Business Thread : Why You Should NOT Use Virtual Hosting... 101
 

First and foremost, the biggest reason you should NOT use virtual hosting is that the company selling it makes nothing on it.

I know, you are probably thinking, "No shit, that is why it is so damn cheap it is irresistible!"

That is exactly my point! It will always be fucked up.... Driving you insane and then you will say, FUCK IT! Give me a dedicated then! And that is why hosting companies sell virtual hosting in the first place. They are a loss leader for the real thing. An advertising gimmick.

Instead of wasting your time, which by the way IS WORTH MONEY, get a dedicated server right off the bat.

Why getting a dedicated server is a smarter choice:

1) You get a bill. It is a decent sized bill. Nothing will make you want to work harder and smarter than having to pay a bill. Trust me on this one. Why do you think Brad Pitt makes $10,000,000 a movie? Because he has to pay for a $40,000,000 mortgage.

2) You get to have a box that is only as busy as you make it. No more having the box go down (constantly) because some other idiot is running a chat server from the same box.

3) You get to run your own mysql server on your box. Again, no more hiccups because the Mysql server couldn't handle some bullshit someone else was throwing at it.

4) You get to run your own mail server. No more banned IP addresses and other shit because someone else was fucking around.

5) You get to fill it up with your shit without restrictions.

6) You get to install shit and make it compatible with your scripts.

7) You get to hire Darksoul as your server admin so you have tech support almost 24/7!

I could keep going but I think the points I have made thus far are sufficient enough to back up my claim that, YOU SHOULD NOT USE VIRTUAL HOSTING. IT SUCKS FOR A REASON!

Some good points there man

Very understandable now my I offer some counter points since I have several dedicated boxes.

1. I may only need a few megs space and low transfer amounts with minimal db access.
2. I may want to have sites spread out around the world for reasons that are typically obvious to most that want to link to their own sites.
3. I may have anywhere from ten to a few thousand of such sites. If each was a dedicated I would have a server bill that would be in the low six digits.
4. I may not need all the resources a dedicated may have.
5. If a company is offering a loss leader such as a virtual they should be showing their best in hopes that you like them enough that when you need more you will buy from them.
6. Not all hosting companies treat virtual holders like shit.
7. Not all virtual users are newbs who have not thought out their business plans and profit margins.
8. It is easier to get very unique and very non related IP addresses and the like with virtuals over one or two dedicated servers.

Perhaps you just aren't looking hard enough?

Lightbulb, business thread, offering counter arguements. Englighten me or the readers. :winkwink:

I've been on both dedicated and virtual with webair. Never had any problems at all...

I would not search webair and virtual accounts on here. That about prooves his "hosts do not care" arguement.

Doesn't work for me.
I like virtual hosting accounts. They're cheap, easy to maintain and you can spread them around.....

i like poo
:)

This is true only for those host ( let's name them : Dreamhost, Servage, HostGator, ... ) that offers twice the space and 3 times the bandwith of a dedicated box for 7.99/month ... ( 300 gigs of storage/ 3000 gig of monthly bandwith )

If it looks too good to be true, ...... ( figure it out )

Sure, the suckers buying are getting sucked in for the desactivation scheme to upgrade to dedicated.

But it so happens that some hosts still offer reasonable virtual plans, that are spread out on different servers .

You should also buy a house with at least 10 bedrooms / 5 bathrooms, just for when you will maybe need it .... :2 cents:

i like poo, too

I am in absolute amazement over how many of you think that it is totally acceptable and common to have a virtual account that doesn't work properly and is not properly supported. With us, you are paying for the bandwidth and the space and the resources... you will receive the same quality support whether you are paying $10 a month or $500 a month.

hahahahahahahaha ")

i put all my domains that are just info and fuck off domains on virtual.. anything important i put on ded boxes for the most part.

Sly is right.. Phat and some other hosts give just as much effort to their virtual, I know we used to when we were selling it, but eventually just stopped accepting new accounts.

For the most part, however, the typical user experience in a virtual environment that caters to multiple adult accounts is not going to be a great one. There are simply too many variables with load, traffic, email, etc. So, unless you end up lucky and at one of the few hosts that excels at virtual hosting, I'm of the opinion that it's likely going to be a dissapointment.

