How much down time until you move?

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tea

New Member
Have been with the current hosting company for a few years now but only in the last half year have I launched a site that meant frequent updates so I've become more aware of down time and really slow loading times. Browsing this forum before posting I've seen the hosting company mentioned as one to go for in the Irish market.

I have shared hosting with 4 sites running off it - not once have the combined total of the sites even used 10% of the monthly limits I'm paying for on this hosting package. The maximum number of hits ever on a day was 270 and average is at 130 per day. Sites are textual with minor graphics all web optimised, no flash. I know pagespeed isn't perfect but the lowest site page speed is 83 and YSlow grade of B.

Over the last 3 months I would say the hosting has gone down over 10 times (I think it's 15 times but will keep things conservative), once for over 12 hours. Site loads times can go from a few seconds to over a minute. These are just the times I've noticed from going to the site myself - it likely happens more often when I'm just not on the site for a few days and this would explain some off trend major dips in visits here and there.

I am not very knowledgeable about what is an adequate service for a hosting package that is shared - are the variable load times and down time standard for a shared site that doesn't even use 10% of the limits?
 

Forbairt

Teaching / Designing / Developing
Have you tried contacting their support about it? As it's shared hosting it's shared everything pretty much across all sites so potentially someone could be abusing the resources of the system a bit and if no one has reported it it may not have been flagged yet
 

Byron

New Member
I have been having similar issues with a firm lately, but being moved to a different server can often help. Talk to your host or look into VPs... although I'm not an expert in there fields
 

tea

New Member
Thanks for the replies!

Have you tried contacting their support about it? As it's shared hosting it's shared everything pretty much across all sites so potentially someone could be abusing the resources of the system a bit and if no one has reported it it may not have been flagged yet

I report the sites being down and only once for being slow. I'm either told it's planned maintenance or they are aware of the issue and are fixing it. I'm ok with the fact that whatever maintenance needs to be done but the frequency of the downtime is getting a bit much.


I have been having similar issues with a firm lately, but being moved to a different server can often help. Talk to your host or look into VPs... although I'm not an expert in there fields

Yeah I've had my sites moved to 3 different servers so far...they work well for a while then back to the same slow responding and not available then after a while.

To me the fact that the sites do not even come close to using the resource allocation I am paying for I shouldn't have to be considering VPS - if that's the case then the shared hosting shouldn't even be being offered. I would understand if I was reaching the limits each month but I'm not even potentially reaching them.

Do some hosting companies sell "packages" knowing people generally don't actually use their resource allocation and so in reality if everyone did use their allocation the their servers would be screwed? I've read a little about that online and think it could be the case with my hosting.
 

Byron

New Member
Hi Tea,

I would think nearly all hosts work on that basis. Although servers might physically be able to handle your max allowance of email accounts, SQL databases, etc, it is the access and connections to your site, etc which is the part which is vulnerable.

I recently had a chat about resources with someone else on this board - being someone who knows I need to gain more of an understand of the techie sides of the business.

From all this it would seem the word "shared" is key... if everyone needed the full resource allocation at once, it wouldn't be available. I presume not a huge problem if everyone used 29 out of their 30GB allowance as a host could add storage over time, and shift sites around, but a sudden jump in site usage (whether RAM, bandwidth or individual connections) could knock out a full server and all contained accounts...

... Unfortunately the bandwidth / storage limits are just that... limits and there doesn't seem to be any liability to allow everyone to reach those limits at once, rather that 99% of the time, for example, your site should be online.

... Maybe someone else with more knowledge of the field could clarify this?
 

Byron

New Member
... I would also mention the costs involved in shared hosting are relatively quite small, and the more you spend, the more you get, for example:

(Using my business brain, rather than any explicit knowlkedge)

if a server costs €2,500 a year to run, presuming costs and profits:

Costs p/a €5,000

So 100 websites X €50 ex VAT = €5,000

VPS 10 websites x €500 ex VAT = €5,000

eventually I would gather you would get to a point where if a server had the physical ability to handle 5000GB bandwidth per month, and has 10 clients, each would genuinely get 500GB bandwidth per month?


... Sorry for my ignorance if I am totally off! :confused:
 

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
The "choke points" with servers are CPU, RAM and disk I/O

Disk space and bandwidth aren't as much of an issue (though obviously if you've only got a 100 meg connection to a server then the maximum throughput that server could do at any time would be below 100 meg)

In a shared hosting environment a particularly busy site (or a badly coded one) can eat up CPU and RAM either on the web server(s) or the DB server(s) which can impact other sites using the same resources.
 
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