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How Much Do You Pay to Host Your Website?
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?"
I like them a lot. $100 / month for a dedicated server that's a 1ghz duron with 512 meg of ram and 60 gig hard drive. That's more than enough power for the sites I host. For $1000/month with them, I could get a site that can't be slashdotted.
The downside is support. They only have a mail ticketing system, and you're pretty much left to handle your own problems, but that's okay. I pretty much considered it a learning experience installing / configuring my own BIND, Apache, Mysql, and GD.
The best part of this is that they include 400gig/month in bandwidth to use. It would take some serious bandwidth to suck all that up. It's burstable too.
FYI they're based in Texas. If you're looking for discounted hosting, go for it!
Of course, don't cry to me if you run a commerce site with them. It's my belief that any site that's a breadwinner for a company should run at a place that has 24/7 support. A ticketing system is fine, just make sure there's always someone there to answer it.
Overall, I like them. Cheap enough to keep me happy, and it's my own machine with root so I can install/config and run whatever I want.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Speak very, very kindly to the network guys at your place of work.
No - very very kindly.
Generally they'll have more bandwidth that they need. And if they've got a Packeteer or a FlowFusion, they can let you have the remainder of the bandwidth that they aren't using. The way I see it, is that any bits on an E1 that aren't being used is money being wasted.
Obviously, it goes without saying that spam, warez, and pr0n is a no-no.
But if they're cool, they may well let you sneak in a few boxes.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Eryxma Networks really has done a great job for me. They use GNU/Linux servers and are dirt cheap (right now 1GB of storage and 50GB of transfer for 3 bucks/month).
the service has been great. the ceo even gave me his AIM screenname. I recommend them highly.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
We pay roughly 6,000 per year. This includes the software, the hardware, the bandwidth and the service. (This is through http://www.ezboard.com) We have been very happy with the service, receiving assistance from the company CEO when need be. Their software/hardware is also capable of handling very long threads, (our longest being over 12,000 posts and 130mb for the text only before becoming corrupted.)
I do security
I have been using Appalachian Web Solutions www.appws.com for a few months now their basic package starts at $10. The guys are great to deal with and they also did a great job on my website. I try to stay with local companies myself and these guys are the cheapest here locally that don't do hosting off their DSL or Cable Modem.
Speakeasy seems to be the best way to go if you want to host your own sites. My friend in Acworth (suburb of Atlanta), GA, has my domain sitting on a box on his Speakeasy DSL which is 1.5/384 ADSL. He's only being charged about $100-$120 for the 4 or so IPs and DSL connection.
Consequently I'm getting charged only $30...so it's a pretty good deal to run one domain on a P3 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD machine.
I am a meat popsicle.
well - speakeasy isnt so great for some customers. I had my DSL through them (covad/northpoint) and when PacBell put a CO in across the street from my house that offered full DSL speeds I wanted to switch (or at least upgrade).
Speakeasy could only offer me sdsl at 128k - for $60/month... PacBell wanted $49 for 1.5/384 adsl.
I wrote them a bunch to find out the terms of my contract - and was told different things by different people. So I decided to leave.
Since I told speakeasy that I was going to leave they were trying to charge me $350 for terminating the contract. I told them no way I was going to pay that. I told them of all the conflicting info I got from all their service reps, and told them that since they couldnt even clearly show me the terms of my service, their claim that there was a termination fee of that size was BS. They said they'd have to bill me for it. I said go ahead and bill me - but there is no way in hell you're ever getting any money from me. I have a better service here - you cant/wont match it, and you want more money for me. We can go to court if you like - but I doubt you would win. They billed me once. I mailed them all the email correspndence I had with them - and they dropped it.
I don't think they offer co-location, but they do offer dedicated machines for managed or unmanaged co-hosting. If you're interested in signing up, click here.
I've had a dedicated server for about 5 years now. For the first 4.5 yeas I was on Hurricane Electric. H.E. has got to be the crappiest host in the world. They were great when I first started with them but made absolutely no advances in their servce or technology in 4.5 years. When they told me they couldn't install lib-mcrypt because it was too hard, I knew it was time to move. I've been with ProHosters for close to 6 months now and I think it was the best decision of my life. Realtime 24/7 support via their own IRC channel and super-smart people working there. They totally work their asses off for you. I have a dedicated RedHat box. I get 100 GB/month transfer with $1.50/GB over and they manage it for me. It costs me $300/month which is pretty normal for a dedicated machine.
ProHosters
I have a reseller account with nocster, and it works out pretty cheap. I split it with one other person, we each pay $15/month. But the best thing is WE CAN HOST AS MANY DOMAINS AS WE LIKE. So I got 1 domain, he has a domain, and we share another one. Plus my little brother has been wanting to make a website, so a $8 DNS registration and bamn, he gets some space too.
