New Hosting for GrandmasterB.com
Posted on April 9th, 2008 by GrandmasterB under Web Development
This weekend GrandmasterB.com will be moving! After reading the rave reviews of Top Hosting Center and seeing the great hosting packages they offer I’ve decided to part ways with my current host. I found Top Hosting Center while visiting JohnCow.com and signing up for the XBOX 360 that THC is sponsoring. In the process of signing up for the contest, I also decided to sign up for the Affiliate program. Their Speedy Hosting Plan is an unbeatable value for the price. The Speedy Hosting Plan starts at just $8.95/month + $25 setup fee (or signup for 24 months and get the plan for $6.75/month). What’s included you ask? Well let me tell you…
I won’t list all of the features here, but for starters you receive 1000GB (THAT’S 1TB!) of disk space and 33000GB of data transfer per month! That’s an insane amount of disk space…more than I have on my Mac! That right there along with a 99.9% uptime guarantee is enough for me to click that little red signup button. Unlike other hosts THC offers their customers a dedicated IP Address at no extra cost and unlimited domain hosting. The hosting plan has so many extra features that there’s too many to list. Everything is UNLIMITED (MySQL Databases, Email Forwarders, Parked Domains, Subdomains, etc)…if there’s a hosting company that has limits on it, chances are it’s unlimited with THC. If you would like more information on what Top Hosting Center can do for you or to see their features in detail click the banner in the sidebar or at the top of this post.
~ GrandmasterB
April 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
A $25 set-up fee seems a bit much for me… I’m on Hostgator, and haven’t had any problems with them so far (touch wood).
April 9th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
With the setup fee you have to figure it into the cost over the first year…if you go month-to-month. For one year the hosting fees are $107.40 + $25 = 132.40. Which comes out to $11.03/month. Hostgator’s comparable plan is $12.95/month…so the $25 setup fee is a wash.
Overall, it’s all in your comfort level with your host. I am currently hosting a lot of domains and this will be perfect for existing sites and those to come. The only thing that worried me about THC is the H-SPHERE control panel, since I’m on CPanel now. Would make switching domains easier, but oh well.
Thanks for the comment PJ.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Looking at comparable plans is one thing, but unless you’re actually going to use all of those extra bits and pieces, I’d be careful about comparing hosts in that way.
Hostgator’s “comparable plan” may be $12.95 per month but their $7.95 plan still gives you 600GB disk space and 6TB bandwidth - are you expecting to even come close to these limits? I think it would be far more realistic to compare plans that have the amount you actually want to use - even Hostgator’s $7.95 plan is huge for the majority of sites out there.
I may not have tried H-SPHERE, but having had major issues with Plesk, I concluded that a non-CPanel control panel should really be evaluated before you buy.
Finally, if you are unhappy with this host and choose to move before the end of the first year, the setup fee will not seem like such a great deal.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
April 10th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Thanks for the comments Ben…you raise a good point. Chances are that I wouldn’t use 1TB Disk Space and 33TB bandwidth overtime. I will definitely have to find a demo of H-SPHERE to see how it compares to C-Panel. In my experience C-Panel is far superior to Plesk, so it would be hard to say about H-SPHERE without trying it first.
It seems that a lot of you are using HostGator for your hosting, and seems you like it. Perhaps I have jumped the proverbial gun in choosing a host without checking my options first.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Nah, you made the right choice not to go with HostGator. I hate HostGator. ;O
April 11th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Would you mind elaborating a bit Alex? I’m seriously weighing my options now between the two. If you have any past experiences with HostGator I’d love to hear about it.
April 12th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Basically, I have had a bad support experience with them. If I needed help with something that is out of my control, I would have to call one person (only to be directed to another person), and the person I am redirected to either doesn’t know how to fix it and redirects me to someone else who can’t fix it. Same thing happened in Live Chat. I got so sick of it and moved elsewhere. One of the best moves I ever made hosting wise.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Well, I’ve never had a problem with Hostgator’s support. My wife and I host several sites with HG and we look after several sites for other people, some of them very big, and all of them have been well supported.
However, I doubt you will ever find a host who has no complaints whatsoever. If you were to ask on a forum you might get a wider range of responses, which may help with your final decision.
