What type of hosting do I need?

Hosting
1

Hi all,

Can any of you please advise me which type of hosting would be most suitable for the following situation?

  • 1 potentially big website. It will be related to music production and feature videos for streaming, and regular reviews and other articles. It will also have a paid membership giving them access to MP3s on mixing. Down the line there might also be a forum. So the intention with this is to have high traffic. I plan to develop it in Wordpress, since that’s the only platform I know really well. Any thoughts on my using Wordpress for this type of site are also welcomed.

  • 1 medium website (~10,000 uniques per month – is that medium or low?). This site is already established. Wordpress for blog, SMF for forum. I sell a PDF download on this site.

  • Several (5 or more) small websites. I just resell slots to clients I build websites for. These are low traffic.

  • Apache is fine, I don’t need Windows or anything.

  • I’m addicted to Wordpress, so any host optimized for that would be awesome.

Currently I have shared hosting with Midphase. I am not very happy with it for the following reasons:

  • Slow load times. Unpredictable in this regard. E.g. I just tried to load my forum and it took ~10 seconds. I want it to be more like 2 seconds.

  • My forum often just goes to a 404 error. Hit refresh a minute later and it works again.

  • I got hacked a couple of years ago. Seemed like an automated hack. Changed all my domains to the hacker’s page. Midphase fixed it using backups quite quickly but could not tell me how the hacker got in, and when I asked how I can prevent it next time they said something like, “Dunno, install anti-virus?” I thought that was their job?

  • They are constantly doing a global disable on wp-login.php due to attacks. I know I can circumvent this by renaming the login page but when my clients are phoning saying they cannot access their Wordpress then it’s pretty annoying.

  • Had custom rules for mod_security set up as it was ruining my forum. One day they just reset these rules without telling me and I had to go through all the hassle of having them set them up again.

So I’m looking to avoid problems like these.

I’ve seen terms like “VPS”, “cloud hosting” etc. and really not sure what I need. Can anyone point me in the right direction to fit my needs, and even recommend some companies?

Sorry for long first post, hopefully you can help anyway.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

2

Sounds as if a VPS Reseller account would suit well. You would have plenty of space for your own projects and be able to resell the slots for other smaller websites and give them their own level of control. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) allows you set up the security settings that work best for your needs and performance desires. Cloud could be an option for you but you might have some issues with running other sites on it and giving users their own control as well. Cloud would work well for you b/c you can scale your needed resources up and down. I sounds like you are planning on alot of potential growth but until you see that level of traffic you might not need so many resources. Cloud hosting is a newer option but I would say overall you might be better off at this point with a higher end reseller VPS plan. I hope that is helpful. Are at least leaves you a little more informed than before. Good luck with your project.

3

I agree that a VPS sounds like the go. Unless you are familiar with server management, though, make sure to go for a managed VPS. I’ve seen people sign up for a standard VPS and then discover that they are expected to manage the server themselves, which can be a bit of a disaster.

4

In VPS servers, hosted sites are totally independent & have own dedicated IP address, CPU resources, RAM, memory space & disk space. You can get VPS hosting with windows & Linux. You can go with VPS, this is good for your website.

5

It really all depends how optimised your Wordpress installs are - From the sounds of things, not very at the moment. If your new website is going to be the same or more than 10,000 uniques per day then you’re probably looking at dedicated server territory with Wordpress as it’s not the most efficient of software (but thankfully not as bad as Magento).

The hack, most likely via a Wordpress module or theme, but without access to logs it’s difficult to say - it could have been someone has got your FTP details.

6

The RAM, CPU and space you’d get on a VPS would be scaled up, so it is probably good idea to try to use a virtual instance. However at some point you might need more computing resources, so be prepared to get a physical server with dual CPU.

7

Just a note to say thank you all so much for your advice, it has helped a lot. This forum rocks! :slight_smile:

8

BB,

At the risk of upsetting your other responders, I take exception to many things in this thread although primarily your reliance on a canned app (CMS).

