Forum Moderators: phranque
How often should you expect a host to go down? And has anybody ever got any compensation?
They have a guarantee where you get $ back if they ever go below 98%...which yeah is low, but its gonna keep them on their toes...
I don't have specific numbers, but I know my uptime is higher than 99%, as are most I think, and that it harder 'ever' goes down. (touch wood)
But are you sure that is what is happening? That is, that you're not seeing the effect of a connectivity problem somewhere between you and your host? You should, if you haven't done so, run a traceroute to see exactly where the problem is occurring. If it is within your host's network, and it happens regularly, I'd start shopping around.
Say you're a market commentary site and your busiest traffic is during NYSE trading hours. It does you no good to have 99.99% reliability on the weekends, or weeknights, but have regular outages for hours at a time during the day. By the same token, a small hosting shop might do several hours of maintenance when it is night in your time zone, but you'd never know it.
What you describe is unacceptable for any site. I'd look over your contract, compare the level of service that is supposed to be provided for the amount of bandwidth you are serving, and see if you could demand an explanation and compensation. And then, look for a new host.
Richard Lowe
Find out what their 'redundancy' is..
If the answers to any of these questions seem 'weak', you should really consider going elsewhere.
Thor
Anyway it repeatedly went down, until they finally admitted that the server was to blame, so they got a new one. That was another three days downtime as they swapped that over. Lost all emails, no web service. And then again, yesterday all emails lost (including orders - they are on WorldPay, but I have no idea what people have ordered) and FTP access was blocked.
Never get an explanation, unless I call them.
I chose them because they were a local firm at a low cost. Weeks afterward they got bought over by a firm about 150 miles away. Their support "is well known for their freindlyness and efficient service" or so the web site states.
Since April, I cannot upload any file if it already exists on the server. To update a file I have to delete it, upload it and set it's attributes (all manually) for each and every file. Their staff have been useless.
Thanks for your replies.
Have a look at the major internet magazines, most of them have charts showing the top performing ISPs..
Have a look at the major internet magazines, most of them have charts showing the top performing ISPs..
Be careful with those, or listings online on web host directories -- be sure you understand the criteria for listing. Many of those are simply pay-for-position lists.
i wouldnt count on those to be accurate - some are paid placings and some companies keep a single server specially for those "repeated ping" tests. hardly accurate ...
i wouldn't count on recommendations from forums either. some companies have lots of usernames on forums and when someone says "hey, what host should i use", they recommend themselves several times under different usernames.
i provide hosting and the only downtime i've had in well over a year is for reboots after upgrades / patches etc. i don't offer guarantees as 12 months hosting is cheaper than a good night out and the time it takes to deal with people who would try and claim their 7p for 24 hours downtime just wouldn't be worth the effort.
i can't please everyone all of the time. people want cheap so i give them cheap. if i lose a few people that want guarantees, then no problem. if the majority of people want guarantees, i'll give them guarantees, but i'll have to charge them a rate that makes it worthwhile for them to complain about downtime and for me to deal with any complaints. of course, that means throwing away the majority of customers that want cheap hosting.
my own advice - if you want cheap hosting, take whatever's available. if you want a recommendation, take one from someone you know personally, not from one or two replies in a forum. if you suffer downtime, don't waste your time hassling your host, just move on. demanding compensation from your host is most likely a waste of time - you'll never get more than you paid them in the first place.
if your site is vital, ie a business site that provides your only income, don't use really cheap hosting. seriously consider getting your own servers and either colocating them with a big company or getting a decent pipe to your home to host them at home where you can keep an eye on them.
