Hosting Query

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Merlin

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I am considering trying to get my forum off of a free host and onto a paid host, and I am just wondering which hosts people recommend. I need one with phpBB3.

I looked around, and SiteGround looks good to me. It said that "SiteGround provides FREE website file transfer from your previous host".

Would that mean I could steal my forum from the free host I use? 😛 Probably not, but it'd be cool.
 
I wouldn't go with an oversold host, better someone like http://prosoftstudio.com , great web host and I use them now. If you can't pay for hosting I can provide you paid level hosting if you'd like, just PM me -8)-
 
Pro Soft studio over sell, just like XL-Hosting do, but both of us have the money to back it up (can get more space when needed) , every host over sells ;-)
 
What is "over-sell"?

Okay, here's what I'm looking for.
> Domain names
> FTP Access (you can install your own mods)
> phpBB3 Support
> Good Tech Support
 
Ideally, what is your monthly budget?

Additionally, do you want pay per month or are you able to pay for say 12 months in Advance (most hosts support the latter option).
 
Dark Evil said:
Pro Soft studio over sell, just like XL-Hosting do, but both of us have the money to back it up (can get more space when needed) , every host over sells ;-)
Click to expand...
Ok well I mean prosoft oversells, but they aren't "oversold" in the sense that sites load slowly and there are an insane amount of people on the server. And of course every host oversells, if not through space and bandwidth then through CPU power, and their ISP could oversell bandwidth itself -😉-


@Murder he wrote, I wouldn't reccomend that because many hosts end up fly-by-night hosts which leave, and what happens if his site gets really big and needs a VPS? Then he'd loose the remaining months, so monthly is the way to go unless you really trust a host. I remember reading not long ago when someone had problems with their host suspending them after being with them for already 2 years and having payed in advance.
 
All good points, I can offer everything you need to run your forum, our servers are very fast, and our uptime is very very good.

After you have set up your forum we will even install some mods for you!
 
By the way i apologise for any spelling mistakes in my post below... I am tired and it is too long to re read again. -lol-

Gimgak said:
@Murder he wrote, I wouldn't reccomend that because many hosts end up fly-by-night hosts which leave, and what happens if his site gets really big and needs a VPS? Then he'd loose the remaining months, so monthly is the way to go unless you really trust a host. I remember reading not long ago when someone had problems with their host suspending them after being with them for already 2 years and having payed in advance.
Click to expand...
If you sign up with a large host that has been around for years then the chances of them closing and taking your money is very small. With every host i hav seen and been with, when you need to upgrade your package, what remaining months you have get converted into times on the new package.

For example if you have 10 months of a $5 a month package left and you are upgrading to a $10 a month package they would give you 5 months on the new package because of the money you paid for your old package.

Anyway Merlin, I would be very careful with who you sign up with as many above i would be quick cautious about. When sites say free transfer that means files and db's from one host to another where you have access to the files. Quite often in the small print that will say they will only do the transfer is the control panel is the same on both hosts such as if your new host has cpanel quite often your old host needs to have cpanel or they won't move it. You would need to pay your host to get the backup of your db.

phpBB can be installed on almost any host with php and mysql. I say almost as if a host has a very old set up with an old php version or old Mysql version then it won't run (if they are so out of date they are below the min requirements) but that is unlikely as no host would allow their servers to get that far out of date i hope. Safe mode may also cause a few problems but most if not all paid hosts have that switched off though so no need to worry.

Overselling means that if everybody uses their allowance there wouldn't be enough resources to go around. For example if a host offers 100gb storage and has 10 clients on that server but the server only has a 300gb hard drive then if every account used all their space they would have to add another 3 hard drives as there wouldn't be enough space. The same goes with bandwidth and cpu and so on.

Anyway my recommendation would be hawkhost - http://hawkhost.com We use their cheapest package here and have had no problems (apart from a smallish outage a day or so ago but that was a datacenter problem) and we have been with them from about 3 months. It will give you enough space to grow to the same size as FP and bigger.
 
