I swear I'm jinxed :(

blizeH

This is now the third set of hosting we've seemingly broke now, nggh!

Originally my friend kindly offered to host the site for us, he'd previously had no problem with his hosting at all, yet within a couple of months of our forum being hosted there, the log system he was using completely screwed up, there was no way he could remove it and the tech support were extremely unhelpful, from then on the site was down every other day

Then we switched to what I'd been told was an extremely reliable host in mypunbb.com, and indeed it was, for a few weeks, then all of a sudden it started being even more unreliable than the original hosting, time to move on again then...

My friend offered to host this from his home PC (he's from sweden but has an incredibly fast setup) which he's been using as a web server for years, never with a single problem, it was extremely reliable and quick for us for a good few months, then last week his hard drive has died and he doesn't have backups

So, I'm thinking maybe it's time to actually use a proper host, especially since it's not fair keep using other people's bandwidth for free (neither of them accepted any donations I continously offered ;/) - Can anyone recommend a reasonable hosting package please that'll run a copy of Vanilla?

Thanks

LoOkOuT

I'm using a small orange and so far (few months) they've been brilliant.

lech

There's a ton of hosts out there, but it all depends on where you want to be hosted. there's textdrive, dreamhost, ehosting.ca and many others if you just want cheap and mostly-reliable. Those are just the three I can name off the top of my head though.

blizeH

Thanks for the suggestion, a small orange looks okay, and at $5 per month you really can't go wrong with that! ehosting.ca's startup plan looks good too for $5.95, hmm, decisions decisions!

It's literally just something to host a fairly low bandwidth Vanilla forum, and maybe slimstat although I'm not bothered if we can't get that on there.

Minisweeper

Nothing to do with me...
Though i notice you're in the US, so perhaps not.

blizeH

I'm in the UK, not US!

that looks great though, and gameservers too... hmm!

blizeH

Okay, few questions.

I'd be running a Vanilla v1.0 setup (when it's released) for a forum with around 100 members, but no more than 8 or so online at a time at the very most.

I'm also interested in a clan server, I highly doubt it'd get much use since we're a new team made up of a a very mixed bunch, but the idea of a public server would be tempting so I think I'd rather that option. How much bandwidth would you recommend for this? Again, I doubt it'd get much use.

Minisweeper

Most gameserver providers will sell you a gameserver based on playercount not bandwidth use (I'm the exception to the rule, it would seem), and most web hosts wont allow you the access (or the permission) to run a gameserver on the web box as part of your plan (especially as bandwidth is usually unmonitored on ports not provided by apache). How much bandwidth your gameserver actually uses will depend largely on the type of game it is, and a quick google should tell you roughly how much each player would be using per sec.

As for the vanilla forum, depending how active those 8 users were it'd probably take up very little bandwidth at all. I cant remember what mark said this place was using but for 8 users at average discussion pace I doubt you'd be pushing more than a few hundred meg a month. Not having an active vanilla forum running i cant say for definite though.

blizeH

Many thanks for the quick reply mini.

In general, a good rule-of-thumb is roughly 6KB (Kilo-Bytes) upstream (upload) per player slot, but this will vary depending how you adjust and optimize the cvars in HL/CS

I'm really not sure how much that'd equate to overall, quite a bit I'd imagine with a few players over time, ideally I'd like a public server with whatever you see as a reasonable amount of player slots, but I'm not sure, again, I doubt it'd get a lot of use, and may infact have it passworded 24/7 and only use it for the occasional practise (twice a week tops) and match (again, once or twice a week at the most).

Regarding the web stuff, I was looking at anything between 500mb-1,000mb, I assume it's easy to upgrade the package if we need it or go over the bandwidth limits? Also, do you have any idea how much space we'd require? Somewhere between 100mb-200mb?

ADM

Another recommendation for asmallorange.com -- I've been with them since the start of the year and haven't had any problems. They've been great

Minisweeper

Upgrading on 99% of hosts should be a matter of a phone call or a few clicks. A vanilla install is a couple of meg at most so it depends if database size was included in your quota. Even then it would only be a few meg so it depends what else you need on the site. Then again with the cost of hosting there's really very little point getting less than a hundreg meg just incase you need an upload space for something. Likewise with a gig of bandwidth.

Back in the days i was playing, most cs servers were 16man. I'm not sure whether this is still true and obviously if it's just a small clan server you dont need so many players. Roughly talking though, based on 6KB/sec, each player would use about 22meg an hour, so for 4 men a few hours a week you're looking at a gig a month.

blizeH

Ah, so int0rw3b isn't actually your site then? I feel guilty for asking so many questions now, apologies!

I think I'll go with them anyway, a small orange looks great, but the idea of having a CS clan server hosted too sounds good.

200mb/1GB transfer for the website, and maybe 5GB for the server, especially if it is passworded 24/7.

