OK, who has the best deal on 60-100 gig of bandwidth per month without breaking the bank?

Check out satexas.com ... I think they are a great company.... feel free to e-mail the admin and ask them questions... they normally respond withen 24hrs if not less...

And if you do sign up with them... tell them LostS sent ya :-P

I like getting a month free :-P

You can also take a look at CIHost. I have 3 gigs of HD space and unlimited bandwith for $20/mo. Check out their frequent "specials" for the best deals. []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/smile.gif[/]

Jeff

Hmmmm, why did you post this information as a reply to me? hahaha I already have a web host that gives me over 3 times the space, dozens upon dozens of other amenities including the latest versions of Perl, php, etc. and on the latest equipment at 1/5 the price of "Hosting4less". But perhaps there's someone out there that doesn't mind spending $100/mo rather than $20/month? What's it like having too much money on hand anyway? []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/smile.gif[/]

I never know who to click on to reply. Wish it just had a single reply button..:p Word of wisdom.. Cheaper never insures it being better..;) I have one site with upwards of 1,000,000 pageviews monthly, and it never skips a beat. Have you read their terms..?

http://www.cihost.com/?zone=support/terms


Makes for interesting reading. There is always a limit. You just have to read far enough.

My terms of agreement with my hoster is... Don't break it so hard it cant be fixed... I like my hosting provider... It is cool when they come to me asking for my opinion on something... Also if I need/want a Perl Module installed... I tell them where and how to get it and they do it :)

Also I like being able to telnet in and do stuff...

I recommend 4webspace (Tera-Byte). They offer a Cobalt RaQ3 Server with 512MB Ram, 10GB harddisk, and 100GB bandwidth for $99/month (no setup fee []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/smile.gif[/]). You have root access to the machine, that means you can install whatever you want (PHP, MySQL, or just the latest Apache Server).

How do the raq3's hold up to any kind of server load philipp? I didn't think they did too well...

RaQ3's with 512MB are fine as long the site use PHP/MySQL. MySQL depends unlike flatfiles on memory usage that means a RaQ3 with 512MB is faster that a Pentium III 1GHz with 128MB

danke []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/smile.gif[/]

Does the type of hard-drive matter much (ie: scsi vs. ide)?

Not really. More important that the harddrive type/speed or even the CPU speed is still that the machine has enough memory to handle the database.

I agree with JCS100 - there is some interpretation to be made on the cihost.com 'unlimited bandwidth' terms of use. And it may be hard to argue your case once over the 20 Gig/Month barrier.

I have gone with Hosting4less and see how it goes. The servers are quick, email support is about 24hrs and they are not that pricey when I did some browsing.

I was wanting some info from Verio of their Virtual Private Servers (at $150US/Month for 400 Meg and Unlimited Bandwidth). I sent them some emails, wanting to know what I could expect as far as bandwidth goes (as I know there is no such thing as a free lunch) but it is four days later and I am still waiting for a reply.

(As a side note, it always bugs me that people say times are bad and noone whats to buy anything but it seems so hard these days to get reliable sales information. I had the money to spend if I could have got a few minutes of someone's time to answer a simple question!).

Well I will see how hosting4less goes. So far no complaints!

Chonrad.

Agreed []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/smile.gif[/] I believe the same money is out there, it just isn't being thrown at every internet "company" with a half-baked idea []https://www.ubbdev.com/threads/php/images/icons/wink.gif[/]. Customer service is where most any company can mop up the floor with the rest of the ISP's, should someone ever decide to get it right.

FYI, according to 4webspace's page, RaQ3s come standard with 128MB Ram, and to get 512MB, there is a setup fee of $75.

I went a slightly different route:
I am leasing a RaQ4i with 256MB Ram, 20GB harddisk, and 300GB bandwidth from Rackshack.net. It had a $250 setup fee, though. Considering I transfer over 180GB from my site, the bandwidth is why I chose to go with this company.

I wish I had waited... two months after I signed up, rackshack.net introduced some "white box linux" machines. The least expensive of those is a 1Ghz Duron machine, with 512MB Ram, 20GB HD, and 300GB bandwidth for $99 per month with a $299 setup fee with the Ensim Control Panel software and $349 with the Plesk Control Panel software. If it weren't for the setup fee, I would have switched servers shortly after the new ones became available.

We have a dedicated machine through cihost and i must say its been a great move for us. Their support isnt all that responsive but for the price you really cant beat what you get. I think we pay 99/month for a dedicated machine with 256k ram and it performs nicely. We have never been hit with bandwidth charges. We get about 60,000 page views a day.

you're on dedicated and get 60k views a day? What is your bandwidth usage like? One of my sites pulls about 75k hits a day, the other in the low 60's.. I'm on their shared plan and have had no performance/bandwidth issues at all. Just curious.

