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September 25, 2003
some musings on hosting providers
I asked my good friend Troy who he recommends for hosting web sites. Here are his comments...
Pair Networks is excellent: http://www.pair.com/pair/shared/webmaster.html
I was a customer in 1995 and have referred about a dozen folks, all of whom are still there. They allow any CGI scripts but you or someone else will have to install MT. The MT people sell installation for ~$50 though I don't think there's much to it. Pair has a pile of online docs about adding CGI scripts. They're the best in the business for shared Web hosting, which is probably what you want.
As far as reliability, you can read their system notices at http://www.pair.com/pair/support/notices/
You can see their named machines at http://www.pair.com/pair/support/library/serverconfig/serverdetails.html
Next step up is a dedicated server. $120/month buys a speedy rented server and more bandwidth than you'll use from Rackshack.net and ServerBeach.com. I'd do it if I didn't have access to colocation. Get one with Ensim or cPanel, Web UIs that make short work of adding new sites and email accounts.
Given the huge cost of tech support for dedicated servers that people wreak havoc on, most folks just go without. Rackshack and Serverbeach support basically means reimaging your server back to its starting point. A friend of mine has been very happy with his Rackshack server, where he hosts a comics subscription site called ModernTales.
Aha, but you asked for support. If a shared Pair Networks account won't do but you want support or $200/month isn't unreasonable, go to DataPipe. http://www.datapipe.com/easyadmin.asp
DataPipe rocks. A friend of mine there occasionally forwards some of the bizarre and clueless tech support questions that they diligently answer.
Rackshack has thousands of servers: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/04/14/netcraft_hosting_provider_server_count_available.html
.. but DataPipe takes the cake for reliability and speed: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/performance.html
So in short: Pair and DataPipe are the best at what they do; Rackshack and Serverbeach provide a more affordable version with some known drawbacks.
Troy
Posted by Martin at September 25, 2003 4:50 AM
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