell host caps you at 100 pops) thats not full service!
Ask what the minimum billing is for support. some have 30 min some have 1 hr.
Ask if they use a in house linux distribution.
Ask if they offer security bullitens and offer links to patches.
call there tech support before you sign up and tell them you are a customer. (play the dumb blonde) see how they treat you.
Ask your salesman for their cellphone. (that gets some laughs)
Look up the server companies IP block then hit em on ARIN and see if they own a substantial block or if they own one at all!!
Ask if you are your own dns or if you have to use theirs.
Ask if your on a virtual dedicated.
Ask what the levels of discount are per GIG over allocation.
Ask who owns them
Ask about offsite back ups storage., how far away is it?
Ask if you are allowed on their property
Ask the price of additional IPS
Ask if you can tour the facility
Ask if you can ethernet multiple boxes to bypass bandwidth fees.
Ask if you can host adult sites
Ask if your machine has a control panel that support insists you use. (cobalt!!! ahhhh!!!)
ask how long they have had a business license.
and last, ask about the spam policies and what they consider spam and what the fine is per message.
that should help with the fodder
Re:Rack Shack (Score:1, Informative)
My experiences with Rack Shack haven't been so good.. I don't deal with them directly, but I do work for people who do, and have heard horror stories..
Before I started dealing with them, a customer got their box (which they bought from Rackshack, and Rackshack is under contract to admin) rooted - Rackshack was most UNhelpful in getting the machine up and running again (even though they were paid for it) - the guy's site (e-commerce) was down for almost a week - they had to hire me to come in and get things set up correctly.
After I got the machine running properly, I did an audit on the box, and I found that Apache was compiled with OpenSSL v0.96b (the one with the buffer overflow in it.) I asked Rackshack if the version reported was correct, or if they had patched the file manually and not bumped the version number (which I've seen a number of times.) Rackshack's answer was that everything had been updated to the latest version.
A month later the box got infected by Slapper.
So Rackshack reset the machine again (they were only down for 3 days this time), and (again) they claim that the box is up-to-date, even though it still reports the bad version number. I emailed their tech support again, and this time I didn't recieve any reply at all.
I certainly wouldn't call ignoring a customer's questions to be "friendly support."
Re:Rack Shack (Score:2, Informative)
They give you tonnes of bandwidth (400GB per machine), too. Roughly 150kbps (a T1 basically).
They do load balancing? No way, I was told they didn't, because I could really use it!
For people looking for budget hosting: (Score:3, Informative)
$2/GB traffic
$.50/GB/day storage
$.15/minute CPU time (for scripts)
It's easy to track your usage through their website, and create multiple accounts with different privilidges. For any site with less than 100 visitors a day, this is perfect, because there's no monthly charge. I've maintained my church's website for 6 months there, and haven't exceeded $.15 yet.
nearlyfreespeech.com [nearlyfreespeech.com] is cheaper, but they don't allow ssh (or telnet) access. This is a big downside for those of us who enjoy unix because of it's user interface ;)
Unfortunately, I can't help you if you need more bandwith than those guys can give. Good luck!
Re:Rack Shack (Score:2, Informative)
I rent two (2) 1.3 GHz Athlons with 512M RAM and 40 GB IDE drives for a total of $200/mo. That comes with 400 GB of traffic per machine (averages out about a 100% utilized T1 throughout the month).
The machines have different functions, and rsync allows them to mirror each other. Either machine can take over the duties of the other in case of failure.
Re:"Free" hosting... (Score:2, Informative)
The 1100Kbps up/down connection we have runs about 350$ a month, which is less than half that of any T1 connection in the area. When I spoke to a guy at bandwith.com [bandwidth.com] he said the best he could do for a simalar price was a 384Kbps dedicated connection. Our pings stay under 20 ms to most sites, and if you host a few pages, then you'll easily be able to recoop the costs of the connection.
The only potential snag you may run into is that they may try to route your packets through a far-away place; for us the packets were originally travelling from LA through Seattle, back to LA (sounds like a UPS shipping route) making latency a bit of an issue. We paid them a bit extra to move our traffic only through a LA server, but even with this additional cost, its still much cheaper than any alternative we've seen.
Re:Rackspace (Score:5, Informative)
My web pages are not just static HTML, either. This site serves an hour-long interactive training course that certifies over 3000 people a day. And the servers have been working perfectly. In fact, one of my three machines there has an uptime of 355 days (tomorrow is a whole year!!!). They're all running Linux, of course.
Re:I paid $200 for a lifetime hosting.... (Score:2, Informative)
For a side-by-side comparison.... (Score:5, Informative)
Find one that looks adequate for your needs, then ask about it on webhostingtalk.com, to make sure it's reputable.
Re:Speakeasy.net Sucks (Score:2, Informative)
Re:ServerBeach (Score:4, Informative)
Support also sounds about the same. Which would be fine, except I had a bad experience with them when they gave me a server with a bad hard drive. Bad hardware happens sometimes -- but they denied the problem and tried to blame it on me for quite a while, which shouldn't happen.
