Do I need a dedicated server?

[AlexDP]

My websites (this the largest) are currently hosted with 1and1 (MS Business package) however the sites are regularly going offline and visitors seeing a 'Service Unavailable' message.

According to 1and1 this is caused buy too many people accessing the sites at one time and using too many of the shared resources.

So, I was thinking, do I need to go to a dedicated server just for my few sites? I have never used one before and don't know what's involved. I would be looking for something in-expensive as well!

Any ideas? Many thanks.

[dburdon]

Alex,

I hate to be facetious but your site is off line right now (17:56 GMT). What worries me is that I'm also with 1&1. However, I've never had a problem. My site is Linux based. Could this be a solution?

What data centre are you using?

[petec2]

D Burdon,

I don't know this for fact,buti'm sure i read somewhere, perhaps on this forum, that 1 & 1 servers are all usa based and this can have a bad effect on your google ranking for UK searches, as you are based in the UK I imagine you will have clients from here too. Just thought I'd mention it. Or have they got UK based servers now too?

Peter

[ADAM Web Design]

It depends on how much resource your site is using. If it's one site, in all likelihood no.

Check out your bandwidth, storage space, programming languages used, any other features you require and shop around for other hosts with plans that meet or exceed those specs.

[DIRTYDISCO]

Originally Posted by AlexDP

My websites (this the largest) are currently hosted with 1and1 (MS Business package) however the sites are regularly going offline and visitors seeing a 'Service Unavailable' message.

According to 1and1 this is caused buy too many people accessing the sites at one time and using too many of the shared resources.

So, I was thinking, do I need to go to a dedicated server just for my few sites? I have never used one before and don't know what's involved. I would be looking for something in-expensive as well!

Any ideas? Many thanks.

MS business only gives you 20gb a month of bandwidth have you checked how much you are using ?

If you move host you would have to move the forum have you thought about that ?


http://www.dirtydisco.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=65

UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH!

I use a managed server from 1and1 its the top spec and ultra fast and to be honest its on 99.9999999
if you want reliablity you should get your own server but do the maths first , dont forget you are on a server with xxxxx amount of other websites

you can allways sell a bit of webspace to other people maybe of similar interests

[ADAM Web Design]

Originally Posted by DIRTYDISCO

http://www.dirtydisco.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=65

UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH!

I use a managed server from 1and1 its the top spec and ultra fast and to be honest its on 99.9999999
if you want reliablity you should get your own server but do the maths first , dont forget you are on a server with xxxxx amount of other websites

you can allways sell a bit of webspace to other people maybe of similar interests

Oh gawd. Not another Unlimited Bandwidth fiend. I thought 1and1 were one of those companies that rose up above and beyond all that.

First of all, unlimited bandwidth does not exist. It's a mathematical fallacy; 2678400 (the maximum number of seconds in a month) x (maximum capacity of the bandwidth pipe, always a finite #)/second = another finite number = bandwidth limit.

By the way, if there's someone whose algebra is less rusty than mine and could fix up the mathematical proof a bit, I'd appreciate it, just because it's a formula I use a lot and I'd like to be able to make it more concrete than it is.

But I digress.

The problem with hosts that publish unlimited bandwidth is that, quite often, they get customers with video/audio streams or other CPU-and-bandwidth-intensive processes that choose to test that theory out. And of those sites, a lot of them have been banned by, or left, previous hosts for doing exactly that. This means they come over to a shared server other people are on, rerun or run those processes, and knock out another 100-200 innocent webmasters and their sites in the process.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way myself, albeit with a hobby site. The company that made the unlimited bandwidth promise is also no longer in business and hasn't been for 5 years.

Please learn from my mistake. Never trust a host that makes that unlimited bandwidth claim. Unmetered...the jury's still out on that. Unlimited...no. Bad. Very, very, very bad.

[AlexDP]

I am using about 35GB of bandwidth a month. I have 20Gb included and pay extra for the rest (£0.99/GB) so it would be worth upgrading to the next package to get 50GB/month, especially whilst there's 20% with 1and1 at the moment.

However, this wouldn't solve the problem would it? It is the amount of other resources being used that causing it to go down.

Are there are any other packages/hosts that you would recommend? I under the point about unlimited bandwidth - just a marketing con.

[Dragonsi]

Originally Posted by petec2

D Burdon,

I don't know this for fact,buti'm sure i read somewhere, perhaps on this forum, that 1 & 1 servers are all usa based and this can have a bad effect on your google ranking for UK searches, as you are based in the UK I imagine you will have clients from here too. Just thought I'd mention it. Or have they got UK based servers now too?

Peter

How much truth is in this...?

All my sites are hosted in the US, mainly due to a financial choice (average 40% cheaper than UK servers), yet all my established and more popular sites are ranking ok with the SE's. I agree that some newer sites are struggling, but some are in quite competitive markets.