Hosting - who to use?

philiporchard · Feb 6, 2013

Hi,

I am looking at new hosting options.

Need:

Either a dedicated or virtual private server (VPS)
Windows Standard Server 2008 O/S 64 bit
MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (or 2012)
1 x IP address
Minimum 2 x cores at minimum 2GHz each
Minimum 4GB RAM (8GB would be preferred)
100GB HD storage should be more than enough

Who is the best value for money?

philiporchard · Feb 6, 2013

No - managed hosting.

philiporchard · Feb 6, 2013

Any thoughts please

Daily.co.uk, heartinternet.co.uk Fasthosts?

Nick S · Feb 7, 2013

Been happy with Vidahost - not sure what larger packages they offer.

mdrussell · Feb 7, 2013

philiporchard said:
Any thoughts please

Daily.co.uk, heartinternet.co.uk Fasthosts?

Google some of their reviews...

mdrussell · Feb 7, 2013

philiporchard said:
Hi,

I am looking at new hosting options.

Need:

Either a dedicated or virtual private server (VPS)
Windows Standard Server 2008 O/S 64 bit
MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (or 2012)
1 x IP address
Minimum 2 x cores at minimum 2GHz each
Minimum 4GB RAM (8GB would be preferred)
100GB HD storage should be more than enough

Who is the best value for money?

You definitely want 8GB minimum for SQL 2008. 16GB is even better.

GreyWing · Feb 7, 2013

Hi Philip,

I'd have a go at managing it yourself mate, there are some great guys on here who can do the bits for you as you need them or offer hardware and colocating for you.

Saves me a fortune, Jimm (Nick) or Mark (DG.co.uk) have always helped me out with sound advice. It knocks off about £60 per month / per server compared to managed.

philiporchard · Feb 8, 2013

Happy to try unmanaged then...

I think I spoke with someone on here previously, but can't find the emails now!

martin-s · Feb 8, 2013

Could try ServerStream ?

mspecialists · Feb 8, 2013

we use hosteurope for a big project - quite good, root, speed, with 60 EUR/month a little expensive, but as said for big (online community) so the price is ok

mdrussell · Feb 8, 2013

philiporchard said:
Happy to try unmanaged then...

I think I spoke with someone on here previously, but can't find the emails now!

How much damage would it do to your business if you lost all website data?

How much damage would it do if the sites were down for a few days?

I wouldn't recommend self-management unless you have the specific skills to manage a server if the answer to either of the above questions is 'significant'.

monaghan · Feb 8, 2013

I'd tend to agree with Matt here, however, there is a 3rd option, you could get an unmanaged server and a server management company to look after it, may save you a few quid and give more flexibility in choice of data centre. (may also give you 2 points of failure though!)

mdrussell · Feb 8, 2013

Sean said:
In that case you will not beat ovh.co.uk for spec to price

Agreed, prices are insanely cheap. But less than ideal for anything managed and/or mission critical.

mdrussell · Feb 9, 2013

Sean said:
I've had a server with them for two years and granted it isn't mission critical but as far as I know it's only had one minor downtime. They monitor the server 24/7 and I got an e-mail the moment it went down (which was for around two-minutes) and another to say it was back up and running.

Their control panel is also one of if not the best I've used.

They own the data centres and they build their own servers so they always have engineers and spares on site.

Sean,

I admire what they do on the technology and infrastructure side a lot. Their density and power efficiency is industry leading. But from my experience (yes, it is a little limited), hardware is lower end and support is very much catered for the stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap model based around volume. But if you're happy that's good to hear

Is your server based in France or do they have a UK location now?

Matt