@Fowler, I understand how you said that if you go with a host which is very well known it probably won't close. However, lets say Forum Promotion or his forum would start getting traffic like Digital Point, you'd then need a dedicated server and would most likely loose the remaining months since you'd need to host your site somewhere else. Unlikely but happens everyday. I know that HawkHost doesn't oversell a lot at all and is a great host from how it can hold a big forum like this one, so I know they are a great host to go with too -happy-
 
Woah there.... I am not Murder he Wrote (Thank God -razz- ) -😉-

Most hosts offer upgrade paths... I don't mind paying yearly if i know that i could upgrade to a higher package. HawkHost offer VPS hosting so that is why i don't mind paying yearly as the money i have paid will go towards the VPS hosting they offer. If i was on a VPS i would be more cautious about it as there is no dedicated plans yet at HawkHost so then i might think twice. Especially when the site gets very active and i know that it am close to need to move on from a VPS. A site doesn't get very active that fast anyway so it won't go from needing shared hosting to dedicated hosting in a year unless you have a very successful year although it is unlikely.
 
-🙁-

They can't move me. Here's what they said.

STAFF said:
Hello,
We'll answer both your questions here.

First, CreateForum.NET is large. As you can imagine, with thousands of users each day, this site is the most resource intensive on our server. You are but a fraction of all the sites on our server. However, you are probably the most vocal in our support desk. We appreciate your feedback / recommendations and alerts.

Second, we would love to help you move to another site to continue to grow. Unfortunately, this cannot be accomplished for the time being because of the follow reason:

Units of databases are created. In each unit, are hundreds of individual databases, including yours. When each unit grows to a certain size, server side commands are not able to download the database (it's too big). And even if we are able to download the database, we would have to extract your database from the unit, manually. As of now, we do not have the capability - however, we are working on it.

Please don't think this is a matter of revenue / traffic stats. As of now, we are actually losing money on this site. For some reason, we currently earn about 10 cents a day. Hopefully, we can implement changes to increase that.

We would love for you to stay, so we will make any and all efforts to make your experience with us better (and everyone else). We just need to patch up security holes and increase revenue. You will be the first to know when we have the capability to move individual sites off the server.

- STAFF
Click to expand...
 
Tecca said:
Use a crawler to grab all of the information you need to move.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that will work(in most cases).

That's the only bad thing about most free forum providers, they don't let you download a backup of your forum if you want to move.
 
Merlin said:
-🙁-

They can't move me. Here's what they said.

STAFF said:
Hello,
We'll answer both your questions here.

First, CreateForum.NET is large. As you can imagine, with thousands of users each day, this site is the most resource intensive on our server. You are but a fraction of all the sites on our server. However, you are probably the most vocal in our support desk. We appreciate your feedback / recommendations and alerts.

Second, we would love to help you move to another site to continue to grow. Unfortunately, this cannot be accomplished for the time being because of the follow reason:

Units of databases are created. In each unit, are hundreds of individual databases, including yours. When each unit grows to a certain size, server side commands are not able to download the database (it's too big). And even if we are able to download the database, we would have to extract your database from the unit, manually. As of now, we do not have the capability - however, we are working on it.

Please don't think this is a matter of revenue / traffic stats. As of now, we are actually losing money on this site. For some reason, we currently earn about 10 cents a day. Hopefully, we can implement changes to increase that.

We would love for you to stay, so we will make any and all efforts to make your experience with us better (and everyone else). We just need to patch up security holes and increase revenue. You will be the first to know when we have the capability to move individual sites off the server.

- STAFF
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
-bigeyes- That is very worrying... Especially the lack of revenue and the security problems -roll-

A crawler may work (i haven't tried it) but there is going to be to alot of info that does get taken over so you won't be copying over a full db. You will have to find a crawler first which works.
 
What's a crawler? Some sort of bot that makes a backup by searching the forum? How extensive is it? What does it copy? I would so love to use this, but I need to know what it will and won't take. And how to get it.
 
I wouldn't use one personally as it won't be able to get everything and it will cause problems either immediately or at some point down the road with little problems and errors and info missing here and there. Basically as you said it goes onto your forum and scans it and tries to get as much info as possible then makes it into a db file for you to upload.
 
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