April 13th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This is all great conversation and very helpful. The major thing for me as I stated before is the control panel. It would be a near seamless transition for me since CPanel has the ability to transfer without a major hiccup. I originally did the affiliate with THC for the entries into John Cow’s contest, but I think I’m going to change my mind and go with HostGator. Plus…I don’t really need 1TB of disk space…who really does?
April 14th, 2008 at 11:56 am
hostgator was great til today
I got linked up by SI.com and the traffic blew up the site. they will suspend you if you go over 25% CPU usuage number.
yep great problem to have eh, got all these people hitting the blog and as of now nobody can see it.
grrrrrrrrrrr
I have heard bluehost takes on bigger sites.
April 14th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I agree with you Ben, you will not find a host without complaints. The only good thing I can say about HostGator is the server I was on was functioning fine, with very few downtime. But like I said, the support was just so ridiculous I couldn’t tolerate it and left. Maybe things have changes since then, but I don’t want to take risks like that again.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Thank you Grandmaster for the nice review and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank your readers too, for their pertinent questions. The main advantage of Speedy, aside the huge storage and monthly bandwidth is the free dedicated IP included - which is not offered by any other host, including hostgator. That alone is worth every penny.
Plus that Speedy offers many other extra features Hostgator doesn’t include in its package. And we have 24/7 live support - each time you have a problem we’ll be there for you.
Hsphere is really easy to use, some find it easier than Cpanel, but this is of course, a matter of personal preference. I welcome any of your questions on our blog too. Feel free to follow the signature link and you’ll find that we won our “blogger’s choice” appellative for good reasons.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Don’t go with bluehost. I’m currently hosting with them. They suspended my site for the weak reason that there were too many pageviews in a short amount of time. They were neither helpful nor patient. They were also very non-technical and refused to listen to anything I had to say. They told me to take my site elsewhere! I lost business due to my downtime.
Matt Heaton, the owner of bluehost and hostmonster seems to be more interested in getting 1 million sites hosted asap, he no longer cares about quality of service. Each of the bluehost servers is being used to host hundreds of sites now. There are serious performance issues in many servers right now. Many longtime customers have already moved out of bluehost, even as Matt Heaton keeps patting himself in the back on his blog mattheaton.com.
I’m considering moving my site to some other hosting company. Any suggestions other than tophostingcenter.com? I hope to make a right choice this time. How about VPS or dedicated hosting? First hand comments and experiences are more than welcome.
Bookmarking this blog. Thank you grandmasterb.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
@ Mig - Thanks for stopping by the site and thanks for the feedback. I appreciate you filling in some of the blanks regarding hosting with Top Hosting Center. I will shoot you an email with a few other questions I have. Thanks!
@ Soon-to-be-former Bluehost Customer - Thanks for the heads up about BlueHost and for visiting the site! I had a friend that was considering moving to them after his issues with HostGator (Wordpress plugin problems). As far as recommending a host I think they’re all just about equal. I think the only time that anyone can be 100% happy is if they ran their own dedicated server, but that’s not always possible.
I’m sort of at a crossroad with hosting. I’ve got two possibly four more projects I’m working on currently, and I need a host that can deliver service. Right now it’s between THC and HostGator, and I have heard a lot of good stuff about both. For me it speaks volumes that JohnCow is hosted on a dedicated THC server. If the A-List bloggers are happy with them they have to be good at what they do. If you happen to find any reviews of other hosting companies, I’d love to read them.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Hi Bryan - got your email and forwarded it to support. You should get your answers shortly.
April 26th, 2008 at 4:07 am
Hello, just to inform you GrandmasterB, I have added the link to this post in my comprehensive review of THC’s Speedy hosting plan: http://www.johnraul.com/the-final-verdict-of-thc-speedy-hosting-plan/
John Raul Joven IIs last blog post..The Final Verdict of THC Speedy Hosting Plan
April 26th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
@ JRJ II - Thanks for the linkback. I’ve been in contact with THC Customer Support and they really are fantastic. I finally pulled the trigger on hosting with them yesterday, but haven’t moved GrandmasterB.com over just yet. The final decision was easy once I heard from Mig and they answered all of my questions. Not to mention helping out Cuzzy with his issues and the lack of support that HostGator provided made it that much easier.
July 5th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
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