We get 1gb of disk, and 20gb transfer. This is the lowest option, you can get a lot more.
Checkit out.
www.wpidalamar.com - Personal web site
Our joint-venture: www.geek4.com - public web site, like slashdot, but anyone can post, and then people can subscribe to various authors to determine what news they get.
I had a very similar situation with Speakeasy, although it involved handoff problems and Verizon screw-ups. They suddenly charged me $300 for my modem a year after _they_ told me to go with a different ISP. I told them to go ahead and bill me but I wouldn't pay it. After a sequence of increasingly nasty collection notices and endless threats and credit warnings, I chickened out and ended up paying.
All throughout, they kept the polite smiley attitude that everybody from Seattle seems to have, but nobody was actually willing to help me there. I would really recommend that folks stay away from all big ISPs, esp Speakeasy, and find local small-fry ISPs who actually want your business.
I've used several ISP/CoLo sites over the past six years and have been with PogoLinux for the past two.
I'm very happy with them, $149 a month for their hardware at their site (15 GB xfer/month). I've paid more to CoLo my own boxes.
You have root access on your box.
Had no service interruptions or power outages since I've been with them. I just checked my uptime and it was 292 days, I bounced it earlier this year after patching something.
Anyways, I'm not affiliated, etc, but I've been very happy with PogoLinux.
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Well given the cost of bandwidth and supply outstripping demand - costs are cheap, but never cheap enough. I pay around £10 a month for hosting of a whole domain in Telehouse with respectable limits; I suspect man will make it to Mars before I hit them. Of course it's also the peerage that makes a big difference and not forgetting support. I've currently been using http://www.metahusky.net/hosting.html for over a year now and never for one minute had my train of thought derailed with support issues - sex yeah but not me hosting. Heck they have the same peerage as the bbc.co.uk, so if /. Does an article on all colo's I'm sure this would handle the load (I wonder when /. will give out awards too sites that survive without removing content or requireing registration).
Security is also an area of concern and you really can't place a cost on that - I mean, what's your business worth, as that's what's at stake. Again I'm happy given that I work in security and have still to catch them out.
At the end of the day you have to look at what you want and then find a supplier that can meet that. Also look into security, support (hours of support as well;) and also who uses them currently from the perspective on how long they have been there - whats there churn like, and do your own research on that by emailing a couple of the webmasters of the hosted domains of from google or whatever means you prefer.
£100 per month, plus £20 for every 30Gb of data transfer. That includes 1U space, power, remote console, etc and a 10Mbps connection.
Choosehosting host all of our games server off QiX - fabulosuly low pings, great support, great speeds. They also offer central European hosting for European-centric customers.
Did you read the link you posted? On the first page there were several horror stories similar to what I described: overcharged, underprovisioned, horrible speeds and/or latency, rude/lying/unresponsive customer service, etc. etc. Their advertising promulgates an image of them as being a place that caters to geeks by providing a low-fluff connection and great service for a premium, which is 100% A-OK, but as I and other people have observed, they're not very good about living up to their advertising. Sure, there are a bunch of 5 star reviews, but there are also a bunch of 1 star reviews. If i had the time to flame them good, believe me, I'd be typing in pages there and giving them a ZERO star rating if the form allowed it... Maybe, being *very* charitable, it's a case of growing too fast on their part... Honestly I as a paying customer shouldn't have to care about that though. I was paying for 1500/768, getting more like 300/200, and that with 300-500 msec pings to grace.speakeasy.net (their shell server) or any of the servers where I work (an ad firm/programming shop here in Austin).
If speakeasy.net is the cream of the crop, the others must shoot your dog or something. I honestly don't see how an ISP could be any worse.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Super questions, but what about some answers?
I'm in the market for a server, and these are much better questions thatn I could think of, but I'm not sure what the answers should be.
That's a good deal, but it's not really the same thing as a colo solution.
For one thing, you're dependent on your residential power supply and
probably using a consumer UPS.
For another thing, the 768k SDSL is good, but is it as good as the
gig-E and the OC-48 that the ISP has?
How does your route for a consumer line compare to what you'd
have at a colo provider? (Might be better!)
I pay $110 a month for a full megabit ADSL from a local provider, 8 static IPs, no
unreasonable rules or policies, btw. All things considered, I greatly
prefer my website to be hosted on an ISP's virtual web farm. It's being
backed up, it's on a commercial power supply, it's altogether on a
much higher bandwith connection, and it's not taking up space in
my house, making noise, raising my electric and air conditioning bills.
There's another aspect also: If I run a commercial web service at home,
I might not be 100% legal for tax and business reasons. If something is
afoul with my web based business, and it's located at my house, the
IRS and the FBI could take my house when they come for my web server.
If it's at a service provider's site, all they can do is shut the box down, if
they can convince the service provider to do so.