I wish I found this thread earlier! []/forum/images/icons/shocked.gif[/] Bandwidth seems to be much cheaper in the US.

My current bandwidth fees are CDN$7 a gig (first 5 gigs free) plus C$250/month for colo.
Peer1

I'm building a new rack mount server and I'm looking at getting down to C$6/gig and C$200/month colo.

My site does about 80 gigs a month.
[]http://www.esportbike.com/wwwthreads/files/33-32354-mrtg.gif[/]

Oh, I found out that my current dedicated server host, http://rackshack.net, currently has some $99 setup fee deal going on for most of its machines... might want to look into it (the ordering/inventory system seems to be down at the moment, so I can't tell you how many servers are in stock of which type).

Just saw that 4webspace.com has lowered their monthly rate for raq3's to $89/month and increased bandwith to 500GB/month! Whew!

Just wanted to ask if a 128MB of ram is enough to handle 1.5GB of bandwidth/day? How does the internal RAM really affect the bandwidth -- let's say with running UBB.threads 6.xx? TIA.

These will be probably be second hand servers. Cobalt have their new model coming out next month. (RaQ550)

I wouldn't suggest going for anything less than a RaQ4 with 256MB of memory.

That URL should be http://www.rackshack.net. Rackshack.net must not have their server configured properly to accept http://rackshack.net.

a great resource for webhosting is
http://webhostingtalk.com

oops

(btw, delete this post doesn't work)

Anyone try Infinology.com or Globat.com?

I'm looking for something with at least 1.5GB storage and at least 50GB/month. This is not for a threads server (at least not now). as I have a great agreement for my threads server, but need to offload get a replacment of my current pciture server that was comletely donated by a user.

Prices seem cheap for what you get (35GB and 100GB/month for $16/month with Infinology.com)

Thanks,

Fred

As a former Infinology customer, I will say this, "STAY AWAY!"

They were decent, not too expensive and offered a lot of features. But very sporadic downtime, and a lot of issues with billing made me switch. Granted, this was a while ago, but to this day, I haven't been a customer of theirs for some time, yet they still send me these overdue invoices. I have told them to remove me from their list, as I don't host with them, yet they continue to send me invoices

Just remember, you get what you pay for with hosting. 35GB/100GB for 16/month is impossible. They rely 90% of their customers using only 10% of their allotted resources, and oversell like crazy.

I'm not going to tell you who to go with, or who is better than who... but Infinology is not very good, and as a former customer of theirs, I cannot recomend them.

If you have any other questions related to hosting, or various companies, let me know, I'll be happy to fill you in.

Thanks for the advice... anyone have comments on Globat?

$30/month for 2GB/100GB/month.

PS, Infinology also has a 9gb/60gb/month version for $7.50 if I recall... supposidlty they are better, but ya, it sounds too good to be true... Must be a catch somewhere...

I'm not terribly familiar with Globat.. so I can't make a recomendation. If you want, I would look at www.webhostingtalk.com and search the forums for globat, see if any discussion comes up regarding them

[]powerlord said:
Oh, I found out that my current dedicated server host, http://rackshack.net, currently has some $99 setup fee deal going on for most of its machines...[/]
Powerlord, how do you rate your current server host? Can a Celeron 1.3/Celeron 1.7/P4 2.0 server handle a couple threads boards simultaneously? Do you really get the 700GB/month bandwidth that they mention on their web site?

On a side note, does anyone know of any other high-bandwidth virtual hosting or server hosting sites?

Conrad, how large are the threads sites? A celeron would be fine for a small, threads site, but these are really not server chips at all and will not handle higher traffic, let alone multiple sites.

When my site was a little smaller (1200 members, and about 700 posts per day) it was running on a dedicated P3 1.7ghz machine. It was adaquate, but when a lot of users were online (more than 50) you could really start to see the server struggling.

So it all depends on the size of the sites, but in all honesty I would at least try to avoid celerons for servers, especially for a dynamic platform like threads. You will leave yourself with almost no room to grow.

Hi Jeremy, many thanks for the kind help. I think the most users I'll have onine at any given moment is about 100, but throughout most of the day it'll probably be around 35-50.

Rackshack seems to have a good deal on the P4 servers: P4 2GHz, 1GB Ram, 80GB HDD, and 700GB transfer/mth (what I need most as I'm using over 80GB every month at the moment). All this for $139/month. Does this seem like a good deal - or are there any other offers which I should give a closer look?

The only thing I'm worried about is administering the server - is the Ensim WEBppliance 3.1 or Plesk 6 software any good?

I've really gotten to like CPanel for being easy to administer and loaded with features.

In my opinion CPanel is miles ahead of Plesk. I love the one click backups that cpanel offers.

Go for the Plesk 6 deal - you can up it to an unlimted number of domains if you wish for an additional one of payment of $99.

Bear in mind that they are offering it with RH9 - the others are RH7.3 which will not be supported after the end of the year by Redhat.

Thanks, guys. CPanel is not unfortunately an option at this place, though I'll keep that in mind when I look around for other options.

Ian, thanks for pointing out the RH9/RH7.3 issue. I was under the impression that Rackshack would keep up-to-date versions of Linux on their machines, but if they don't automatically switch from 7.3 to 9 by the end of the year there there really is only one option worth looking at.

Is anyone here a customer of theirs?

I manage 2 CPanel servers at RackShack. And 2 Cpanel servers at Server Beach.

They've got forums at http://forums.rackshack.net where you could ask any questions you have of other customers.

[]Conrad said:
The only thing I'm worried about is administering the server - is the Ensim WEBppliance 3.1 or Plesk 6 software any good? [/]

Regardless of control panel your server comes with, if you have basic hosting knowledge, you shouldn't have much problem. There are a few issues that you would normally not have to deal with on a shared account, but for the most part your provider will get your machine running, software installed, and ready for you to begin setting up accounts.

Thanks, guys. Rackshack does indeed offer CPanel. I guess the choice is between Plesk with RH9 and 'all other software' with RH 7.3. Should RH9 be my main priority - won't Rackshack upgrade the OS anyway when it goes out of date?

They "should" update when appropriate, but I would assume the biggest reason they aren't offering cpanel with RH9 is due to some bugs and problems with newer versions of RH and it's inability to play nice with some software. There are people running RH9 + cpanel.. but there are more running that setup with problems.

So I'm guessing they are saving themselves a lot of support hassles by not offering it until it is near 100% stable.

Right now I'm looking at the P4 2GHz processor (Rackshack), but I've also received a counter-offer for a server equipped with _two_ PIII 600MHz processors. Which setup is more effective for running database-driven bulletin boards?

Also, does anyone know how much Rackshack would charge just to change the disk drive to a SCSI one? Has anyone done this upgrade with them before?

With regards to server software, I check out demos of Ensim and Please. Ensim seems fairly straightforward, though the design/layout doesn't seem as friendly and easy-looking as Plesk's. The only problem with Plesk (6.0) is that is seems to support Postgre... and not MySQL.

Control Panel looks really good from the screenshots, though it's too bad that they don't give a demo so that one could try it out to see how it feels.

Plesk 6 supports MySQL - no problems there.

Does any other host have a similar deal to Rackshack in terms of $$$, but is based abroad?

Gambling laws are a bit tight in the US so I need to look for other options just in case...

I assume you are American, so you mean outside of America?

I would say not a lot - Bandwidth cost is going to be an issue outside of the US.

No, I'm not American, but yes, I do mean "outside of America." I basically run a sportsbetting portal, and although we don't take bets ourselves, we provide advertising to those who do. Plus there are affiliate schemes involved so in legal terms this could make us part of the picture if push came to shove. The UK would be ideal in terms of a web host, as long as the pricing is comparable to Rackshack. I don't need all 700GB/mth though, 100GB would be just fine for now.

On a side note, does anyone know what kind of legal issues revolve around hosting in a particular country? What happens if a company from country "A" runs a web site, makes advertising revenue, etc., and decides to rent a server abroad in country "B"? Can the tax people in country "B" step in and state, "you must pay your taxes here because your server is physically located here." ??

Is renting a server or web space in a particular country equivalent or running a business in THAT country?

Did Rackshack get bought out by someone? It seems that their web site has changed (for the worse) and looks like an amateur design now. Are they still the same, reliable company as always?

same company, rebranded.

http://www.hostingtech.com/news/2003/9/11/St_Nitf_RackShack_net_Announces_Rebran_b0904044.3sw.html

Thanks Navaho! They definitely seem to be doing well as all of their P4 servers are sold out!

Can anyone PLEASE recommend a similar service with regards to good specs+pricing, BUT one that is based ABROAD (outside the US)? It seems like the gov't is going after gambling portals just for showing ads/banners (http://www.igamingnews.com/index.cfm?page=artlisting&tid=4553), so I definitely need to be located elsewhere.

Here's a decent hosting option based in the US: http://www.ipshosting.com/?forumhosting

The prices are quite good taking into consideration the bandwidth that comes with each account.

Is anyone here a customer of www.servermatrix.com ? How do they compare to Rackshack in terms of quality and service?

I noticed that you get certain levels of server management free with this company. The silver level (free) includes:
- Ping Monitoring.
- Network IDS.
- Onsite Hands and Eyes.
- O/S updates and patches.
- Service Monitoring (FTP, SSH, HTTP, HTTPS, Terminal Services, etc….) [up to 3 services]
- System Monitoring (Drive Space, Processor usage, Server Load, etc….) [up to 3 services]
- Process Monitoring (ColdFusion.exe, PGP.exe, ApacheGuard.sh, snort, etc….) [up to 3 services]

Is this really a big deal or are they just trying to make it seem so? How hard are the O/S updates/patches to carry out on Red Hat servers? Simple stuff, or is it actually possible to get it wrong as a totally inexperienced user?

I have not heard much about them, so I can't comment on their service. But the free server "management" is not a big deal, they are really just trying to make it look like you get a lot of great stuff for free.

In most instances, dedicated server control panels and server admin packages come with these things, such as service monitors, system monitors, etc. They are built right in and you can check them at any time.

I personally use cPanel/WHM and infact, on top of having these service and system monitors, you can even set them up to email or page you when resources are critical or a service fails.

Also, these control panels typically have built in updating features, and they will update mysql, php, apache modules, etc all automatically as well.

From looking at their FAQ, you get cPanel on linux machines, but no control panel at all for windows machines. So for the inexperienced, they may have some added monitoring stuff for the windows machine, but if you get cpanel with linux, basically everything they list is built in.

The only thing I am wondering about is the O/S updates. I can't immagine them doing linux updates for free.. windows yes, that is easy. But when you have to update the kernal or something, that is a bit difficult, and almost all providers I've seen, even higher end providers charge a fee to do kernal upgrades.

Either way, I hope that information helps you in your decision!

Now just to add to what Jeremy has stated in my experience. Not that I want to bash windows or anything. Even though it is good to take a swing at Gates every now and then even though most hosts will charge for kernel updates linux is still the way to go for a production environement for the internet in my humble opinion. There are usually easier to set up for the user with less downtime and proven reliability. I have seen in my time alot of configuration issues with windows servers. Alot of windows hosts do not allow file permission changes etc. Linux is alot more user friendly in setting things up. If I were you I would opt for the linux machine for a few more each month.

I'm sure Michael could chime in regarding ease of use of photopost and imagemagick and permissions on linux compared to windows

Many thanks for the info guys. My board has just hit the 130GB/mth bandwidth barrier so it looks like I'll be forced to get a dedicated server soon. It's basically a toss-up between Rackshack and Servermatrix, depending on who privides the best price/specs. I'll definitely go for a Linux server though, no doubt about it.

Quick question for those of you running boards on dedicated servers: what kind of CPU does your server have? I'm currently looking at a P4 2.2 (with 1GB RAM) and am wondering whether it'll be enough...

The P4 would be great, and a gig of ram should be the minimum. I have run mine on a PIII 1.6ghz machine in the past and that worked just as well. The biggest help is ram. But right now I'm on a 2.4ghz with a gig of ram and it runs great. But I will be adding another gig of ram here soon.

Yes-- LINUX......

Windows servers haunt me daily and I will throw a party the day they are all eliminated.

Your board is running very smoothly indeed, Jeremy. Are you on a dedicated server now with Vertexhost? I checked out their site but they only seem to do shared accounts at present.

Earlier in the day I found a provider that offered a co-location service with a 1Mb/128Kb EIR/CIR connection to the internet. Is this adequate for a decent-sized Threads board, or are they miles away from offering a decent connection?

Well, actually I own Vertexhost

So yes, my server is with them you could say And you're right, I don't offer any dedicated packages at this time. That is still in the works.

If you are going to co-lo, then remember, you need to purchase your own server, which will cost a few thousand up front. Then typically you are responsible for installing the operating system, software, etc.. unless you pay to have them do that.

It is much easier for someone who may not have a lot of time or knowledge in that area to just get a dedicated server with a company, that way they do all of the work getting it ready, then all you need to do is put your websites on it

Many thanks, didn't realise you were the owner of Vertexhost. It'll be another few weeks before I move my board, so if roll out some dedicated server packages in the meantime then please let me know!

Just a quick question on Threads and the caching system: putting future growth aside, how much extra space should I get to allow any caching systems within Threads to function properly? How much space can the cache take up compared to the total size of the board? 20% more, 50% more... double?

That I don't think I can answer... hopefully one of the threads gurus will chime in