I own a too successful Drupal website (in terms of visitors), that receives around 7000 to 8000 visitors a day.
I’ve been changing from hosting to hosting through the years, but currently I don’t know what to do. This month I already had the site on 2 different host (one VPS and a expensive shared one), but none solved my problem.
I really don’t have time to manage servers, neither the money to pay someone to do it for me, so I guess dedicated hosting is out of question. I just want a server where I can install the site and concentrate on managing the site, knowing someone takes care of the rest and keeps the server going.
The VPS solution was promising, but the site simply stopped sometimes and in a week I had to restart it twice. Something I really don’t want to do. Basically, what I need is CPU, not bandwidth neither disk space, which seems what all hosting is trying to promote.
Does anyone around here have a website with this amount of visitors (or more)? Where are you hosting it?
What type of hosting should I search for (in terms of processor and memory)? Are there any VPS solutions that guarantee me some % of the CPU?
Thanks in advance,
Miguel
Comments
Can you make the site pay
Can you make the site pay for itself - eg by advertising with Google?
I have a machine which I look after and which runs several Drupal sites. I could possibly host it for you - for a price :-)
CPU driven hosting - what is your monthly budget?
If you need dedicated CPU driven hosting, what is your monthly budget?
The kind of thing you are looking for is a matter of budget and dedicated CPU requirements, IMO and experience.
spritefully yours
spritefully yours
Technical assistance provided to the Drupal community on my own time ...
Thank yous appreciated ...
I can pay
The site gives money, so, of course, I can (and I will) pay. I would be ready to pay around 100 USD/month, for something that would solve my problem (and if I could also host some much smaller sites with it).
Besides the CPU, basically, I want to find a place that manages the server for me, even if this means limiting my access to the server (anyway, I'm used to use shared server packages).
Miguel Duarte
Webmaster of: Lisbon Guide & Love Poems
bad host?
mcduarte,
I'm starting the search for a vps. can you please post or private message me or let me know which ones you had the bad experience with? thank you. what's your current situation?
Get your own server for less than $100
Try layerdtech.com... Excellent service and your own box!
VPS
We use a VPS from UnixShell for our Drupal site. We're doing easily 4000 visitors a day with no problems at all, running on PostgreSQL.
8000 visitors per day is no big deal- how many pages/sec are you doing? I've benchmarked ours at 20pages/sec without serious slowdown. Unixshell uses Xen which is much better at guaranteeing service than some over VPS solutions.
I'd advise sticking with a decent VPS service like Unixshell and seeing where the problem lies. PHP? Database? Apache?
One very important point to note: are you using a PHP cache such as APC? Many people here on the forums are unaware this is almost essential to get decent performance with PHP/Drupal. It can reduce CPU by a factor of 10-20.
Alternatively, I've heard good things about Textdrive and Bryght.
Version control your Drupal with The File High Club
I too would recommend a
I too would recommend a Virtual Private Server (VPS), also called a Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS). I was tired of jumping from one shared hosting plan to another...with always something missing. Also, if not included in the base plan it's well worth the extra few dollars for VPS features that allow you to add additional Domain Names as well as Cpanel or Plesk Control Panels. I'm currently hosting five sites on my VPS, two of them Drupal. Most VPS plans do offer a promise of CPU and memory. If you don't plan on making upgrades yourself, you probably do want to pay attention to what version of OS, PHP, and MySQL are on the server to be sure it's compatible with Drupal.
Also, if not included in the base plan, it's well worth the extra few dollars for VPS features that allow you to add additional Domain Names as well as Cpanel or Plesk Control Panels. I'm currently hosting five sites on my VPS, two of them Drupal. Since I was new to VPS I felt more comfortable with a service that I could make monthly payments. You can usually get some cheaper deals if you pay on a yearly basis, but I didn't want to commit that much money only to find out that a VPS didn't meet my needs.
-Bryan
Drupal Sites Coming Soon:
CMSReport
My Dakota Hosting VPS/VDS
Which plan are you using?
There plans are unmaged, but I can send them some email to discuss that. What is your plan?
Miguel Duarte
Webmaster of: Lisbon Guide & Love Poems
The "My" was litteral...it
The "My" was literal...it is a service I offer through a resale plan. I missed the part that said you already tried an "unmanaged" VPS and rather not go that direction again. While the Dakota Hosting VPS is a great deal for those comfortable with sys admin, it sound like it's not for you since it is unmanaged.
I actually have started quietly providing a managed VPS services and have some plans to formally offer the service in the future. However at this time, I'm not ready to provide managed VPS service and wouldn't want to lead you into thinking I could. The past year has been an eye opener for me. I underestimated the number of people wanting/needing help in installing and managing their open source applications. And here I had hoped for a little side business where I didn't need to do much in the way of managing other people sites!
-Bryan
Thanks for the vote of confidence
We're not really optimized for high volume sites at the moment. In some ways, we've had a different clientelle than we first expected.
We're looking at partnering with Firebright to offer a really great VPS service optimized for Drupal that can scale, also based around Xen, but it's not quite ready to go yet.
And yes, a PHP cache is crucial.
