hosting?

[antipodes]

I come from Perth west australia.

I'm looking at some local hosting deals and I'm more confused than ever about this...

e.g.

one host offers $137 PA for (basic) linux hosting.

the rest are all offering pretty much the same thing:

price differences per year are:

480
200
274

Without being very familar with this side of things how am I supposed to know which host to choose when they all seem much the same offering the same package (basic level hosting). They are also all offering dedicated servers.

[Web Footed Newbie]

Ask for references from each. Call the webmaster about reliability, access to logs, etc.
Make a decision based on what the references say.
WFN:)

[antipodes]

my need is for basic level hosting. No php etc but able to upgrade later.

What is the difference between virtual and co-location and should I be avoiding these?

[Gorilla]

Co-location hosting is your web server installed in their data center. You configure up your web server box and deliver it to them. They connect it to their power, lan, etc.

Virtual Dedicate Server (or something similar) is a server owned by the hosting provider divided between any number of clients. The separation and privacy between the clients is better than for standard shared hosting. Each client have their own web server process, etc.

Shared hosting is basically that any number of clients are sharing one server, each client having a user account on the server. Clients share the same web server process, etc.

[satanclaus]

Definitely do what WFN said. I've had some bad host experiences. Its worth not having to deal with the hassle.

[operafan]

If you are down under I know this host who much regarded & bang for the buck to - he's from down under but the servers are in the INTERNAP facility in the states.
I hope it's not against TOS, [it is - Woz ;)]
I'm too lazy to sticky.

[edited by: Woz at 4:53 am (utc) on Dec. 13, 2003]
[edit reason] no URLs please, see TOS#13 [/edit]