Question about Surpass Options

[orgasm]

I posted this up in the "Paid Hosting" thread, but nobody was getting back to me, so I thought I'd reiterate...

Question:

I had like an hour of downtime with Surpass Hosting today and uploading things is extremely slow at certain times of the day (mid-morning to mid-afternoon and midnight)... I wasn't too concerned, but just in case, I decided to read some reviews that weren't posted in their forums...

It seems like everybody keeps saying that they WERE good but now they're going downhill. I mean, I didn't think the "problems" I was experiencing was that big of a deal since my site's just a small portfolio... but the thing is that I have a shared hosting accoung with my dad's company business site and if Surpass is going to have "23 downtime cases in a week!", that's just not going to cut it.

So... can anybody tell me about their Surpass Hosting experiences? Preferably within 2007.

And also, if I were to switch to Dreamhost... how would I go about doing that?

[*mzkandi*]

I got hosting with Surpass about two, three months ago. When I was first with them, like the first week after I signed up, I experienced horrible downtime. So I submitted a ticket about what was up. Actually I submitted three tickets because the problem wasn't solved each time that said it was fixed. The final time they identified that there was an attack on my server. The problem was quickly fixed and I've had a great experience with them since. No downtime at all now. Have you told customer service about the problem? They are really quick about getting back at people.

[threepointone]

If they're being honest about the web attack, well you (and they) are probably out of luck.

I've heard of this kind of story from many smaller websites--what happens is that a group of hackers tells their botnet (lots of spyware/adware/virus/etc infected computers under the control of those hackers) to keep on sending requests to the website and overload their servers. The hackers, which are undetectable and not easily blocked due to the way a botnet works, usually then solicit the owners for money to stop the attcks. It pretty much forces small websites to pay a lot of money, since they either a) need to pay the hackers, who might do it again anyway or b) get more servers to handle the load or get better network hardware which can block out the attacks. Some websites can't afford to do either. I've heard of many small internet companies which have gone bankrupt from this kind of scheme.

Moral of the story? Make sure your computer's free of spyware, viruses, and adware, 'cause chances are, you're contributing to the problem.

What do you do? Honestly, since you're hosting your dad's company (which is serious business, no pun intended), you should find a bigger host which can cope with this sort of attack and provide better uptime. Personally I use brinkster, and major downtime (more than a minute or so) has always been announced. In the course of my 2+ years with them, service has definitely been getting better and every couple of months they've been upgrading their servers. I'm recommending brinkster only because it's the only good host I have experience before, so you should still definitely do your research and keep your options open.

[Melissa]

I'm going to bump this. My year's coming up and I'm thinking about switching to a different host.

I haven't personally experienced any problems, since I just have a small portfolio site, but, as I said, I'm sharing my plan with my dad's company's business and he's emailed me one or two times this past year telling me that his company email wasn't working.

This just isn't going to work.

All the recent reviews I've read about them all tell me that they suck and they scam you with their billing, but again, in the year I've been with them, I haven't really experienced any of this.

I want to keep my options open, so if you've been with a good, cheap webhost with VERY LITTLE downtime (remember, I'm also running my dad's company website) for over a year, please give me their info. thanks!

[fixtatik]

it depends on what you consider to be "very little." DreamHost has a good record, depending on what server your website is hosted. i know earlier this year they had a MAJOR problem that resulted in almost 10 consecutive hours of downtime. it was a planned data center relocation, but it put all 200,000+ sites hosted at DreamHost out of business for half a day.

then later they had a different problem that they claimed was "planned maintenance," although it was never announced.

for the most part, though, i've had wonderful experience with DreamHost. Google just bought them out, though, so i'm kind of afraid what they plan to do with it. you can host your website through DreamHost on Google servers now if you want, so it might mean better reliability.