For those who are new to Nanyate?!, here’s some background info:

In December 2007, I took a giant leap of faith signing up with a newly-established company TopHostingCenter. They had just released the original Rudolf plan, which costs 95$ for lifetime hosting with 3 terabyte monthly bandwidth and 250 gigabyte space. I thought it was simply too good to be true. I mean, it had to be a) a scam, or b) doomed to failure within months, right? Wrong. It’s been a year and no such thing has happened.

Anyway, here’s how they fare after 1 year of service.

TopHostingCenter Review

Support Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

THC’s support remains impeccable! They still respond just as quickly as they did a year ago. I had quite a fiasco with some WordPress plugin updates, and the support staff not only helped me resolved my issue, but also offered to re-install my WordPress for FREE (even though script installation is usually a paid service).

Speed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I do recall a few weeks when the page loads were significantly slower. It did take a while, but THC ultimately fixed the issue by upgrading the servers. From experience, many start-ups don’t even bother addressing your complaints, let alone investing in new hardware to keep their low value customers happy. So for that, kudos to THC.

Uptime Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The downtime has been intolerable recently; and I PMS more frequently than I blog. So for someone like me to notice and bothered by the downtimes is quite problematic. And please don’t even get me started about how the recent database downtime affected my Technorati rankings. Totally not cool.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

TopHostingCenter is still doing a pretty good job considering the amount I paid for my hosting. I still strongly recommend them to those interested in dedicated servers. As for shared hosting, and especially of the Rudolf variety, I’d only recommend them for the extremely budget conscious and those first timers who just want to play around with a website. I’d imagine the occasional speed lag and downtime is quite harmless to this crowd – especially since they have no money, rankings or readership to lose. What’s most important for them is support. They need to have that round-the-clock support to help them solve their noobie woes, along the lines of “what’s this control panel thing”. And this is precisely what THC offers for an amazing price.

The great news is that the Rudolf plan is back with a vengeance, although it’s not exactly the same as the one I’m on. It now comes in two price denominations: a mini plan for $48 and a higher-end plan for $148. Yes, and that’s all you pay for as long as THC stays in business.

Should I move to a new host?

With that said, I have been thinking about moving Nanyate?! to a new host. I will still keep my other domains at TopHostingCenter, but I really cannot tolerate anymore downtime for nanyate.com. Here’s why:

I originally started Nanyate?! as a low profile personal blog. Just a humble place where I write my daily musings and tinker with WordPress for an audience of… I don’t know.. 10? So downtimes wouldn’t have been a problem. But over the past year, it grew beyond my expectations. I now have 70+ subscribers (100+ when I bitched about Apple), regular commenters, online and offline friends, and even the occasionally media query to answer to. Come to think of it, even my job has become contingent upon this blog.

Nanyate?! simply has too many stakeholders now, so I can’t afford to have anymore downtimes – at least not ones that last few hours/days.

Requirements for My Next Web Host

Extremely fast servers and reliable uptime, but won’t cost me much. I don’t need 100s of gigabytes of bandwidth and space, since nanyate.com isn’t exactly resource-intensive. And I only get stumbled/dugg once a few months.

Some Hosts I’m Considering

Of course there are the tried and tested ones like HostGator, Dreamhost and 1and1. But where’s the adventure of going mainstream, when I am presented with the perfect opportunity to test the startups.

• Geek Storage: Their servers are tuned for performance and reliability and runs on Litespeed, which processes PHP 50% more efficiently than traditional Apache servers. Their pre-sales support has been very helpful as well! Almost every review I read about them has been positive – with a few exceptions complaining about that one major hard drive failure that occurred last year. And okay, I admit it. I’m a sucker for beautiful web design. Geek Storage’s layout is too cute. It’s hard to say no to that!
• Web Host Giant: Every review I’ve read about them has been positive. They are running Plesk, which I’ve never used before, so that’s kinda enticing since I’d like to have working knowledge of as many control panels as possible. But I’m not keen on the unlimited bandwidth bit, since that’s quite susceptible to downtimes. Also, their parent company, WebIntellects isn’t receiving good reviews.

So should I move Nanyate.com to a new host? Do you have any recommendations (below 4USD per month)? How was your experience with GeekStorage or WebHostGiant?

Related posts:

1. Host Review: TopHostingCenter
2. Review for My Host, TopHostingCenter.Com
3. Happy 1 Year, Nanyate.com!

Visit Top Hosting Center
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

TopHostingCenter is the current host of Nanyate. Top Hosting Center is a new company based in Montreal, Quebec. They are small company run by wonderful people who genuinely care about their customers and their services.