On the dedicated side, here are some things that people can do to limit their risk and expense if they choose that route:

1) You can always ask your host to cap your port as a failsafe. Either toggling your server port to say 10 megabit can do a lot to prevent a worst-case scenario with bandwidth utilization. Also, some hosts that have the right type of switches in place can do a more granular cap - like 5 megabit, 15 megabit, 30 megabit, pretty much any variable you choose. If you fall into this category I would recommend looking at your peak traffic and choosing a cap that is 20-50% above your peak usage. On 95th percentile you're going to drop the 36 highest hours of usage.

2) Good members area protection... I always recommend ProxyPass but there are other alternatives like StrongBox, etc, that can limit your risk with members sites.

3) If you are posting large movie or picture files on your sites then investing in some anti-hotlinking solution is a great idea. We offer LinkSentinal for free to our client. It's a premium antihotlink software that has a lot of functionality. I don't know if it's marketed yet but the same people that sell/write ProxyPass created this and we were part of the beta test over a year ago. The other option would be just to use .htaccess protection. Over time or perhaps right away you could expect to see some bandwidth savings.

4) If you can do without a control panel, great. If you happen to find a host that is fully managed so they can create and control the environment this will be far more efficient on server resources than say Cpanel which has lots of things running by default that end up putting the server under unnecessary load.

Just be wary of dealing with unknown hosts when it comes to inexpensive dedicateds. Sometimes you find a great value, sometimes you find something that is oversold and just as problematic as a virtual account. The bulk of companies selling cheap dedicateds (<$150/mo) aren't truly delivering a great service. Either because they're selling below cost, oversubscribing bandwidth on a switch, not giving great support or have some other factor that interrupts their ability to give excellent service.

Cheers,

Brad

Sounds like you just had a bad experience?

We have some users doing over 10Mbps in our shared environment.

We don't use any load-balanced solutions either. Just limit the number of users per shared server.

Hit me up for a 30-day free test drive on any shared account. No risk, no obligation. We don't collect any billing information from you to try.

Offer only open to registered GFY users!

You've been getting virtual accounts in wrong companies. Virtual accounts rock. I've used every virtual account i've had to the maximum and never had a problem with it, or the host complaining. Only time i got kicked from virtual was when some fucker ddos'd me, and that's when you'll get the shitcan from the host, unless it's dedicated (with some hosts even then). So i just moved that domain to my dedicated and problem solved. People think there's 10 hosting companies in the world and all advertise on gfy.

There's also Virtual Private Servers. These are a touchy subject but in many situations are a logical progression from a virtual server. They fill in the niche between a virtual and dedicated server quite nicely. Various hypervisors used for VPS differ so you really need to educate yourself before jumping on. For example, if configured correctly OpenVZ used by many VPS providers can give you ~80% of the CPU for a short time, when needed. Essentially you get all the functionality of a dedicated server for a fraction of the cost.

I have an account with VPS Link and the uptime has been 100% for the last 6 months.

amen, i can attest to that, i was with phat for a while on a $19.95 plan. Sly and Moose both did a hell of a job keeping up with my demands even though theres tons who paid more that they could of dumped me to help more with...

Phat rocks!

Some good points.

Sly: You guys are the best, I am so damn loyal to you there's no wavering me.

However, on my virtual I still had mysql hiccups. I am assuming someone on my box ran high volume queries a few times a day and mysql would shit up for a minute at a time then level.

That's just how it goes on virtual/shared. Even the best of the best can't promise dedicated style hosting on virtual accounts.

If you need a dedicated box, www.phatservers.net is your bitch lover.

i have a virtual with got web host and have no problems with it. Works great for smaller sites.

Both have their places!
 

I am not saying do not use dedicated servers, however there are tuns of webmasters who promote adult content, but have a hard time covering the expense of $250 - $1500 for a dedicated server... also the conversions ratio of tgp/mgp has always been crap... Even if you buy tuns of traffic to your tgp/mgp; you are making a trading off between bandwidth/processing and poor quality traffic that really does not pay the bills... If you are a company who produces and or sells adult content directly then go dedicated!

.

My experiences with webair as a virtual account user when I first started were horrible. They drove me to a cheap dedicated with another company in under 2 months.

Some great points, one day ill go Dedicated , i have vps at the moment

That is correct. Like I said, with us what you pay for is the resources. If you spend $10 the resources you have available to you are much less than say if you spent $150 on a dedicated server. But it doesn't change the fact that even though you are only paying $10, you should still be getting support. The whole idea of "you only pay $10, how can you expect support" does not exist at Phatservers.

