Ack! Need help now!

**werehere** · Fri 7 Jul '00, 2:33pm

I have never used this plan, but I have heard that it is good. It is Vservers, so the hosting I am sure is quality, they also do not put too many people on a server.

I know it is not a dedicated server by any standards, but it may hold up for you for quite a while, so you may wish to just check it out, because I know some people who have the pro plan and say they never get a reaper used on them, and I believe vservers is first class hosting.

http://www.vservers.com/hosting/power/vserver-pro.html

**Kathy** · Fri 7 Jul '00, 4:03pm

Thank you so much werehere!

I just checked out their site and called them on the phone. It looks like a great solution for me, one that I can utilize (providing me with sys admin too) and I can take my other 4 domains with me....

In the meantime, my dids.com guy is helping me stay put through august for 150.00 per month to let me situate in another home by the end of august (or stay with him if I want....)

Anyway, thanks for this url...its a good one. Looks like I need the Ultra plan though...because of the number of hits my site and message board takes per day....

Thank you!

**werehere** · Fri 7 Jul '00, 6:12pm

Glad it helped.

We just had a new dedicated deal worked out with them, and it is a powerful dual processor server, but they worked well with me, very professional, and did a good job making me happy so far (even though my site is not fully moved onto their servers yet).

**Chad Simper** · Mon 10 Jul '00, 2:26pm

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to make a quick post here... Kathy's first post makes us sound like mean, heartless people and we aren't. Anyone that knows a bit about servers and specifically mySQL with servers knows that 50,000 hits per day to the mySQL database is a real kicker. You must also consider the fact that we have other sites on that server, all of which are mySQL intensive.

We offered Kathy the option to upgrade to a fair plan... In all reality, we offer hosting on our high-end machines (a machine like Kathy was placed on) for no less than $150/mo. However, we allowed Kathy to have this benefit for $40/mo. because we knew her money situation was tight. The only stats at that time that we had to go on were her bandwidth requirements which were 10-15 GB... Given this, we felt that our high-end server could easily handle her site, no knowing that her forums had 50,000 hits per day.

When she says that we "claim" she is getting 80,000 hits, we don't claim a thing. We are looking directly at the stats that she also has access to, day in and day out.

We at no time said she had to "be out" but we did say that she needed to be paying a fair price for her usage or she needed to look into a dedicated server with us or another company. There was no "get out now" and we definitly didn't shut her site down, like many providors would do with a site like hers. We did however have to make sure that she understood her options and knew that she had to make some decisions soon so that the performance of our server was not sacrificed for a long period of time.

I hope everyone understands that at no time did we kick Kathy out and we offered her several options for staying in (but they did require her to pay for what she needed). We are still trying to work with her to make her transfer to a new host (as that was her option) an easy one.

**Kathy** · Mon 10 Jul '00, 4:54pm

Hey Chad!

So the moral of the story is:

If you make an agreement with a webhost for a certain package: 15 GB bandwidth per month and 150 mg of storage per month...for 40.00....this ain't necessarily so....

Ask the right questions....(...all I knew was bandwidth I was using and storage I was taking up. For the past 7 weeks, my daily hits never came into question at all even though I checked regularly through ICQ on my stats with Chad...after all, I am a responsible webhost customer.....)

So, if your VB is busy (and even after you've gotten all your gifs shrinked (is that a word?

) and your bandwidth is within the limits of your plan, it doesn't mean your webhost will let you stay.

Sign me, "In the Know Now".......and learning more.

**Chad Simper** · Mon 10 Jul '00, 8:49pm

The moral of the story is to make sure you and your host understand your site *completely* and make sure you both understand what you are getting into. If there are no communication problems, there won't be worse problems in the future.

The daily stats that were checked was the bandwidth and storage space, which are easily given and which in no way tell what your actual server resource usage is.

At no time did we deceive you nor did you deceive us, based on the information provided by both parties. We have been up-front with you and you have been up-front with us.

The point is that your site does not belong on a $40/mo. package. You were using far more resources than that pays for, in all aspects. With the information you provided, we *thought* we could handle your site, no questions asked... This wasn't the case, unfortunatly.

**David Copeland** · Tue 8 Aug '00, 8:06pm

[b]Kathy . . .

What in the world has caused so many hits
to your web site?

I was told earlier in the year that if you
list your forum in any of the major search
engines, your site can get hit with enormous
spam addressed to "webmaster@yourforum", etc.

It was STRONGLY suggested that we setup a
public free home page that already has quality
buffers for "webmaster" spam, such as Yahoo, etc,
and then point the "advertised domain" to that
free site.

Once there, the surfer must read the dummy
home page and click on the link to be connected
to your dids.com forum. Spammers can't do that!

In order to advertise a forum on the search
engines, register for a domain that is similar
to the one you have.