Minisweeper

Haha, no no int0rw3b is my site. If you're interested just drop me an email or fill in an order form and I'll get you hooked up....then again if you're about to blow up my server perhaps i should avoid you!

lech

Some hosts will (oddly enough) charge you for how much cpu time you utilize instead of (or on top of) bandwidth usage and space. Game servers would require you to be running off of a not only a low latency connection, but a beefy enough computer that can handle the game as a server to support multiple clients at one time and usually, that's all the server will typically be running. You can clone multiple servers on the same machine, but that's usually at the cost of having a really beefy box to host it all on atop the other requirements. In any case, most web servers are on a shared box and you're either given a nice shell or a "virtual server" which is often shared unless you explicitly demand to have your own box all to yourself. And like mini said, it's typically going to run only one of two ways, either as a web server, or a game server. So in the end you'll have to decide which one you value more :)

Trey

my input, go with a host that has every step in creating a well known site online. so find a host that has all of the packages from shared hosting to vps to dedicated hosting and even higher if you want. I've dealt with so many host out there that have eventually terminated my account because of cpu usage. Heres the host that I was with so far within the past year or so.

prolinkhosting.com - DO NOT go with them. this was my first host, and they suck. It seems like it is one guy running on a dedicated server selling space to everyone with "unlimited bandwidth" well once I got up to about 20gb of bandwidth a month he terminated me account, and I wasnt able to get any sort of backup or even to get into the control panel to get any files I wanted. and yes, I emailed the crap out of him when he did it and never heard a response.

hostingforabuck.com - terminated because of cpu usage again. it was a decent host, but I wouldnt recommend using them if you plan on going big. I was able to get my backup though so that was good.

dreamhost.com - ok, all over the net the I've seen that dreamhost.com was a great hosting company, awesome bandwidth and space packages. I figured after getting terminated from 2 not-so-well known host dreamhost would be a keeper. WRONG. account threated to be terminated 5+ times right after my first 3 months. reason - cpu usage. their cpu usage for shared servers is one of the lowest I've ever seen on any sites. And besides, after being with them for about 5 months my site went down at least 5 times due to database faileries on their end, or something else going wrong.

after dreamhost, I started searching around for another host that would be good to go with, and I then decieded to settle with hostforweb.com - I liked them, a lot actually the customer support was great, and the VPS's are pretty reasonable. I never had any downtime, and the server was pretty fast. I since left them because I didnt like the options for the dedicated servers.

now I'm a proud owner of a dedicated server hosted from steadfastnetworks.com - best choice. Customer service is awesome, and has every step for hosting, from shared hosting up to collocation and cluttered servers. I've only been with them for about 2 months now but I enjoy being hosted there, and the only problem I'm having with it is trying to install wordpress 2.0.2 =/

before I settled with them, I was looking into ev1servers.com, and serverbeach.com I just liked the reputation steasfastnetworks had versus the other ones.

anyways, hopefully this will help you out. although I dont have a gaming site you may be able to learn from some of my expirences with host I've had in the past.

Krak

I've learned over the years, you get what you pay for.

If your getting your hosting service for $5 a month, expect to have lots of problems. Things that are cheap, are usually that... cheap. I know it sucks but if you really really want a good quality host you need to fork out a little more than $5.

Minisweeper

cluttered servers? Surely thats not a good thing?

I must say the company that i'm hosted with is excellent (no reflection of my service) - it's a one man band but the guy really knows his stuff and because there's only him then although customer service may sometimes be slow (generally with invoicing, which is actually a bonus), it's obviously really good because his life is on the line if he starts to lose customers. Massive hosting companies may have their advantages (flexibility, cheap products etc) but if you get someone at CS who doesnt give a shit about their job then you'll always have problems. I've been with them for various products for a few years now and had no real problems. Any forecasted downtime is well informed through the mailing list and unexpected problems are usually dealt with pretty quickly. Naturally he doesnt have the capability of a big company to have redundant servers lieing round racks to provide '100% uptime' and whatnot, but there are always pros and cons. He sells stuff from small web hosting packages right up to private rackspace (colo) so there's always a next step up; and he's slowly and steadily expanding/improving the network (to make extra money for him, obviously, but has major advantages for his customers too) to cater for more and more stuff.

One rule of thumb though - regardless of who you choose, anyone offering anything 'unlimited' is well worth avoiding. Back in the o8 days i bought an 'unlimited' hosting package for a tenner, posted the login details on the forum, and got everyone uploading music. I think we managed about 10gig in a few hours. A quota appeared soon enough

blizeH

Hehe mini, I was recommended by a clan mate to get an unlimited host, and of course I flatout refused ;-)

Many thanks for the replies guys, I thinkif we go ahead with this (unforutnately there doesn't seem to be as much interest as I would of liked, I guess that's due to the fact our current host has been down for over a week now and people have kinda forgotten about it already ;p) we'll definately pick mini, just because from what I've seen of his posts on here he's a top guy, and most importantly someone I feel I could trust.

Just have to decide first of all if we're to go ahead with it, and secondly whether to go for a bandwidth limited one or a 12man public server!

Minisweeper

I give that impression online? Erk. I should probably do something about that.

p.s. I vote 12 man public! :P

blizeH

Hrhr, I think that's probably best

/tries to conjure up a bit more interest

giginger

I wouldn't recommend these people. They're the ones who deleted my entire site twice and tried to blame me for it. Idiots.

I've moved to dreamhost and had no problem at all. Some people seem to have no end of problems and others are fine. I'm in the latter.