Dreamhost pissed at us

[www.opensc.ws]

They say that my site uses more resource than I am allowed to.
They recommend me to their dedicated server for 99$, if not
they'll close my site down, WITHOUT REFUND.

[conqsoft]

....and?

If you have a busy site, it sounds like a reasonable request.

[Paul M]

Find another host .

[www.opensc.ws]

I want refund before I change host.

[conqsoft]

When you signed up you had to agree to their policies. Do they say they give refunds?

[conqsoft]

https://panel.dreamhost.com/kbase/index.cgi?area=405&keyword=refund

[Mark.B]

Try one of these - I use all three and they are great, AND vBulletin friendly.

http://www.perthwebhost.com
http://www.asmallorange.com
http://www.imagelinkusa.net

[Joshs]

I wouldn't recommend just switching to another shared host. The fact may be that your site is too intensive and does require a dedicated server. Please provide further information regarding your site so people can recommend a real solution.

[KingSpade]

If your website URL is the one used as your username here, it is possible you were using too many resources for a shared hosting environment. Just by looking at your online stats, you max at 219 online at once, which is beyond the scope of shared hosting.

If those were mainly guests/spiders, that may be different, though if those were actual users online, then you're probably looking for a dedicated server.

[JoeyAnderson]

Dreamhost is giving me the boot, too.

Glad to see another user in the same boat!

[XtAzY]

i gotta feelin im next... im using dreamhost too... but i just love their bandwidth and space increase every week....BUT ... im gettin warned about the cpu minutes that are being high

Currently i have 17.8gigs for space and 282 bandwidth/month

[Zachery]

dreamhost isn't quiet a dream?

If they are offering you 20 gigs, how many people (assuming all of the resources were used by each person) could be fit onto a standard server? Even with HUGE EIDE drives of x2 you'd run at about 600gigs of storage, minus 1/2 for backups.
Down to 300 gigs. Now ontop of this we have the OS, which will consume another 2-5 gigs + logs (1-5gb?)
So lets say 10GB all together for overestimatings sake.

this leaves them with 290gb, which leaves them with 14 accounts (plus 1/2).

Which leaves gives you about 900~ dollars of income, this is of course without any processing fees.

Now, we also have to take bandwidth into account. Bandwidht, even at its cheapest runs 50-75cents a gig IIRC. x 264gb per account. This would end up costing 2772 dollars, for bandwidht alone. Now chances are not everyone is using up their allotment, but 4TB of bandwidth per server is alot. Even if they got the first 2TB with the original cost of the server, theres still 2 more TB. So the excess is left over above the 2TB will run 1272, assuming they pay for bulk overages.

Anyway, this doesn't include any support costs or maintence, and after all there are only 14 accounts on this server. This would leave them with -372 dollars in the hole per server. Which isn't a business. More than likely they have 50,100,200,500 people on this server. Which even at the lowest of 50 people, is still 3 grand a month. (I'm using the big package as an assment.)

Do the math, cheap hosting is RARELY good.

[XtAzY]

i have to agree to that... but dam i cant just afford to pay 99 / month

[Zachery]

I didn't say pay 90 dollars a month.

How much bandwidth and storage are you using nwo?

[XtAzY]

i currently used 6.8 gigs of space and 199.4gb bandwidth

[Zachery]

You are defintatly not in the shared hosting category, are you truely using 6.8gb of storage for things that are nessary sofr your website?

[KingSpade]

If you're pushing close to 200GB's of bandwidth per month, then you really need to be looking for an alternative hosting solution. If you cannot afford a dedicated solution, then VPS is the next option up from shared hosting.

Even so, with a VPS, you are even pushing limits there with 6.8GB's of disk space usage. Combined with the bandwidth usage, you're really looking more so into a dedicated server.

[encryption]

You could buy into part of the server if the hosting company works with you on that.....it's still a shared scenario but you own a piece of the big pie, moreover, since it means setting up a new box (in most cases), webhosting companies are very non-cooperative at doing that...

I know a very limited number who will work on shared accounts that way

[Joshs]

You could buy into part of the server if the hosting company works with you on that.....it's still a shared scenario but you own a piece of the big pie, moreover, since it means setting up a new box (in most cases), webhosting companies are very non-cooperative at doing that...

I know a very limited number who will work on shared accounts that way

That would be semi-dedicated hosting, and I don't know of many web hosts that officially offer that. Those that do, charge significantly more than regular shared hosting and that is why you don't see many companies offering it (mainly because people like cheap).

[encryption]

Yep, like I said not many hosts officially offer that. It's gotta be someone who really understands CPU intensive hosting who can provide such an option. People continue to confuse cheap simple HTML hosting with forum hosting and that's where the problems start to arise. Its not about how much space / bandwidth you throw into the equation anymore

[XtAzY]

You are defintatly not in the shared hosting category, are you truely using 6.8gb of storage for things that are nessary sofr your website?
yes... and it will grow slowly since the site has a gallery and members submit their works of music to the site

[Chile]

I wouldn't be surprized to find you looking for a new host, moreso if you're doing shared right now. It's not so much that your bandwidth is outrageous or that your server space is really that much, but it's more likley a combination of the two.

Maybe you should take another look at how you view your community and site.

Are you offering all of these incentives for free or are you charging enough to cover costs? If you're doing it for free, you're going to have a lot of fairweather friends- people who seem to like you because you do something for them at no cost. If you are charging a small fee, maybe you need to up the price a little.

If you aren't treating your hosting as a business, now would be a good time to start. You aren't made of money, and it's clear from what you wrote above that you can't afford to pay it all out of pocket. On some level, your contributing members must realize this as they would not take advantage of your service for nothing if they were rolling in dough.

I wouldn't leave the financial condition of your site up to the good hearted nature of your regs, either. From my experiences, if you rely on donations, you'll find yourself staring at a broken dream. A fair fee for a service rendered will ensure that you attract enough quality compositions and that the posting of the compositions means something more to the musician.

You could also try sponsorship, but this is a very grey area in terms of financial benefit to your site. Who knows who would sponsor you, and whether they would pay enough to bankroll your server. You would also need to negotiate with someone higher than the receptionist, not an easy feat given the nature of many string pullers.

One other solution is to do a little networking, find someone a lot like you who you trust, and then go halfers on a dedicated server. That's what I've just done with a fansite I operate- split the costs with a like-minded tech support site for games. Between us, we have a natural affiliation but no direct competition.