For those who wish to choose your web hosting, I wish this can give you some ideas to make the right decision. Just like buying a car, it is not that the fastest car the best car. Anyway, there must be some measurement where one will find their best host!
Fastest car the best car?
This article was extracted from http://www.hyperspin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=140.
Choosing hosting is no small decision and often it’s really hit-or-miss, as there are several nuances unknown to customers. The article below deals with differences in hosting package plans which are not obvious to the average customer, as features of the hosting plan won’t make him closer in understanding the product he’s going to buy.
Problem Posing
Server performance depends on the processor loading, RAM, hard drive speed, RAID usage. But these features aren’t included into the hosting plans, so you are literally buying a pig in a poke. You’ll get the number of Mbs stated in your offer, but how fast will the server run your scripts and open the pages to the visitor?
If the hardware discs are big, the server has to process bigger amount of information. The speed and often reliability isn’t very high. Such server should be used for storing files and hosting non-mission critical sites running few scripts. If SCSI disc is installed into RAID, the server performance gets better than in the first case. You can host highly visited and mission critical sites on it. But the cost of the disc space on the second server will be higher. So, 500Mbs of disc space on one server is absolutely different from 500Mbs on the other server.
Hosting clients should be aware that each hosting provider offers a “unique” service, one can provide low-cost hosting, another specializes in powerful hosting, and the third can deliver reliable DDOS protection to his clients. The idea is to determine your needs and don’t use “disc space” parameter as the main feature while deciding on a hosting company.
It was traffic that reflected server load some time ago. The more traffic, the more visits to the site, so the greater load on the server. More bandwidth in package plans meant more system resources. But today things have changed, overselling has come here to stay.
The feature “the number of MySQL” is simply neglected by the number of hosting providers. You can often see “unlimited MySQL” in beginners’ plans. And that’s MySQL usage that creates additional load on the server.
Such features as the number of email boxes, ftp accounts, PHP support can be the same in different hosting packages. You can’t judge about the package plan by them.
So, disc space is what’s left to go by. This is what majority do. But this is a common misconception.
Often sites “fitting” into the disc space use more resources than allotted in the package price. Then the hoster has to ask his client to upgrade to a bigger plan or to leave the server.
Solution to the Problem?
The question about these discrepancies has been raised more than once before. The research showed that there is a limit for the number of processes executed on the server per second for every account. And this variable is different for each hosting company. But do clients choosing hosting think about this? This variable makes a site perform with a different degree of effectiveness.
It was traffic that reflected server load some time ago. The more traffic, the more visits to the site, so the greater load on the server. More bandwidth in package plans meant more system resources. But today things have changed, overselling has come here to stay.