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Does this mean I should switch hosts?


music_lp90

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Hi, I just performed a test between two hosts. The test was between godaddy and a local hosting company called powershift. I use godaddy for my portfolio site and a couple of other sites I've done, but the company I work for uses powershift.To test the two hosts, I placed a large image onto the servers in an html page. The file size was 6.55 mb.On powershift these are the times it took to completely download the page:1 min 38 sec2 min 08 sec31 sec (possibly I did not clear the cache in my browser on this one)2 min 9 sec1 min 53 secOn godaddy these are the times:13 sec28 sec35 sec17 sec13 secClearly there's a huge difference in the download times, but could there be other factors that would justify powershift taking so much longer? For instance, I have very few if any visitors to my site, but the company I work for might have 10-20 people online at a time, usually 500-600 visitors a day. Could the number of visitors make that much of a difference?Thanks for your help!

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The major factor is how much bandwidth each company has. I can all but guarantee that GoDaddy has more bandwidth available then powershift. If the server starts to buckle after 10 or 20 people then that's a problem, it should be able to serve at least several hundred without degrading performance much.

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You can't judge a host solely on download speeds. Download speeds depend on your ISP, and how far the host is from your ISP (and this very same variable applies to every end user as well). It also depends on the hosts total upload speed, but since they are professional hosts, they both have plenty of it.GoDaddy probably have servers in different regions of the world to maximize download speeds. Powershift on the other hand seem to have a certain special server room. One that is, making their speeds less for you if it takes you more network hoops to reach them.If you want to make this fair, ask both hosts how many servers they have around the world, where those servers are, and more importantly - what is their ISP (eg. if they are ISPs as well, from where they buy their IPs and traffic).Connect the dots (of who is connected to who) and see to whom you're closer. It might turn out its GoDaddy, solely because they happen to have a server around the corner, and thus you fetch the image locally, instead of going to a continental ISP before you get the image.You should make your decision based on other factors. Like bandwidth as already suggested.

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Thank you both for your help. I'm going to ask them what you suggested, but I'm not sure if I understood everything, so I don't know if I'm wording it properly. Does this make sense to write them and say "Can you tell me how many servers you have around the world, where those servers are located, what is your ISP or where do you buy your IPs and traffic and how much bandwidth do you have available?" I wasn't sure about the "what is your ISP or where do you buy your IPs and traffic " and I wasn't sure if the bandwidth was how much they have available to themselves or how much bandwidth they've allotted to us.Thanks for your help!

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I've had really good luck with godaddy. Anytime I've used customer support I've gotten through quickly and had my questions answered and I haven't had any problems with their hosting. But I'm not necessarily suggesting to switch to godaddy, I'm just trying to find out if there's an issue with powershift. I've also had experience with Bluehost and I've liked them.

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Thank you both for your help. I'm going to ask them what you suggested, but I'm not sure if I understood everything, so I don't know if I'm wording it properly. Does this make sense to write them and say "Can you tell me how many servers you have around the world, where those servers are located, what is your ISP or where do you buy your IPs and traffic and how much bandwidth do you have available?" I wasn't sure about the "what is your ISP or where do you buy your IPs and traffic " and I wasn't sure if the bandwidth was how much they have available to themselves or how much bandwidth they've allotted to us.Thanks for your help!
I'd separate the questions if I were you. Saying it all at once like that makes you look like you're going to kill yourself if you don't get an answer, and to this type of people, they are better off ignoring.Put it more like:
Hello.I am doing a research about web hosts, or should I say between the best ones I know. *hostName* is among theese hosts. While I'm very pleased with your offers, there are still some details I'd like to ask you which most people probably don't ask and are not listed in the offers' descriptions. I'm interested in knowing facts about your network, since it determines the speed my users will get. As all offers I research look a lot like yours, your answers to the following questions may determine my final choise.How many servers do you have around the world and in which locations?I'm sure you're aware that the closer a server is to the client, the better. So the more locations you're at, the better it will be for me, and my users.What is your ISP and where are their centrals located?The ISP(s) you use will also determine the ISP(s) which would deliver content best to my users. I'd like to know how many, and how good are the ISPs that I could rely on.Thanks for your time.Regards,*yourName*
(replace *hostName* with the name of the host who you're mailing, and *yourName* with your name)Add a similar note about the bandwidth ONLY if they're not giving away how much bandwidth YOU have (and I believe they do... all ISPs do). You don't need to know what's their total bandwidth. As for their IPs, unless you KNOW they are ISPs as well, it's better not to raise the subject. Knowing the ISPs will be enough.
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boen_robot, when I am asking about what ISP they use, would that mean who their Internet Service Provider is, such as Verizon or Earth Link or someone else? If so I think they are their own ISP because they offer broadband and dial-up services and on their website they say "Power Shift offers Co-Located and dedicated server solutions to fit your business needs. Our Server Room is temperature controlled, 24x7 Monitored, with state of the art Generator and Battery Back up ensuring your Web Sites and/or Server are always accessible. Being tied directly into our Network Backbone ensures you will get plenty of Bandwidth. While being behind our Firewall will keep your server secure from the outside."Does that sound like they would be their own ISP?Thanks!

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It's not important what their ISP is, if they tell you they get their bandwidth from ISP XYZ, what does that tell you? Ask them how much bandwidth they have, and how much is allocated to your server.

I've had really good luck with godaddy. Anytime I've used customer support I've gotten through quickly and had my questions answered and I haven't had any problems with their hosting.
These folks would like a word with you:http://nodaddy.com/
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Thanks, you guys have got me worried about my sites now :) I think I'll be looking to transfer them in the future. That is, if godaddy lets me. But still, I need to find out what's going on with powershift, because it has been dreadfully slow today and we haven't made any significant changes that would suggest it was something we did. In fact, I reduced the size of our home page by about 75%. Our web traffic has also been down for the past week and I think it might be tied to this. Maybe it''s just a fluctuation though. I guess I will start by asking them about the bandwidth.Thanks!