But most of the time I don't need them to do anything, and everything works well.
zero for over 2 years. (Score:2, Informative)
http://rhyton.com
It is great. You can do virtual web hosting yourself. You can connect with ssh. Perl, mysql, and sendmail are all installed. You can even configure them for your needs.
canada web hosting (Score:2, Informative)
They also offer 200MB storage, 10GB traffic, 40 mail boxes, etc. for about $13 CDN.
Re:Hurricane Electric, Baby (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Did you mean Gb/mo!? (Score:2, Informative)
Mb stands for Mega Bit, which is usually indicative of bandwidth, not bytes transferred. $800/Month/Mb is about accurate, considering the price of a T1 is somewhere around that mark for 1.5Mbit right now.
The subject on your response would indicate Giga Bit per Month, which costs significantly more than $800, let me tell you.
Re:eryxma.com (Score:2, Informative)
I'm using phpwebhosting.com [phpwebhosting.com] now, and couldn't be happier. They're a great solution if you can't afford Rachshack or whatever. The site in my sig [captionthis.com] is hosted with them, actually. Nice and fast, great support, geek-friendly, the works
Re:how to buy a dedicated (Score:4, Informative)
You present a lot of great questions, but remember: A -> B != ~A -> ~B. They might have root on your box even if they don't search it. So better be anal and just ask them if they'll be logging into your box ever.
Re:Rackspace (Score:5, Informative)
Rackspace has a long history of being apathetic at best to spamvertized sites, despite their anti-spam Terms of Service. As of 3-Dec-02, they're still hosting at least 20 or so spammers, [spamhaus.org] and chunks of their netspace may still be listed on SPEWS. [spews.org]
Cheap or not, good customer service or not, I would be very wary about selecting Rackspace for any sort of hosting.
Re:Rackspace (Score:4, Informative)
Rackspace rules them all. We've been with them for over two years now and I don't believe we will ever leave them. We've done our shopping, but compare Rackspace to any of the others and you'll realize something - these guys REALLY know what they're doing.
We will be at 9 servers with them in a couple of days (just added 3 more). We use just under 1.5TB of bandwidth every month. At this level of usage, we get it for $2/GB. That is certainly not bad. Given that their network has never had an unexpected outage (not that I can remember at least) I feel it's very justified.
The folks there _really_ know what they're doing. The sales guys don't try to be technical guys, the sales engineers are on the ball. The tech support folks can solve a lot of the problems right there but when the shit hits the fan they'll send you straight to the guy in the data-center. I've spoken to one of the founders (something technical, don't remember what) and I didn't even ask for him, they just conferenced him in.
We've been in some pretty bad spots before (lost most of a RAID 5 array once) and they've pulled us out of the gutters.
I've had security folks tell me the Rackspace network is very secure. But I cannot personally confirm this.
We're not a big customer of theirs by no means. We're TINY. I know they've got some very large contracts but they really do care about us. The
little guys.
I could easily go on for hours here so I will stop now. If you can afford it, get Rackspace. You will not be sorry.
All Muslims Are Terrorists!!! (Score:1, Informative)
Muhammad was a Terrorist and so are All Muslims!!
Hurricane Electric, $200/month colo (Score:3, Informative)
When I first signed up with HE.net, the $200 rate was for 1U or 2U of rack space, but I'm quite sure they sent me a card more recently quoting the same rate for 4U of space. I think they offered a half-rack for a really good price (maybe $400 per month?). Their rates might be cheaper now, or they may have different specials. You didn't say what size or shape your three servers are, so I have no idea whether your equipment could fit in 3U of space, or might need 12U or even as much as 21U. (A rack unit, or RU, is 1.75 inches vertically, by something like 26x39 width and depth, sorry I don't have the actual dimensions handy.)
They provide all the features of a good colo facility: enclosed, locked racks (so someone servicing a machine in another rack can't knock out your cables, as sometimes happened with other colo providers I used); 24/7 staffing and access if needed; UPS and air conditioning; staff that will power-cycle your server at no charge, and they even hooked up a monitor and keyboard to see what was wrong when my server's power supply failed, and they didn't charge extra for that. I think they also have the fancy oxygen-reducing and fire-suppressing equipment.
I was extremely happy with Hurricane Electric, by far the best of my three experiences with colocating a server in the area. They have facilities in San Jose and Fremont, California.
Beware: When I was shopping for colo services, I often found that the salesman's claims were not honored in the contract or in practice. One colo provider told me for THREE months that my outages were not their fault, then when I spent money and proved they were at fault, they agreed and allowed me to terminate my contract, but wouldn't make good on any promises (thankfully I did not sue, since they filed for bankruptcy several months later).