Hosting lots of high traffic sites
Just thought I'd add an update here. With Firebright, we've got scalable virtual private servers that are tuned for production Drupal hosting out of the box. More details in our intro post.
--
The future is Bryght.
We do recommend our services
Please visit http://www.meant4.com or directly http://www.meant4.com/hosting . For our main page we use drupal as well and we do care about drupal solution on our host. We provide more than 40 preinstalled scripts please check http://www.meant4.com/ps . In case of any questions please contact us using http://www.meant4.com/support or directly support@meant4.com email address.
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kindest regards
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http://www.meant4.com
maciej.perlinski@meant4.com
I would suggest Dreamhost according to my experience
They provide very generally packages to meet different needs.
Plans start at $7.95/month and include PHP, Perl, MySQL, phpBB, etc. and 1 FREE domain registration. Plus you can get UNLIMITED domains hosted, UNLIMITED subdomains, 20 GB Disk, 1 TB Transfer, and 75 Shell/FTP Users.
You can use coupon code HAPPYHOST to get $50 off any plan to choose to singup.
I have been a user for quite a while and very satisfied.
http://www.dreamhost.com
About Dreamhost
Dreamhost is the one I use. They work fine but aren't good for CPU intensive websites as they have a cap of 60 CPU minutes per account. My experience is that they allow you to use well more than this ammount, but still, not enough for me.
I would say that if you have a drupal website that as around 2000 to 3000 people a day, Dreamhost will do just fine, but not more than that. Of course, this could change with the new 4.7 version.
Miguel Duarte
Webmaster of: Lisbon Guide & Love Poems
That's what they say... but say one thing & do another is yet...
The adverts say that is...
And not much else, DH has great numbers, but 9 days over 15 different times the site is totally unavailable, MySQL seems to be the culprit. Heavy/Long lag times. Took days to have them set it up... (i.e. a simple account called "strictly business") For a serious, no headaches, and reliable uptime choose another.... These guys (DreamHost) have been a nightmare from the very first sign-up process, it took me over 2 days to get access to my account, and since then it's been a total waste of time. Glad I choose their highest rung shared hosting to see what's what. Cause you know what? Their spending their money on growth, not reliability. Judging by the lowest common denominators of a mission critical site i.e. just have a site being available to the general public who has minimal traffic 150-200 visits a day until I really roll it out and my crew & I can't even get to work on it....
READ THE SMALL PRINT ON all of THEIR HOSTING PLANS...
If you need serious trouble free service and can't take a chance on hosting you should not even give DreamHost a try. Cause server environments don't have to so erratic as these guys enviro's are/seem to be. I've used 5 different hosting companies thru the past 9 years & DreamHost is a definite failure to deliver what they say. To bad my old host doesn't offer dedicated service because I would use them, at least my site is always
there.
The point is that "advertised numbers" are only part of the picture, reliability 99% uptime, & super fast response times to their network issues, and having a flawless accounting setup would help these guys be real contenders with the "numbers" they throw around, but without the strength & stability to provide the behind the scenes stuff their just bragging & flagging...
Just my 2 bits worth, cause some of us don't need or want to be jerked around, life's short & theirs other things to do than hope & pray that it's doing what it should be doing (i.e. uptime)...
Always Google dreamhostsucks dot com (or whatever before the sucks to checkout their other side) because the experiences that I've read at such site (after the above query string) after signing up with them are exactly the responses & quality of service I've personally experienced...
Michael S. President (& Head Geek of the whole damn company) of ProgressiveBastion.com (when you can find it online when it's being hosted by DreamHost.com that is...)
Yup, I'm Liberal...
Liberal
lib~er~al (lbr-l, lbrl), adj.
1a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views or dogmas; free of bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas and behavior...
other 4
what were the other 4 hosts you didn't like? i'm looking for a vps host on 52711. i'm thinking of rimu
I can highly recommend Servint's VPSs ...
Hi Miguel :
I just saw your post today.
I can highly recommend Servint, they have an out-of-this-world amazing Support team and their VPSs are the following : http://servint.com/vps/
Details of what's included for the basic pack (service, hardware, software) : http://servint.com/vps/details.php#essen
Don't get scared by the look of their site, they are really fantastic.
After being with 10 different providers during the years (since 1996), I'm sticking with them til the end of times!! ;)
They guarantee resources for your VPS and you can always simply upgrade to a more powerful one, "with a click".
Pricing starts at the Essential one for US$49/month.
They use Virtuozzo VPS technology (the guys from Plesk control panel), and actually have the largest Plesk and Virtuozzo farm and implementations out there.
Really friendly and you can talk with all the team from CEO to support, etc. I've been for 2 years with them and have all my customers there.
I have suggested to their Business Developer that they make (ask) Plesk to add Drupal as part of the built-in AppVault of Plesk (one click install of open source apps). That will give Drupal more marketing help and increase adoption. :) Let's see what happens.
I hope this helps.
Good luck!
BR,
Nicolás
Sonanvision.com
33Link China Dedicated Web
33Link China Dedicated Web Hosting has a number of good options for high bandwidth. It is run by an IT Service Company, Mirkin Group