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I had already decided to cancel my GoDaddy hosting before finding NoDaddy. I am just glad I didn't have my domains with them. I just signed up for hosting company transfered my sites, repointed the domains, and canceled my accounts even though it was throwing away more than 4 months worth of hosting. I just wanted out!

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C'mon people! Isn't the available bandwidth announced in the hosting plans? Or do you believe hosts have secret agendas for not giving what they promise? If the latter, why would they reveal to a customer in an emal anyway?GoDaddy have 300 GB, 1,500 GB and 3,000 GB for their Economy, Deluxe and Premium plans respectively.PowerShift have ... OMFG!!! You're right... unless I've mistaken the site, they don't say anything about the bandwidth in any of their plans. music_lp90, you MUST know your bandwidth if you're even to consider their offers.Man, how stupid of me... I assumed they all say it... they could have at least said "unlimited". It wouldn't sound very promising, but at least it would be something.Anyway, have you considered chosing a third host? You know, neither GoDaddy or PowerShift?

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boen, it is not so much what is offered in the plan. GoDaddy offers great features for a good price. That's why I gavet hem a try. It is their poor customer service and horrible privacy practices that are a problem. The fact that they turn off people's service without a warning and for no legal reason is a big deal breaker. Their plan comparision page doesn't say anything about that. :) Spend a few minutes reading NoDaddy.

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boen, it is not so much what is offered in the plan. GoDaddy offers great features for a good price. That's why I gavet hem a try. It is their poor customer service and horrible privacy practices that are a problem. The fact that they turn off people's service without a warning and for no legal reason is a big deal breaker. Their plan comparision page doesn't say anything about that. :) Spend a few minutes reading NoDaddy.
I'm not for GoDaddy you know... and I'm not for PowerShift either. I'd prefer setting up my own servers any day. At least computers come cheaper to me as a PC assmbler (dealer prices, you know...).I have no opinion on the customer service of either company whatsoever, so, like music_lp90, the only base of comparrison I have are the features they have and have not written on their offers page. Customer support excluded.
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If you want a ton of bandwidth (3TB for $5, 6TB for $8), check out hostgator. But we should be careful to distinguish between bandwidth and throughput. Hostgator says that they will sell you 3TB of bandwidth per month for $5, but that doesn't say anything about what the throughput is for your server. It might be a DS-3 where you can fill up that 3TB pretty quickly, or it might be a 128k ISDN line where it would take all month to fill it up.What you need to look for is a page describing the network operations center or data center infrastructure, like this one:http://www.hostgator.com/company.shtml

Choosing Host Gator means that your sites will be accessible via a fully meshed and redundant Certified Cisco Network featuring 10 backbone providers. These providers include:Backbone Carriers3 Gbps Direct Fiber - Global Crossing3 Gbps Direct Fiber - UUNET5 Gbps Direct Fiber - AT&T4 Gbps Direct Fiber - Level34 Gbps Direct Fiber - AboveNet4 Gbps Direct Fiber - Savvis1 Gbps Direct Fiber - Time Warner4 Gbps Direct Fiber - Private Peers
So hostgator has 24Gbps total of throughput. That's quite a bit. Here's the page for theplanet.com:http://www.theplanet.com/about-us/default.aspThey don't list their connections, but they claim to have 100Gbps of throughput. I believe them too, we have a server there where tens of thousands of people are downloading relatively large media files and we don't really see a change in speed, so I guess it takes more then tens of thousands to slow it down.If you can't find a page like that on the host you're looking at, it might be because they aren't proud enough of their network to tell you what it's capable of. I can't find anything like that on powershift's site, but I did note that they have a "server room" instead of a data center. We have a server room here, it's got a cooler and a rack with a bunch of monitors and random computers all over the place. Our mail server is a vintage 1996 HP desktop machine that always stays on the "windows is shutting down" screen that we cannibalized and turned into a mail server (after hooking up one of the old-fashioned LCD MHz displays to flash "666" whenever the hard drive has activity). It's not something I would advertise to our customers.
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I wasn't trying to imply that you favored either company. I just wanted to say that a hosts sales page doesn't give you the whole story. It is a good idea to research the host you are considering. There are a number of hosting company review sites out there.

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Well even if they don't give information on their site you can always email or ring them. If you live in or near Vermont you could even pay them a visit yourself.

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Hello every one!

So hostgator has 24Gbps total of throughput. That's quite a bit. Here's the page for theplanet.com:http://www.theplanet.com/about-us/default.aspThey don't list their connections, but they claim to have 100Gbps of throughput. I believe them too, we have a server there where tens of thousands of people are downloading relatively large media files and we don't really see a change in speed, so I guess it takes more then tens of thousands to slow it down.
That’s pretty interesting since Hosgator.com has his IP Location in United States - Texas - Dallas - Theplanet.com Internet Services Inc.On the other hand, I got this info from another web hosting that claims this: Lunarpage.com 2,000 Mbit fiber network is connected directly to over 100 carriers such as Mzima Networks, NTT/Verio, Level3, AT&T, SBC, Microsoft/MSN, AOL/TimeWarner and Cable & Wireless.Are they talking about throughput? :)
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Hey everyone, I didn't realize this discussion was still going on. I found out from Powershift that they don't put limits on bandwidth. They said they had plenty, but did not say how much. The site seems to be running better now though. It was slow for about a week, but now it's back to what it had usually been like.

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I found out from Powershift that they don't put limits on bandwidth.
:) they must be desperate... but they must have some upper limit, or else people would start abusing it.
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