Hosting reliability and speed

[etentum]

This is the most relevant place that I could find for this. Apologies if this isn't it.

I'm on the free hosting right now and have very poor reliability with the Starka server. Seems like every day it's down sometime for anywhere from 1-15 minutes, sometimes multiple times. Speed is also any issue. Sometimes it takes 30-60 seconds just to load a page with no images.

Now, I share this not to bash, but to say that this is a problem that needs to be addressed for -you- at X10 to make more money. Why? Because even though I know these problems are with the free hosting, it makes me doubt the competence of the paid hosting packages and makes me want to look elsewhere for what I need. I definitely don't want to shell out ~$50-$100 a year for the kind of server reliability I'm seeing on the free side.

I guess I'm also wondering if paid hosting has better speed than free (and I see that reliability already has a 99.9% uptime guarantee)?

 

[Gouri]

The paid servers are having limited number of accounts/server. So reliability and uptime is very much guaranteed. and they have less restrictions than free hosting and also has priority support.

 

[descalzo]

The paid servers are having limited number of accounts/server. So reliability and uptime is very much guaranteed. and they have less restrictions than free hosting and also has priority support.

That should be a given. Any host that has both free and paid plans will have better performance with paid.

The question is why are there repeated problems with the free servers? If it is just because of overcrowding and some users abusing the server, that is one thing. Perhaps the two new servers will help those problems.

But if the impression is that the staff is not competent to handle the free servers, then prospective clients will not consider the paid plans. It is not enough to say "Our paid servers are better than our free servers". It would be nice to be able to say "Our free servers are great and our paid servers are even better".

 

[Gouri]

That should be a given. Any host that has both free and paid plans will have better performance with paid.

The question is why are there repeated problems with the free servers? If it is just because of overcrowding and some users abusing the server, that is one thing. Perhaps the two new servers will help those problems.

But if the impression is that the staff is not competent to handle the free servers, then prospective clients will not consider the paid plans. It is not enough to say "Our paid servers are better than our free servers". It would be nice to be able to say "Our free servers are great and our paid servers are even better".

My point is the second one

"Our free servers are great and our paid servers are even better".

Thanks for the input.

 

[stpvoice]

Judging by your forum join date, it would seem you have joined x10 at a rather annoying time. Since you signed up in october, there have been issues with cpanel, apache and even the actual server operating systems I believe, so you have really hit a bit of a rough patch. Prior to late september, uptime on my server was around 98%. I will just say, give it a few weeks, let admin get these little problems sorted, than I suggest you evaluate your views on x10, as they really are the best free hosts you're going to get.

 

[etentum]

Judging by your forum join date, it would seem you have joined x10 at a rather annoying time. Since you signed up in october, there have been issues with cpanel, apache and even the actual server operating systems I believe, so you have really hit a bit of a rough patch. Prior to late september, uptime on my server was around 98%. I will just say, give it a few weeks, let admin get these little problems sorted, than I suggest you evaluate your views on x10, as they really are the best free hosts you're going to get.

I agree, I very much like the free hosting, if not for the annoyances I listed above. I've tried finding places that offer the same privileges and are free (app development, don't want to pay for a year if the project falls through) but they come with more annoying quirks than reliability (one place didn't have FTP, but offered everything else).

Are they having these issues on paid accounts, though?

 

[stpvoice]

Obviously, it goes without saying that a server is a computer, and computers go wrong...regularly for us web developers as it seems. So yes, problems do exist on paid, its just they aren't necessarily provoked by overloading the servers with accounts and upgrading system software every other week (exaggeration).

I hope you see what I mean.

 

[fake01]

I was with ATBHost Free and it had rather good uptime and it was fast. They then switched to pay services only so registered here today. I managed to spend about 5-10 minutes with cPanel and get my FTP account working then all of a sudden it dies. Takes about 3 minutes to load and only half the page is displayed. And FileZilla no longer connects. But my actual website (which has nothing on it yet cause can't connect to FTP to upload anything) loads OK.

Perhaps it's just like the guy above said and server overloading and under going maintenance but it's quite annoying:rant2:

EDIT: LOL, just as I posted this it started working again.

 

[Smith6612]

EDIT: LOL, just as I posted this it started working again.

That happens :biggrin: It's what happens when you have a crapload of users on one server taking up resources and pushing software to non-designed limits.

But as to the Hosting Reliability and Speed, the past few months have been a little rocky as someone stated, but all summer long the servers were solid. I recall getting 2MB/s+ download from them at one time over the summer on a fiber optic connection and I didn't have any issues with loading up pages. I find the hosting to slow down a little bit around 4PM GMT -5:00 (EST time) which is expected as it's prime time, but it's usually nothing more than the servers having to take care of some load for a little bit.