First, WP is a good, mature, canned app (CMS) which is routinely updated … because hackers have access to the code (some even offer addons?) and they work at finding new ways to circumvent its protections to routinely hack WP websites. Worse yet, they post their hacking how to’s and the “script kiddies” get involved to rampage through WP websites - it is simply a race for WP to receive reports of the hacks, find the attack vector, develop a patch to prevent that attack and for clients to update their websites before being hacked! IF you check daily for WP updates (and avoid addons not created by WP), you’ll only spend a few hours updating EVERY WP installation you have rather than rebuilding entire websites. I admit to setting up a few WP websites for clients but warned that they have to check their admin panel for update notices DAILY and update immediately (which has not been a trivial effort … although WP has gotten better with their updates).

VPS? I’ve had shared, reseller, VPS and dedi accounts as well as procuring a “specialty account” for a client who insisted on having the bloated CPU and RAM necessitated by Drupal.

WebHostingBuzz is the only host I’ve found with “specialty accounts” (including WP) which limit the number of users who share the CPU and RAM; one or more of these may be the optimal account for you.

Shared and reseller accounts are okay but can be highly restricted by the host because of the number of clients sharing the server.

VPS accounts are typically very limited in RAM and CPU time (probably much better than shared but I have no basis to compare with “specialty accounts”) and are relatively quite expensive when compared with the lesser accounts.
The dedi account is the most expensive but you can have your host configure what you need (and change the configuration as you grow or shrink your client base; VPS, too, more often than not).

Both VPS and dedi should be managed by the host (you won’t have the expertise of their support staff, you won’t have their server tools nor direct access to the server, you can’t manage the interface to your VPS/server in the face of a DDOS and you can’t possibly monitor the VPS/server 24/7/365¼. Cutting the management corner is a sure route to disaster.

Cloud? From my limited exposure to them (looking at their prices and running away as fast as I could), I can’t recommend them. Cloud hosts like Amazon may suit a large operation which must have a 24/7/365¼ uptime but I doubt your clients are in that class (and doubt that they would pay the increased cost).

My recommendation is that I don’t believe you need a dedi (yet), that VPS is overpriced for the share of the server which is yours and that a reseller account would be most appropriate for you except for the CMS which, IMHO, forces you toward one or more “specialty accounts” (to ensure the CMS CPU/RAM requirements are met for each of your clients).

As for your “… install anti-virus”, that would have make me run from that host … immediately!

Hosting Recommendation? I’ve changed hosts over the years and am currently running a pair of accounts (the Drupal client moved on; I have both a shared account and a dedi server) with WebHostingBuzz. I have been with them for several years and am thrilled with the prompt and efficient service from their support staff. Additionally, they have top of the line hardware so there has been only one or two very brief interruptions in service over those years.

Others? WebHostingZoom was a good host whereas Site5 was superior at the start then changed management (badly degraded service) before Ben (a visitor in this board … in the past) took over and was trying to restore Site5 to their former glory.

Anti-Recommendation? I’d been the Hosting Team Leader here for a few years and can only say that registrars (GoDaddy, etc) had excellent reputations as registrars but seemed to ignore their hosting clients (provided lousy service and extremely poor support). I’m not sure what bucket 1&1 fell into but they were always being roundly criticized. I’m sure that there are others to avoid, too.

I hope that no one takes offense at my comments as none were intended. Just giving my :twocents: worth.

Regards,

DK

9

Quite a lot of hosting companies offer shared hosting where the number of accounts per server is limited, that’s nothing new :slight_smile: Most often refer to it as semi-dedicated (rightly or wrongly).

10

Based on your requirement, it seems you need to find VPS or dedicated server. Shared hosting doesnt allow you to consume high resources unless you pay for their higher plan. From your requirement above, I still would recommend you to purchase VPS or dedicated server. With dedicated server, you can arrange the server by yourself.