Another thing about consumer broadband is that it's only as permanent
as your current housing, and you won't know whether you can get high-speed
dsl at your next place until you already live there. This to me is the biggest
problem with DSL. I want to be able to get a guaranteed binding agreement
from the telco that DSL will be available at a given address, BEFORE I've
even talked to the realtor, much less, closed on the house and installed a
phone line.
The telco's can't do this and won't even understand what you're asking for if you do.
Speakeasy can't do it either.
Even if the current resident has DSL, you can't get a guarantee that you
will be able to get it if they move out and you move in.
For these reasons, I find it much better to have the web services
colocated at the ISP's data center.
I'm glad you mentioned this. I've been using Verio for the last couple years. Everything has been really good, except for little skirmishs with the blacklists.
When I first signed up, just about two years ago, there were just a couple of the minor blacklists listing a netblock that had my IP number. The listings were for a spammer that Verio had kicked off months ago. I contacted the blacklist maintainers (only one of those lists was could be be called "maintained"). It's remarkably difficult to contact these people. Eventually the better list dropped the block, and that gave me enough leverage to convince the other two to do the same (the spammer had long since moved on for greener pastures).
But in the last year or so, there's been a whole new crop of spammer acusations. I can't verify them... it reads like a whole lot of conspiracy theory. But a couple weeks ago it even got posted as a slashdot story (so it must be true, right?)
I called Verio. Before the slashdot story, they would just deny everything. They didn't admit they were catering to any spammers, but they didn't flat out deny that no spammers were operating on their network.
Verio claims that their hosting business is very separate from their network provision services (T1, T3, OC-something lines.... more bandwidth than I can envision). So far, the more reputable blacklists haven't waged netblocks on Verio's hosting side, or at least the few IP numbers allocated to my little server.
So because of these escalating wars between the spammers and blacklists, if you intend to host a mail server, the ISPs record about hosting spammers should be your top concern. Saddly, there are a lot of mixed messages and it's hard to tell if any particular provider is any good. Two years ago, for example, Verio was listed at the top of SpamCop's page of providers with exemplary anti-abuse policies.
Recently I've been making some tenative plans for jumping ship from Verio. Other than this spammer/blacklist issue, and one little incident where they didn't notify me in advance of (supposedly) scheduled maintainance (they claim they did), the decicated hosting service from Verio has been great.
But hitting blacklists, even occasionally, is a real show-stopper. For my little site, we do a light amount of e-commerce. When a confirmation email to a customer bounces (they placed the order over the web), we look like a little fly-by-night company out to steal their credit card info. Of course, emails bounce for a variety of other reasons, so we've gotten into the practive of picking up the phone and calling them with the tracking number.
The sad news is that there doesn't seem to be any really good way of determining if a provider is hosting or provisioning bandwidth to spammers. Even if everything looks good in advance (as it did 2 years ago with Verio), things change.... and they change more rapidly that you'd want to move providers when everything else is running so smoothly.
I wish I could recommend Verio, as the service, performance and reliability has been excellent. But this spammer problem and the reaction from the blacklisting community is definately something you don't want to get caught in the middle of.
I'm taking Rackspace off my short list of "plan B" options if the Verio/blacklist situation gets worse. Rackspace was actually at the top of my list.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
About uptime/downtime/tech support - for ten bucks, I'd say it's one of the best deals around. I used to host stuff on HostPro for more than twice that much money and had really crappy throughput and, frankly, an annoying web-admin interface. Tech support was also bare minimum.
So far, he.net has been responsive, has great throughput, and a great shell environment to do admin stuff from. My only real complaint is that vim was compiled april 2001, which broke on my .vimrc.
But, anyway, if it all turns to shit and I decide I don't like it, I can always go somewhere else -- there's no year or 6 month contract, and payments are made monthly.
_khl
And as an aside, I'd -personally- consider it very poorly managed if you colo a machine (or lease a dedicated server somewhere) and the hosting company -DOESN'T- have root. That's fucking stupid, because -part- of what you're paying them for is to keep yer machine up. If you don't want someone else having root on your machines, then lease your own T1 and drop it into your house/apartment.
Seriously.
While 1.5 Mbps is a substantial amount of bandwidth, DSL/cable modems are becoming increasingly common. I maintain a server hosted on a T1 that's mainly used for web browsing during the day, and when I do bandwidth-intensive file transfer from my cable modem, I'm able to come very close to filling the T1. While serving normal webpages does work flawlessly, I just wanted to point out that if you offer downloads -- or even just use lots of images/Flash -- your bandwidth will disappear surprisingly quickly. A single user with a cable modem can be eating up all your bandwidth. (Again, I'm not suggesting that a T1 is now worthless, just advising people -- if the T1 is shared with numerous other sites, if a single one is somewhat active, you may have precious little bandwidth.)
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