As an example, if the forum is hystersisters.com ,
then register for hyster-sisters.com and have it
pointed at the free home page for a manual redirect
by your real potential members.

Another thing I noticed at your site is that it
is BLOCKED unless the person MUST register. I
know why you do this . . . BUT, perhaps folks are
reloading and coming back in to the site several
times to try to get in, thinking maybe it's an error.
That alone could triple your hits.

There are other Vbulletin methods to keep strangers
from posting, but allowing them to read.

-----

And Chad, how do you convert the kbytes that are
shown on the daily account to "gigs"? Perhaps I
too should look more closely to bandwidth being used.

-----

And last, I have found that a site using 100 Gigs
of bandwidth can usually pay about $500 on a dedicated
server, or about $2 per gig in a shared . . . based
on a UBB board!

But I was HOPING that the VBulletin would REDUCE the
required bandwidth!

**Kathy** · Tue 8 Aug '00, 8:54pm

The hits come from traffic on the website...busy busy place. A hit doesn't mean a unique visitor, but one page could mean 10 hits or so...each file (gif, html, php, jpg, etc) is a hit. So if a page has 5 gifs, you have 6 hits right there with one person accessing that page....one html and 5 gifs....

Even with tiny gifs, the hits are counting. (Saving on bandwidth but somehow counting that hit meter...)

As for the VB that isn't readable unless people are registered, for our forum, we've discovered that when we use this option, it slows down the hits....not increasing them. And yes, makes for better ability to moderate the traffic through the boards along with the 25 moderators that take care of the forums.

We moved to Vservers...on a semidedicated server and its been great. I took all my other domains (currently 5 active) and was able to put them in the same space. Saving those hosting fees has helped while I'm paying for more space....but we are zipping along. VServers are adamant about meeting our needs. When we had an issue with another domain sharing our box using up mysql resources and locking us out for some moments each day, VServers did some fast switching to make sure that we were taken care of....and then credited me those days of service for the inconvienence. I'm very impressed....their goal is to make sure that my server is up, running and available. I get calls on the phone from vservers, checking on quality of service along with frequent email checking on my needs.

As for the difference with UBB and VB, there is a significant difference in resources....both in storage (mega difference in sizes) and the pages are faster to load in VB than they ever were in UBB. We had to prune every 3 days on our UBB because if it got bigger than that, no matter the size of our storage, the pages got slower and slower to access. With the VB, we have seen it zip along....no slow downs for the constant addition of posts to the database.

I'm very pleased....

**David Copeland** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 2:16pm

[b]Kathy . . .

This is what Dids.com offers (in part) for hosting a
VBulletin web page:

Level 1
9.95/mo
10MB Storage
1 Gig Bandwidth

Level 2
14.95/mo
25MB Storage
3 Gig Bandwidth

Level 3
19.95/mo
50MB Storage
5 Gig Bandwidth

Level 4
24.95/mo
75MB Storage
7 Gig Bandwidth

Level 5
29.95/mo
100MB Storage
10 Gig Bandwidth

Level 6
39.95/mo
150MB Storage
10 Gig Bandwidth

Level 7
49.95/mo
200MB Storage
10 Gig Bandwidth

Level 8
59.95/mo
250MB Storage
10 Gig Bandwidth

Level 9
69.95/mo
300MB Storage
1 Gig Bandwidth

Level 10
79.95/mo
350MB Storage
10 Gig Bandwidth

Level 11
89.95/mo
400MB Storage
1 Gig Bandwidth

Level 12
99.95/mo
500MB Storage
1 Gig Bandwidth

Level 13
149.95/mo
750MB Storage
15 Gig Bandwidth

Level 14
199.95/mo
875MB Storage
20 Gig Bandwidth

Level 15
299.95/mo
1000MB Storage
30 Gig Bandwidth

Add-On's to any plan:
1 Gig Bandwidth: $9.00/mo
5 MB Storage: $1.00/mo
----------

This is what VServes told us today:

VServer Lite Plan
59.95/mo
100 MB Storage
Unlimited Bandwidth (for clients using 15-20 Gig/mo)

VServer Ultra Plan
250.00/mo
Semi-Dedicated Server
800 MB Storage
Unlimited Bandwidth (for clients using up to 50-100 Gigs?)

-----------

I wonder if linking the pictures to another (free) site
would reduce the bandwidth and hits (as you describe)?

Also, I noticed that some of our pictures are JPG and
BMP files. The JPG files seem to be smaller (and less quality?).

Any thoughts?

PS: By the way, we just passed 10 Gigs for August and we haven't even invited our forum members-at-large, only about 70 beta members! I don't know what is hogging the bandwidth.

**Kathy** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 4:08pm

David, are you using UBB? Could that be the bandwidth issue?

As for dids.com, yes that is the published plans, however they have been adjusted a bit....a little more bandwidth I believe for the packages? Not sure....