 

[felabria]

The paid servers are having limited number of accounts/server. So reliability and uptime is very much guaranteed. and they have less restrictions than free hosting and also has priority support.

and unlimited disk space/bandwith ^^

 

[xav0989]

The thing with the free hosting is that, you have enormous amount of users on regular servers. Hence some problems. However, the time at which you came in is somewhat bad as it had been about a year since the last big server problems. However, the 2 new free servers might help with the load.

 

[gyl1989113]

That should be a given. Any host that has both free and paid plans will have better performance with paid.

The question is why are there repeated problems with the free servers? If it is just because of overcrowding and some users abusing the server, that is one thing. Perhaps the two new servers will help those problems.

But if the impression is that the staff is not competent to handle the free servers, then prospective clients will not consider the paid plans. It is not enough to say "Our paid servers are better than our free servers". It would be nice to be able to say "Our free servers are great and our paid servers are even better".

nice!I agree with your idea,some gay have a opinion that easy to get is not worth to cherishing !

 

[mcternanbj11]

bump

 

[gsumarji]

I have been using free hosting for some time now. The one thing that I have learnt from my experiences over this time is this: Trust in God, but always have a backup! :drool:

That said, I find that x10 servers are quite reliable. I would like to thank the x10 team for keeping online such a service and wish them all the best for the future!

 

[admiral supreme overlord]

I have had issues with my DB being lost and unrecoverable as well as numerous times the hosting being unavailable since trying out the free service.

 

[xav0989]

The thing is that, when you look at a free service like webhosting on a short period of time, you'll always see a numerous amount of bugs and server downs. However, if you look on long term, you may see that the quality of the servers has improved, the amount of downtime has been reduced, the quality of the service has been upgraded.
In spite of that, on all webhosts, paid or free, there are always some problems that occur, but usually the problems are not spread. Maybe a database will be lost or a file will disappear, but it is not generally a server-wide problem.

 

[etentum]

The thing is that, when you look at a free service like webhosting on a short period of time, you'll always see a numerous amount of bugs and server downs. However, if you look on long term, you may see that the quality of the servers has improved, the amount of downtime has been reduced, the quality of the service has been upgraded.
In spite of that, on all webhosts, paid or free, there are always some problems that occur, but usually the problems are not spread. Maybe a database will be lost or a file will disappear, but it is not generally a server-wide problem.

That's not the problem. The problem is, like right now, the server I'm on wasn't responding for a couple minutes. This is the usual, it's happened almost daily, and randomly, ever since I signed up (yes, I know that wasn't that long ago, yes, I know they might be having now, and have it all solved later, but if they don't and I've already committed to 6 months?). Regardless of whether or not the server is free, it still tells the user, "Hey, we can't run a free server well enough to give you good service, so think twice about our paid servers!"

It's this very reason that I will not pay to host on x10 unless they give me a good reason (i.e. I see for myself that paid hosting isn't as bad as the free server). But that's not going to happen because I'm not paying for it. And I wish I could, because it'd be much less of a hassle to keep everything here than move somewhere else.

 

[Corey]

Our goal for the free servers is 97% uptime based over a monthly basis... currently ALL free servers fall into this ranging from 98.6% to 99.6%. This is done by an independent service not affiliated with x10 checked every minute. It's loading a page and checking for text to make sure Apache is up. I'm going to setup public monitors today so people can see for themselves instead of taking my word for it.

I would also believe with over 50,000 hosting accounts if there were issues like some people make it out to be we would see a lot more complaints.

Regarding 'not knowing how to run free servers', I'd like to challenge anyone here to find one other free host that offers cPanel and gives the same amount of features as us that also has the same amount of users, not the 'startup' ones that go out of business within a few months. At least a year in business. Sure we could switch to xPanel restrict everyone's file types, file sizes, etc and have 99.9% uptime. If that is what you want, x10 is not for you.

 

[gsumarji]

Our goal for the free servers is 97% uptime based over a monthly basis... currently ALL free servers fall into this ranging from 98.6% to 99.6%. This is done by an independent service not affiliated with x10 checked every minute. It's loading a page and checking for text to make sure Apache is up. I'm going to setup public monitors today so people can see for themselves instead of taking my word for it.

I would also believe with over 50,000 hosting accounts if there were issues like some people make it out to be we would see a lot more complaints.

Regarding 'not knowing how to run free servers', I'd like to challenge anyone here to find one other free host that offers cPanel and gives the same amount of features as us that also has the same amount of users, not the 'startup' ones that go out of business within a few months. At least a year in business. Sure we could switch to xPanel restrict everyone's file types, file sizes, etc and have 99.9% uptime. If that is what you want, x10 is not for you.

Good point, Corey. One of the major decision points when choosing a webhosting service provider is to see how long they have been in business. These days, its easy to set-up servers and go online with free services. I have been at the receiving end of two "free" service providers which folded up pretty soon. [This was during my naivete days of website development]

I have learnt over time what to look for when selecting a webhosting service provider. Which is why you find me here! :biggrin::drool: