The switch to dedicated hosting
Posted December 10th, 2009.
Choosing the right web hosting can be a test to say the least. There are dozens of prominent hosts, each offering a handful of services all of which seem to have as many positive reviews as they do condemning ones.
After recently switching from one shared hosting provider to my new dedicated server, I can definitely say I’ve made the right choice.
While shared hosting is obviously the most affordable, a decent host usually charging a hundred and something dollars a year, it does have it’s downsides. With hundreds of users running on the same server, available resources can be slim and your site is at the mercy of your neighbours. One bad script or a surge from Digg can bring the whole thing crashing down.
After soldiering on for about 6 months with shared hosting and experiencing much of the above, I’ve finally seen the light and moved to a dedicated server with a new host, Media Temple, who so far have been great.
While previously on shared hosting, not a week went by without some issue affect my sites and those of my clients, some weeks problems seemed daily. While problems such as failed/slow loading times may have only last a few minutes, larger outages were happening far more often then the promised 99.99% up time basically all hosts promise, and 40 minute hold times to get told we’re working on it got old real fast.
My new dedicated hosting on the other hand has been great so far, admittedly its only been 3 days, but its been basically 3 days straight working on the server migrating clients accounts with no problems. Good news for me and the clients I host.
Support from Media Temple has also been excellent. After one small hiccup, and getting my self lost in the unfamiliar interface 3-4 times, each phone call to Media Temple was answered in a matter of minutes and the support person I spoke with personally resolved the issue while I waited, they didn’t just forward the message on to some mystery department to be resolved some hours later.
Home sweet home.
I will post an update in a month or so once I’ve had more experience with the site performance, but so far Media Temple have been a big improvement over my last 2 hosts and I have no problems recommending them.
Update: 40 days later, and still going strong.
I’ve been struggling on shared hosting for years. So far I’ve not wanted to part with the money for dedicated or even VPS. I’ll be interested to read your update.
Rob,
Previously I was paying around $150 US a year for shared hosting, my VPS server is now around $600 so your right about it being serious investment, but so far I couldn’t be happier with the move.
Performance to date has been rock solid and the support alone has been fantastic, my previous hosts “tech support” staff were basically secretaries. They would either escalate the issue or tell me it was already being looked at.
I called Media Temple this morning to double check some generic information about setting permission for a PHP script, and ended up having a half hour discussion about caching plug-ins and the tech even emailed me a bunch of information on an alternative plug-in which I’ve since found to be better then my original.
The guys really know there stuff and are even passionate about it at times.
I was paying $20/month at MediaTemple for Grid Service. It was decent, but once I ordered service from SliceHost I haven’t looked back.
For the same price I get a dedicated virtual Linux machine I have root access to. I have loved playing around with it and it’s so fast, even though I have the lower end service type. It’s a bit hard to get your foot in the door trying to set up a Linux machine from NOTHING, but it’s totally worth it.
Omar,
I was a similar hosting product to Media Temples $20/month with another provider and they just weren’t cutting it.
I didn’t want to risk going with a shared solution again, I ended up going for one of their DV servers and so far it hasn’t missed a beat.