I do know that I was using the 39.95 plan from dids.com and I didn't take up but 50 mg of storage and was under the 15 gb bandwidth, but because of the number of hits each month, we were asked to make other arrangments. (Nicely put, I might add)

Knowing that my website was only growing, and I had other domains that I was spending money on...I opted for more space. I was TIRED of worrying about bandwidth, hits and such. I don't think my graphics would last for long on a free site considering the 750,000 individual page hits I get each month (with graphics on each page....)

I was just plain old tired of trying to scrimp by, worrying about the bandwidth issue. I moved all my domains (and have since bought a few more and am working on some new websites....) onto the same Ultra server. Yes, I pay 250.00 per month. I'm can also sell space on my server...recooping some of the costs....saving money from the 5 other domains and those webhosts....and I don't have to worry about service, hits, bandwidth....and the control panel is incredible and the extras I get with this server is worth it.

I suppose, if your UBB or VB isn't getting much traffic that you can do nicely on a shared server with lots of other domains....but I found (and dids.com discovered) that too many busy message boards on the same server doesn't work....

BTW, I wouldn't go back to UBB if someone paid me to go back. The speed, the size and the workability of this VB message board is amazing...I love it. There is stopping it....

**David Copeland** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 6:04pm

[b]Thanks for your reply . . .

Yes, we are using VBulletin after seeing
horrendous bandwidth costs at other sites
using UBB.

Still, I'm confused about hits driving
up costs, when our bandwidth isn't the issue.
It is something I need to dig into.

And your frustration has brought this issue
to the forefront, because I checked today
and our traffic(?) is at 10 gigs already
for August, with just a beta membership
of under 100. (We have over 12,000 members
worldwide that have yet to be invited to
our new forum.)

For $250 a month, what kind of bandwidth and\
traffic hits do you think you can use without
any problems or more charges?

Thanks.

PS: Can you sub-rent a portion of your
semi-dedicated space out to another friendly
VBulletin board?

**George L** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 6:31pm

excuse me for jumping in this thread, but with 12000 potential members i doubt any server for US$250/month woul do... especially for bandwidth costs... i.e. my vb forum has been online for 7 weeks with 290 members and 14000+ posts and it consumes 850MB/day or nearly 25GB/month

my dedicated server host, rackspace.com recently revamped it's site and linux server plans and you can get a

P3 500
128MB
15GB EIDE HDD
5 IPS
40GB/month for
US$338.80/month
US$250 setup

or for 50GB/month an additional US$30/month
or for 75GB/month an additional US$90/month
or for 100GB/month an additional US$160/month on top of the 228.80/month

i joined rackspace at the end of May with a

p3 500
128MB
10GB
8 IPs
50gb/month for US$405/month no setup...

**Kathy** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 6:32pm

Truth be told, I thought I was safe on dids.com.

I signed up with 150 storage and 15 gb limit...and stayed within that limit. But, what I didn't know, and the host didn't explain upfront, was that the "hits" were affecting the server's cpu resources. I don't understand this...because I'm not a server admin. It wasn't in the stats that I understood that I needed to be worried about. I watched my websites bandwidth on a daily basis...we were allowed 15 gb per month and stayed under that....

VServers doesn't count "hits" or bandwidth....I was told I could have atleast 300,000 hits per day or more...(I was at 80,000 at that point). VServers then looked at the script of VB and told me that based on the kind of "hits" I was getting, I would be safe for double that. Seems that some "hits" are harder hits than others? I don't understand it all, except that the hits of VB are short, fast hits, not much cpu usage per hit compared to other kinds of hits??.......not that I understand it but I trudge onward.

What I like about vservers is that they have told me that they will NEVER panic over the size of my site, the number of hits or my bandwidth. They will monitor my stats and let me know if a time ever comes that my needs change....and then they will alter the server I'm on (and the plan if needed)

They will never email me and tell me that I have the weekend to make arrangements....they will adjust on their end what needs to be adjusted while we work on changes based on my overall needs...over a period of time. I don't feel like I'll be put in a position where I need to make a snap decision....They've called me on the phone to discuss usage....they return my phone calls and have helped me set up an extensive server plan.

I'm in good hands. They are polite. Attentive. They know their stuff. On the occasions that I've called for phone tech support I've had the privilege of speaking to many of the tech support....24/7 they answer that phone. They have a large crew. Then when I needed further help, I was given to a "performance" team which monitored my needs and adjusted my server based on the mysql database issues.....

They have been great.

I would suggest you go with vservers lite....and when/if you need more space, they will move you to another server/plan with no pains on your end. They want to make vservers fit whatever needs a webmaster/owner has for his domain....

I'm impressed. Can you tell?

**George L** · Wed 9 Aug '00, 6:35pm

sorry meant to say on top of US$338.80 not 228.80

Ack! Need help now!

Ack! Need help now!

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