Thread

Forgive me, I’m on caffeine, hence all the posts in such a short timeframe.

I was wondering where you guys host your stuff? I don’t have the most experience with servers and everything, but am investigating going co-location, which means I’ll be going dedicated rather than something like shared hosting or VPS.

My friend has a box dropped into FDCServers, which has some amazing plans for the price, but was wondering if there were any better places? FDCServers has some ridiculous plans with unmetered bandwidth and a shared 100mbit line.. That’s rather convincing, but somehow, I believe there’s something better out there.

Looking forward to some replies. Is there such thing as a holy grail of data centers? Please do share. 😊

FDCServers has some ridiculous plans with unmetered bandwidth and a shared 100mbit line..

Personally, I tend to be wary of “unlimited” deals. There is no free lunch, after all, so chances are they are overselling their servers and counting on most people never needing or even coming close to the advertised amount of traffic or webspace; and if you do, they restrict your server, or possibly try to get rid of you. Not saying that’s the case here, more of a general observation really.

Looking forward to some replies. Is there such thing as a holy grail of data centers? Please do share. 😊

Not really. As a rule of thumb, you get what you pay for. While paying more is not automatically a guarantee of getting superior service and quality, the inverse generally holds true: budget hosts will provide budget level support and hosting quality.

I want to point out I don’t endorse FDC or anything, but they are notorious as the company who used to host Suprnova.org. In any case, my friend has given me some very encouraging words that entice me to follow his lead, but I do have to agree that you do get what you pay for. If I know I am getting a more valuable and trustworthy host, than I don’t mind sacrificing some specs in exchange for security and peace of mind.

Any recommendations Ingmar? I am aware of Engine Hosting, so something else would be great. I’ve seen others talk about Joyent on here as well.

No recommendations, sorry. Not currently in the the market for dedicated hosting solutions, either, and for shared hosting, yes, EH would be my recommendation. Word of mouth is generally a good rule to go by, though. If your friend is happy and knows about your needs, chances are you will be, too. Good luck 😊

Moving to The Lounge.

FDCServers has some ridiculous plans with unmetered bandwidth and a shared 100mbit line..

Personally, I tend to be wary of “unlimited” deals.

keep in mind, these are two completely different things. unmetered does not mean unlimited. a 100Mbit line unmetered simply means they do not bill bandwidth by usage (you pay a fee up front for the entire connection) and you’re free to use as much as you can. It’s not something to be concerned with, it’s standard practice.

JT,

What do you mean by that as standard practice? There is no limit to bandwidth usage, so wouldn’t that make unmetered bandwidth essentially unlimited, granted I can pull it with an appropriate setup? Perhaps I’m missing out something, but from what I’ve been able to grasp from the majority of data-centers, it isn’t standard practice to offer unmetered services, but rather offer monthly packages with tiered packaging from low-end to high-end, with the high-end being those with higher monthly bandwidth.

Thanks!

JT,

What do you mean by that as standard practice? There is no limit to bandwidth usage, so wouldn’t that make unmetered bandwidth essentially unlimited, granted I can pull it with an appropriate setup? Perhaps I’m missing out something, but from what I’ve been able to grasp from the majority of data-centers, it isn’t standard practice to offer unmetered services, but rather offer monthly packages with tiered packaging from low-end to high-end, with the high-end being those with higher monthly bandwidth.

Thanks!

Sort of. It’s semantics. You don’t have unlimited bandwidth. youre LIMITED to the amount of data the NIC can transmit/recieve. But it is unmetered which means they don’t bill you based on how much of the bandwidth you use. You have no restrictions on the NIC in the server

It’s not a play on words. But what he was referring to is some places offer stupid features that we know aren’t possible. Like 5 bucks per month and unlimited hard disc space. That’s the kind of thing to stay away from,

By standard practice I just mean that most service providers offer an unmetered solution. 10 meg or 100, and some even 1000. it’s not a trick. The difference you’ll find is that some datacenters offer unmetered services that are much higher in price. That’s because there’s a difference between some upstream providers. Some are budget type bandwidth and some are premium. But for most services (unless you require extremely low latency)the inexpensive providers are fine.

The Planet, Softlayer, FDC, serverbeach, etc most places offer these services now

You understand it right I believe. You can use as much bandwidth as the NIC in your server can send/recieve. Which in this case is 100megbits per second.

Thanks for the clarification. 😊

As a Java developer back in the days i used to host my sites at eApps.com and was very happy with their services and performance. But i tend to switch from time to time and have hosted with; Mediatemple (GS), Geekhost, VPSlink and others. Now, i’m back with Mediatemple and their DV package.

I’m aware that Media Temple is highly regarded in the development world, but was wondering whether or not you are paying more for just their namesake and heritage rather than performance and service? I’m not criticizing their services, but was simply wondering whether or not their services, on a price to price comparison can be competitive with places such as FDC in terms of speed, reliablity, and so forth. FDC seems more catered towards larger-scale bandwidth intensive websites and corporate clientele rather than more small to medium based sites looking to grow to higher-end shared or VPS hosting.

For example, their dedicated server package is $750 per month. Comparatively, data-centers such as FDC have similar plans for about half that price. I haven’t personally tried either service, so am just asking for an objective opinion. I do believe you generally get what you pay for, but there is a fine balance that needs to be teetered to determine whether paying 2-3x of a premium for a similar service is worth the extra support or namesake or what not.

I know this discussion can get into a battle of minute, meaningless points that all become moot until one can try everything out. But of course, I’m likely never going to have that opportunity or would probably even want to bother trying out so many different hosts.. At most, probably just juggle a few.

Would love to hear from you again.

My post was more an informative answer to your question on what host visitors of this board are hosted. Name and reputation does say something to me. After signing up, i decide if it’s also an option for me in terms of speed, reliability and such.

I’ve had some good and very bad experiences with (mt), but it should say something that i still am hosting at (mt). Though, i’ve had the least trouble with eApps, their service and speed was very good a few months ago.

...but then again, there are so many hosts, just pick one to try out if their service is good for your specific need at your any point of time. Constantly switching does cost time.