[geeks] Hosting - 600GB disk - 6000GB transfer - $8 - Catch?

[N. Miller]

On Oct 11, 2007, at 3:33 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:

> N. Miller wrote:
>> Agreed.  I'm on a shared hosting arrangement with 350GB/350GB and
>> it's made clear in the TOS that if you do anything to chew up server
>> resources excessively, they will shut you off.
>
> That's lame.  I was actually considering picking up a micro colocation
> to do my backup DNS, backup mailserver and a whole bunch of torrent
> downloading.

There's not a lot of options for certain kinds of content, though.   
My host will inform you if you exceed your "slice" of server  
processing power continuously, and give you the option of relocating  
if you can't fix the problem.  But that requires a different kind of  
subscription. If you don't want to pony up the cash or "fix" whatever  
is causing the resource explosion, they will turn you off.

As I said, for most people, it's not an issue--running blogs with  
caching, or whatever.  But if you're trying to run some huge resource  
hog, IMO you shouldn't be trying to get away with $7/mo hosting, either.

Thus far they've been pretty responsive in terms of support.  My only  
gripe is that they don't provide any kind of SSL wrapper for FTP, so  
it's cPanel or nothing if you want to log in securely and upload files.

Apparently they had some kind of self-induced DoS from the SSL  
overhead of whatever software they wrapped FTP in (at least that's  
what I've been able to piece together reading forum archives), and  
they haven't attempted any other solution since.

I actually interviewed at the place for a night job, but they weren't  
willing to accept the hours restrictions I wanted so as to "ween"  
myself out of IT unless I was willing to take the pittance they were  
paying level 1 techs.  On the flip side, what they were offering as a  
salary for supervisor (with on-call) to said techs was ridiculous as  
well.

I thought the whole thing was a bit disingenuous myself, but given  
what I know about IT employers in general, not the least bit  
surprising.  I at least know where exactly to go to get into  
someone's face if I have problems with my hosting account.  And given  
that they are colo'd in my last employer's facility, I can even sweet  
talk the admin folks there into letting me in to do so. :-)

=Nadine=