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facialfreak · 01-09-2012, 03:24 PM

What a great many site owners do not realize, is that the majority of the cost of your hosting plan is the level of technical support you receive.

The amount of money actually ear-marked towards recouping the costs of the hardware is rather small ... with many hosts almost giving the hardware away for free - if you are using any real amount of bandwidth.

One thing to remember when choosing a host/server, is that all hardware fails at some point. What you invest into a host who will be there for you - who has your ass covered around the clock, to minimize downtime - could be the difference between a small burp, or a much longer downtime that could be disastrous financially.

In my experience ... a great many site owners focus on getting the most hardware they can - with the most impressive specs - and in doing so, not only are paying for hardware overkill, but not putting enough emphasis on their technical support.

Unless you are an experienced system administrator, you need to invest in an adequate level of tech support. Sure anybody can learn to use a web-based control panel and a few terminal/SSH commands, but what happens when you get hacked, or DDoS'ed, or need to harden your server security, or need to install critical software patches? Not knowing what you are doing is going to - mark my words - be a very expensive lesson to learn. Most system admins for hire charge $200-300 an hour - billable in 15 minute increments - when you need to find an SA that will fix your server "NOW".

Let me paraphrase this -to put it into perspective. I used to be a police constable in Toronto, and worked a few seedy areas of the city with high crime rates. People constantly came and told me about their cars being broken into and/or stolen, and then asked my opinion what brand of car alarm I considered to be the best one/most effective?

My answer was always the same. "A car alarm is only a deterrent -at best - and some car thieves are not even phased by them. If you take the money you were willing to invest in a car alarm, and increase your insurance coverage, when your car is stolen or broken into, it will be far less painful for you to get a replacement. The better coverage you have, the less time you will spend arguing on the phone with adjusters and over-writers who will do whatever they can in their power to NOT have to pay out. It's a game!!

So think of the biggest, baddest spec'ed out server as a car with a fancy expensive car alarm ... a fancy, expensive car alarm does not guarantee your car will not get stolen/broken into. Just because you got the biggest, most bad-assed server your money can buy you, does not mean that at some point you will not have downtime. You are much better off making sure that the level of tech support you are receiving is more than adequate, so that if/when disaster does strike, and you are face with downtime, that you are back up and running as quickly as possible, to limit financial losses, as well as losses of your sanity.

A colleague of mine recently showed me an ad for a hosting company with fairly decent prices, but most of their hardware was approximately 2 year old processors. He was cutting them up badly, laughing at why he would go with a host with "such old hardware" when he could go with another company that has brand new current year processors - at almost the same price? I looked at their TOS and fine print, and the company with the "brand new" hardware only offered support as a premium add-on for $99.00 per month - so add another $100 to their price, and it's suddenly not so fantastic.

In reality, most server companies that have been around for a while, and know what they are doing, know that a 2 year old processor with a good amount of RAM will be more than enough power for 90% of their clients. Of course special needs clients can still order a brand new processor if they desire, but the 1-2 year old processor with a decent amount of RAM (RAM is at it's lowest prices ever ..) is a going to give them much more bang for their buck.

If you are choosing your next server/host based solely on hardware specs, you may be overlooking what is really important ... your Tech Support.

01-09-2012, 03:24 PM
facialfreak Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Montreal Posts: 3,018	What a great many site owners do not realize, is that the majority of the cost of your hosting plan is the *level of technical support* you receive. The amount of money actually ear-marked towards recouping the costs of the hardware is rather small ... with many hosts almost giving the hardware away for free - if you are using any real amount of bandwidth. One thing to remember when choosing a host/server, is that all hardware fails at some point. What you invest into a host who will be there for you - who has your ass covered around the clock, to minimize downtime - could be the difference between a small burp, or a much longer downtime that could be disastrous financially. In my experience ... a great many site owners focus on getting the *most hardware* they can - with the most *impressive specs* - and in doing so, not only are paying for hardware overkill, but not putting enough emphasis on their technical support. Unless you are an experienced system administrator, you need to invest in an adequate level of tech support. Sure anybody can learn to use a web-based control panel and a few terminal/SSH commands, but what happens when you get hacked, or DDoS'ed, or need to harden your server security, or need to install critical software patches? Not knowing what you are doing is going to - mark my words - be a very expensive lesson to learn. Most system admins for hire charge $200-300 an hour - billable in 15 minute increments - when you need to find an SA that will fix your server "NOW". Let me paraphrase this -to put it into perspective. I used to be a police constable in Toronto, and worked a few seedy areas of the city with high crime rates. People constantly came and told me about their cars being broken into and/or stolen, and then asked my opinion what brand of car alarm I considered to be the best one/most effective? My answer was always the same. "A car alarm is only a deterrent -at best - and some car thieves are not even phased by them. If you take the money you were willing to invest in a car alarm, and increase your insurance coverage, when your car is stolen or broken into, it will be far less painful for you to get a replacement. The better coverage you have, the less time you will spend arguing on the phone with adjusters and over-writers who will do whatever they can in their power to NOT have to pay out. It's a game!! So think of the biggest, baddest spec'ed out server as *a car with a fancy expensive car alarm* ... a fancy, expensive car alarm does not guarantee your car will not get stolen/broken into. Just because you got the biggest, most bad-assed server your money can buy you, does not mean that at some point you will not have downtime. You are much better off making sure that the level of tech support you are receiving is more than adequate, so that if/when disaster does strike, and you are face with downtime, that you are back up and running as quickly as possible, to limit financial losses, as well as losses of your sanity. A colleague of mine recently showed me an ad for a hosting company with fairly decent prices, but most of their hardware was approximately 2 year old processors. He was cutting them up badly, laughing at why he would go with a host with "such old hardware" when he could go with another company that has brand new current year processors - at almost the same price? I looked at their TOS and fine print, and the company with the "brand new" hardware only offered support as a premium add-on for $99.00 per month - so add another $100 to their price, and it's suddenly not so fantastic. In reality, most server companies that have been around for a while, and know what they are doing, know that a 2 year old processor with a good amount of RAM will be more than enough power for 90% of their clients. Of course special needs clients can still order a brand new processor if they desire, but the 1-2 year old processor with a decent amount of RAM (RAM is at it's lowest prices ever ..) is a going to give them much more bang for their buck. If you are choosing your next server/host based solely on hardware specs, you may be overlooking what is really important ... your Tech Support. __________________ Managed Shared Hosting starting at $4.99/mo Managed VPS starting at $29.99/mo Last edited by facialfreak; 01-09-2012 at 03:26 PM..