In some cases, you may be promised 24/7 access, but when you need access at 2am you find out that there is no staff from midnight to 8am and the on-call tech just refuses to come out because he's really tired and you're not an important customer. Or they promise redundant internet connections from multiple backbone providers, but they are connected to those providers through a single Pacific Bell T1 line (e.g. they had one T1 line that connected to a facility served by multiple backbone providers, but if the T1 line is lost, your connection is lost). And of course, with the domino of bankruptcies of colo providers, many facilities close with only a week's warning, and sometimes a facility may be closed and your equipment disconnected and shipped to another facility without your knowledge -- so your server is offline for several days, and then when you want to pick it up from San Jose, you find out it was shipped to Virginia.
Read the fine print in your contract.
Re:I paid $200 for a lifetime hosting.... (Score:2, Informative)
DHTML is fine and dandy at the resolution the designer intended, assuming the fonts used are from the extremely limited "univeral" set... which there is really no standard for universal fonts that I know of (please illuminate me if I'm wrong).
Once you use a larger browser window (or higher or lower monitor resolution), the user has to hope they have to adjust the font size to the proportions you intended as the designer (they can't really know which proportions you intended to use).
I'm not talking about using absolute font sizes in the HTML pages, but relative ones. It is still dependent on what their system or browser has set as default and can ruin the formatting of the page. The argument that sustains this HTML technique of passing that control to the browser is mainly for people with varying levels of visual impairment. This can be solved by good design (don't use microscopic sizes of fonts for everything, provide alternate content, etc.)
After finding ways to solve those issues, you still have to deal with a (for the time being while SVG gets its act together) raster graphics world. To scale up the graphics on your page to adequately match the layout and visibility requirements (higher resolutions make the graphics difficult to see by some) you have to try to stretch a relatively compact raster image into a much larger amount of pixels. Quality is ALWAYS lost in up or down scaling in this case.
SVG offers some promise for this issue, but then there are many considerations of additional scripting to make the rest of the pages around them also gracefully up or down scale. It is not, by any means impossible, but, it is a definite uphill climb.
So I tell you, with Flash, I can design a site using fully scaleable vector graphics that I can animate, script, dynamically change through my scripts, and embed fonts so that everyone who has the Flash player can view it with the same proportions of graphics and the same fonts.
Create a vector flash "movie" (.swf file) in Flash, or elsewhere and import it to Flash, and put it on the screen. Now resize your screen... watch as the graphics smoothly scale up or down. Run it on a computer with 10 times the resolution, Bingo, same exact proportions and the quality looks EVEN better (because anti-aliasing looks better).
Flash is often abused to add heavily animated and inefficient movie clip intros to web sites. If just used for the vector graphics and perhaps the animation thereof, they can be just as, if not MORE efficient for custom drawn graphics (not for photos) than any raster alternative.
Now imagine being able to fit an entire small web site (with some fancy animation and 100% vector graphics + 1 embeded font) into a single 60 KB file. I've done it. For an example, feel free to do it for yourself! That way you can get a feel for how much more efficient it is.
Working with dynamic server generated content is also not difficult. You can even alleviate much of the server's computing time running scripts that is used to generate page layout. Send the data and let the client computer do the layout processing. Why not? Most computers have enough horsepower left to render a web page AND do some processing simultaneously? It'll make your web site work faster and is a rudimentary bit of distribution of the computing of the web site between the web server and the client machine.
It features an object oriented scripting language robust enough to handle much of what the server ordinarily has to do to generate content and even organize data output. This way your server scripting and or programs can simply handle user authentication and sending data to the client. The client then does the dirty work.
This can, I'm sure all be done with javascripting or java applets... but, then you create much larger HTML page files sizes and overall per page download sizes between all the assets, scripts, and HTML code.
If you're used to mod_deflate for HTML page size reduction, never fear, Flash 6 compresses the SWF files upon creation... that means a little less overhead for your server of having to compress the files, but, you still send compressed content.
Flash 6 also creates alternate HTML content automatically upon publishing an HTML page that has the movie in it. You can also use it to create alternate animated GIF or animated PNG files that will, with Javascript, substitute for Flash content. Flash's bad name is currently being abused because of people who don't know enough about it and don't use it properly to develop applications or web content with it.
Don't be so quick to flame Flash. I'm sorry if you refuse to visit Flash-only sites. While web designers truly haven't used even 10% of the full potential of what the Flash format can offer to creating web content, don't assume that this will remain the same in the near future.
Pretty soon, Flash only web sites will probably serve your needs better and more efficiently than DHTML ones.
100$ @ Fatcow (Score:2, Informative)
100$ a year covers
* some stuff takes an additional 10$ onetime setup fees.
My take on Pair and Fatcow (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hurricane Electric, Baby (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hurricane Electric, Baby (Score:2, Informative)
We is a half dozen computer geek friends with various 1U and 2U servers in the rack.
If you want and/or need your own dedicated server (I do), find some friends and get in on a colo together.
Cheers!