What do people think of Host Department

Dark_Angel

Dark_Angel

Dark_Angel

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Joined
12 May 2005
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http://www.hostdepartment.com/nolimitdeveloper.html

Could anyone with a lot of knowledge of hosting have a quick look at that for me please?

I was thinking of either the Windows Standard or the windows .net version.

I understand they are US based, but I dont really see any problems with that TBH.

They seem to be pretty genuine and with good tech support from my googling of them, and their site seems to be pretty professional. I just wanted to check that their servers will support all common stuff (PHP, HTML, maybe a bit of flash, plus the other usual stuff).
 
If you don't mind a US hosting company have a look at JaguarPC I host with them and hvae found them to be cheap and reliable, also support its excellent.
 
I may well use it for a slight business venture, the primary use though will be for Graphic Art, tutorials, hosting how to videos (both for graphic artwork, computing and gaming) and a place for graphic artists to come and hang out.

I may allow people to make donations to the site if they wish though, to help with running.

Forums will also be placed up and running, either VB ones, or which ever I feel will be useful.

On the site, they say that they allow virtually unlimited webspace, and virtually unlimited bandwidth, providing you stay within the terms and Conditions of the site.

I am just a bit confused as also the best hosting plan to go for, windows Standard or the Windows.net, cold fusion, or custom DLL.

The pages will be mostly flash, HTML and PHP.

Thanks for any help, you guys rock :P
 
No limits?
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Dark_Angel said:
I may well use it for a slight business venture, the primary use though will be for Graphic Art, tutorials, hosting how to videos (both for graphic artwork, computing and gaming) and a place for graphic artists to come and hang out.

[...]

Forums will also be placed up and running, either VB ones, or which ever I feel will be useful.
Click to expand...
I hate to be blunt, but the hosting plan you have mentioned is totally unsuitable for this sort of use in my opinion. "How to" videos are going to take up a lot of space and bandwidth, and forums are going to take up a lot of database queries and CPU time. $8.95/month (or $6.95, $5.95...) is not reasonable pricing for that kind of usage. To put things into perspective, wholesale bandwidth pricing in the US is about $35/month for 1Mbps (equivalent to 320GB/month transfer if hammered 24/7). Therefore, in the larger scheme of things, $8.95/month should probably get you around 70GB/month of transfer if you forget about colocation costs, server hardware costs, staff costs etc. If I were a web host I'd probably expect that to get you around 25GB/month transfer if you're lucky.

The business model this company have adopted is simply not sustainable. A few reviews you have read (and take these with a pinch of salt; web hosts have been known to go around posting reviews about themselves) might suggest they are keeping up with it for the moment, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they shut up shop in a weeks time and ran away with a load of annual prepayments, never to be seen again.

For the kind of uses you're looking at I'd suggest a higher-end shared hosting plan from a reputable company, or a VPS/dedicated server if you're going to be getting a lot of hits. Whatever you do, don't expect to be shifting hundreds of GBs for $8.95/month...

av. :)

Edit: You must have been looking in the wrong place for reviews. Two minutes on WebHosting Forums (Pinch of salt, etc., I know) and I found the following:

"I have used them personally, and they were one of the WORST hosting companies I have ever experienced in my entire life (so far)."

"From my own personal experience with them roughly from around two years ago they were terrible in terms of both support and reliability."

This thread is also of interest.
 
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Unlimited traffic/bandwidth doesn't exist. Any hosting site which advertises it is not worth your custom in my opinion - as soon as your site generates enough traffic to slow down their servers they'll ban you for "excessive CPU usage" - I haven't read their ToU but can almost guarantee that they have a clause of that nature in there. Overselling space isn't as much of an issue in my eyes as 99.9% of all hosts do it, but based upon the bandwidth issue and this load of crap, I'd avoid them like the plague. :)
 
Dark_Angel said:
I may well use it for a slight business venture, the primary use though will be for Graphic Art, tutorials, hosting how to videos (both for graphic artwork, computing and gaming) and a place for graphic artists to come and hang out.

I may allow people to make donations to the site if they wish though, to help with running.

Forums will also be placed up and running, either VB ones, or which ever I feel will be useful.

On the site, they say that they allow virtually unlimited webspace, and virtually unlimited bandwidth, providing you stay within the terms and Conditions of the site.

I am just a bit confused as also the best hosting plan to go for, windows Standard or the Windows.net, cold fusion, or custom DLL.

The pages will be mostly flash, HTML and PHP.

Thanks for any help, you guys rock :P
Click to expand...

Unlimited bandwidth and space is a load of crap tbh. Once you start using what they deem is too much they will just bin you or send a nice invoice.

IMO I wouldn't touch these with a barge pole, along with any other unlimited host. If you are using it for anything kind of serious then look for a better provider.

If you don't intend on using .NET and windows scripting don't go for a windows host as this will generally be more expensive.

www.ochostreview.co.uk has a comprehensive list of hosts.
 
Soooo... basically avoid them like some people avoid soap?

Hmm... I am thinking of going for JaguarPC then. One last thing on JaguarPC though. I have noticed that you can buy extra space and bandwidth. is that a month the cost, or is that for an entire year? I assume its a year?

Sign Up: Step 2


Domain : www.balh.com
Package : The Longhorn (Annual) - $107.64
Disk Space - 5 GB $5.00
Bandwidth - 100 GB $15.00
Register the domain : yes

Obviously a bit of an example, but just thought I would show.
 
I'm not the sure and the site isn't clear. There is a support forum which includes a dedicated section for sales question here
 
Shine mate, you have been very helpful. I am VERY very impressed they have a forum. (pleased too for that matter) and have joined and posted there asking my questions.

A thanks to everyone else that has posted too. I am a bit sad that I don't get unlimited hosting, but I guess you're right, and if something seems to good to be true, don't trust it.

I will post back here when they reply, and will let people know of what they say :)
 
Glad I could help, I should have also mentioned that there is an active community and I've found most problems are sorted out without the intervention of JAG staff.
 
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