Looking for a reliable VPS host

[ecoleman]

I need a reliable host for hosting my Opencart store on a fairly powerful VDS.
I've been with TSOHost for a number of years, but I'm getting more and more annoyed as the server is not reliable.

Last month, the OS (or something) had a wobbly and it took them the entire day to move my site to a new server. That lost me a couple of thousand in trade, this morning I'm awoken to a barrage of emails from Pingdom telling me my site is up, then down, then up, then down. It's been up and down for over 2 hours.

Now I've had enough. I'm OOT

Any recommendations for a good, reliable host other that those from the Paragon Group as they have obviously lost their way.

 

[ecoleman]

Dedicated hosting is also an option.

Cloud hosting is not. Opencart doesn't play nicely with Cloud systems

 

[RedEvo]

Linode - simply superb.

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[ecoleman]

They look very interesting, but I'm no server configuration expert and my head hurts already reading some of those how to articles.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Then you could consider using a third party management service.

 

[Ste Hughes]

So you start.

£40 a month will get you a dedicated SSD server in a real data centre in france. We get fantastic speed, its simply stunning.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

I need a reliable host for hosting my Opencart store on a fairly powerful VDS.
I've been with TSOHost for a number of years, but I'm getting more and more annoyed as the server is not reliable.

Last month, the OS (or something) had a wobbly and it took them the entire day to move my site to a new server. That lost me a couple of thousand in trade, this morning I'm awoken to a barrage of emails from Pingdom telling me my site is up, then down, then up, then down. It's been up and down for over 2 hours.

Now I've had enough. I'm OOT

Any recommendations for a good, reliable host other that those from the Paragon Group as they have obviously lost their way.

Just last week we launched a dedicated server at a VPS price point. Full details are on our blog at http://www.webhostingbuzz.co.uk/blog/announcing-new-49mo-uk-dedicated-server/

Any good for what you need?

Matt

 

[ryedale]

Are you sure you need a VPS ?

We're hosting several OC sites for clients that have very high volumes of products and daily traffic with no issues at all

 

[ecoleman]

Are you sure you need a VPS ?

We're hosting several OC sites for clients that have very high volumes of products and daily traffic with no issues at all

Definitely, I don't want to compete with 100's of other sites for resources. That's suicide for a growing business.

 

[ecoleman]

Think I'll sign up with Linode and have a play. I've been in IT for many years, just never ventured into Linux or web server configuration.

How hard can it be

 

[ryedale]

Definitely, I don't want to compete with 100's of other sites for resources. That's suicide for a growing business.

Fair enough, that depends you go with - yes that's certainly the case if you go with a mass market host such as GoDaddy, 123 Reg and so on, if you go with a specialist smaller company, then very often the shared hosting platform outperforms lower level VPS's comfortably because it's specifically optimised and managed for this type of site and the servers are never overloaded.

Good luck with it anyway

 

[KM-Tiger]

How hard can it be

Not very if you just want it to work.

If you want it to work optimally, reliably and securely, then brace yourself for a steep learning curve.

It's really a question of business risk - loss of profit vs cost of a service that ensures the website is up.

 

[ecoleman]

We'll I've tried my hardest to sign up with Linode, but I never get the email I need to activate the account. I've tried creating the account again but I'm told my details already exist. Tried resetting the password, but I never get the email.

Emailed support, no reply.

Guess they have to much business

 

[webhostuk]

We'll I've tried my hardest to sign up with Linode, but I never get the email I need to activate the account. I've tried creating the account again but I'm told my details already exist. Tried resetting the password, but I never get the email.

Emailed support, no reply.

Guess they have to much business

If that's the case you need to really think of some other host. Can you let us know what are your VPS configuration requirements ?

 

[ecoleman]

If that's the case you need to really think of some other host. Can you let us know what are your VPS configuration requirements ?

No, I'm looking for recommendations from users, not hosting companies.
I'm looking for an unbiased opinion.

 

[8420PR]

My opinion:

1) For a very affordable but very good performing VPS have a look at ramnode (netherlands node for UK businesses)

2) I believe a better path forward is a dedicated server, as there are no other users/businesses competing for resources. My recommendation is to have a look at online.net or soyoustart.com - both these companies offer dedicated servers that are very affordable. The benefit of soyoustart is they offer very cheap ip addresses, compared to online.net.

Both the above options are self-managed, meaning you need to configure, optimise and manage the server yourself. For me I found it fun to learn sys admin, and optimising my server and software, however maybe the time would have been better used for sales & marketing!

Personally, I started with a VPS from ramnode (after testing many other suppliers) and have now grown to a dedicated server from online.net (again - I tried two other suppliers before settling with online.net). I've setup the dedicated server as an openvz node, so I can easily create a test-copy of my production system to trial changes.

 

[antropy]

Think I'll sign up with Linode and have a play. I've been in IT for many years, just never ventured into Linux or web server configuration.

How hard can it be

Definitely go for a fully managed service or you'll end up with an un-patched server that gets hacked very quickly.

 

[MikeH]

We use several different hosts. Give NuBlue a call. Always found their support to be good and had no hosting issues.

 

[ecoleman]

Thanks guys, I'll take a look at some of these.
It's not so much the support I'm concerned about, although good support is important. TSO support has always been very good. I just need hardware reliability which is where TSO have fallen short just lately.

 

[adamo]

I personally have a basic VPS plan with Webhostingbuzz who have good support who have always helped me with any issues I have. Depends what you're looking for exactly

 

[WebhostingUKCom]

Will personally suggest to have select SSD VPS hosting package, SSD VPS performance is much better than normal VPS.

 

[redacris]

I used Host Gator , It's really Awesome !

 

[tylnewcastle]

Go for GoDaddy! Very reliable have been using for quite a while.

 

[ecoleman]

Go for GoDaddy! Very reliable have been using for quite a while.

I don't think anybody in their right mind would host with Godaddy

 

[JPMiddleton]

Cloud hosting is not. Opencart doesn't play nicely with Cloud systems

we had that same issue when we were on cloud hosting for a month last year, though our host said there should be no difference it really was much slower to load the site.