If I get an ICQ from somebody about a problem they have, if I have never talk to this person before odds are I haven't the slightest idea whether or not they are paying $10 or $500. I help them both out the same... to the best of my ability.

Well dedicated servers are very cheap in latest time so tehnicly no need for virtual.For example oc3 cheapest server cost only 100$ which is practicly nothing.

Some valid points, but your assertion that any host selling virtual hosting makes no money off it is dead wrong. Sure, a mismanaged host may be losing money on every account they sell just like a mismanaged convenience store may be losing money on every gallon of gasoline sold, but a properly managed, solid hosting company turns a very nice profit on its virtual/shared hosting.

I switched from a cheap virtual to an inexpensive managed dedicated hosting account for all my domains when I saw a thread which listed all my undeveloped domains here on GFY because some other asshole with an account on the same box pissed off someone by scamming them and they did a reverse ip lookup and listed all the domains found there (including mine) as possibly associated with the scam. It really pissed me off to see my whole domain portfolio listed online like that.

I did some installs for some of your clients and your operation looks very tight.
I wish all webmasters who used my script would use phatservers and save me the time and effort of tinkering on their servers.
:thumbsup

True, dedi's rule.

Yes you do. I can attest to that. :thumbsup

Thank you, we really appreciate comments like that. If you need some hosting to toy around with, let me know and I'll set you up with a free month.

bump for a good thread

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

I agree with Sly...we offer the same high level of support, same level of bandwidth, same level of service on both virtual and dedicated boxes. There should not be a difference in support just because your bill is less. That is UNACCEPTABLE!!!

There is a market and a reason to offer virtual servers. I feel that Naked Hosting has really stepped up our game in the virtual market. Our prices are competitive without the lack of support or service.

I run one page portal sites. I pay $19.95 a month. That is my ONLY overhead. I do not pay for custom coding or turnkey scripts (as I'm a developer), I don't have to pay for designs (I'm good enough). So why would I want to boost my monthly expenses to $200+ when virtual hosting (with Webair) offers me everything I need (limited resources and no mysql) and is able to support my network of 30+ websites.

My ROI is over 6500&#37;.

Virtual hosting has its advantages.

Fallenmuffin... Your webair hosted virtual account websites must have exactly ZERO traffic if you are happy with them.

A few sites have 300-1,000 daily uniques but most of them are between 3,000-6,000 daily uniques. Only two have surpassed 10,000 daily. Small traffic to most on this board but its all niched traffic in smaller "micro"-niches. So it works out pretty well. However, Webair has only gone down 4 times that I'm aware of and no other known problems. Will be 2 years on October 16th.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. While dedicated servers are great they are not always needed. As stated above in my previous post.

I used Webair's virtual services for a year. I had to leave them because the server was always over taxed and the mysql server was always down. It was simply impossible to make any money while hosting with them.

Precisely the same. Here's a screenshot of what made me switch. This was 10 seconds after "Virtual9" was rebooted for the 8th time that day after I called them to tell them that it was down, again.
http://www.imagepup.com/up/QmTv_1190...iskspegged.gif

I'd never trust them to do virtual again, but Gerard and the WebAir crew are great for the cheaper clients who need a dedicated system and don't need expensive bandwidth.

Thank you.

If virtual goes well, why dedicated? And if virtual goes bad, why dedicated with the same host, if you say that is advertising for them?

Never could understand that logic.

If you never outgrow virtual, you're not growing.

Just because a host seems inept at virtual does not mean they are incapable of dedicated hosting: For the most part, there's little to no cash to be had in VirtualHosting. It's mostly a write-off to get you to use their services, and provide little $10/mo accounts for Grandma's Home Page. The machines are overloaded, and they're the lowest priority, if they're even assigned and monitored.

Well you could always host your own server!... Its really easy!... that is one way to have a dedicated server!

Just a thought.

.

I have to suggest that this is a conflict in theories.

A server costs the same to the host whether they have one customer on it, or 5,000. If you can't make money selling virtual plans, you are doing something wrong.

And while I agree that many hosts oversell their virtual servers, not all do. I will agree that some hosts sell their $10 plans just to show you their level of service (that is the only reason we do), I have a feeling that there are a lot of hosts that thrive on the $10 and less crowd.

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