• Price – TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE! I paid 95USD for a limited Rudolf package of a lifetime worth of hosting (+ free domain, which I haven’t used), which includes 250GB of disk space, 3TB of monthly bandwidth, and unlimited FTP accounts, add-on domains and email accounts. It was so perfect that at first, I seriously thought that it was a scam. But after hosting with them for 8 months – I can assure you that they aren’t!
• Speed – I was one of the earlier customers of TopHostingCenter, so the server speed was blazing fast since there weren’t many other sites. But as more sites are added to the servers, load time became a little slower. Most other web hosts would not care for slower loading time. But not TopHostingCenter. They added more RAM and CPU within weeks! I was very impressed. Two thumbs up!
• Support – They have a forum, ticket service, online chat, as well as a blog. I find the blog particularly interesting because the company actually replies to your comments and writes very useful blog posts for its blogger and business-owning clients. By regularly visiting their blog, you’re not just establishing a business-client relationship but a blogger-to-blogger relationship. It makes the experience of hosting with them simply one of a kind! I’ve also emailed them once regarding a database issue, and it was replied within 30 minutes. It was sent in the middle of the night too! Amazing people!
• Uptime – TopHostingCenter regularly updates their software and upgrades their hardware, so there is a bit of a downtime. But IMO, an increase in the speed and security of the server is far more important than a measly 25 minutes of downtime. The control panel uses H-SPHERE which has a built-in news system, that lets you know via email/control panel about their updates.
• For Who? – The Limited Edition Rudolph plan is great for everyone but it is now only available by special request. Their main shared plan is replaced by the new Speedy Plan, which offers 1TB space, 33TB bandwidth, free domain + dedicated IP for $6.75 per month. That’s a really good deal for e-commerce sites, major bloggers and even medium-sized forums! TopHostingCenter also offers Dedicated Servers from 79$ per month. The company is amazing; I’d recommend it for anyone who loves friendly service at a decent price!

Related posts:

1. Review for My Host, TopHostingCenter.Com
2. Host Review: DH2
3. Host Review: WebHostingBuzz

• Price – Very cheap! I pay 2.25$ per month for the now-defunct Bronze Plan. I get 5GB Space, 100GB Transfer & Unlimited Databases, Sub-Domains, FTP Accounts, Email Addresses.
• Speed – Very fast.
• Start-Up – Wasn’t immediate; it took a few hours. I had to email them for my account information.
• Support – They have a forum, ticket service, facebook group and live chat. The email I sent them was replied to within 2 hours. That’s pretty good considering the price.
• Uptime - I’m hosted on the Alpha server and I haven’t had any downtime since December 2006. They post their monthly uptime on their company blog, as well as the forums.
• Watch Out!- From the looks of other reviews, Webhostingbuzz has a habit of suspending sites for overloading servers even when their bandwidth is only a small portion of what was paid for. Furthermore, their Terms of Service says that most of your site must be link to a publicly available page. This means that you cannot use your domain as a storage facility.
• For Who? – A great low-cost solution for small business owners and bloggers with low traffic, who don’t run the risk of exceeding server usage.

Related posts:

1. Host Review: DH2
2. Host Review: Crucial Paradigm
3. Host Review: HostAffect and Steadfast Networks

• Price – Compared to other popular personal website hosts of the 2003 era like Netrillium, Host Affection would be the most affordable. Prices start at 15$ per year!
• Speed – Extremely fast.
• Control Panel – Host Affection uses H-SPHERE control panel. It’s very sleek looking but regular cPanel users may have to re-adapt to a new control panel.
• Support – Those 24/7 Live Chats are really nifty. I tried it a few times and I love how they fix problems immediately.
• Reliability – After Host Affection was acquired by Steadfast Networks, the reliability has been amazing.
• For Who? – Small to medium personal sites with few subdomains and average bloggers.

Related posts:

1. Host Review: Crucial Paradigm
2. Host Review: DH2

• Support – They had a server problem which affected my WordPress. When I contacted them, not only did they respond immediately but they actually went out of their way to rectify the problem and explain every detail to me. I was so impressed with their support services!
• Price – 4$ per month 5GB Space, 300GB Transfer! That’s pretty cheap though, not as cheap as WebHostingBuzz or TopHostingCenter. Also if you buy your domain along with a hosting package, your domain will only cost 2.95$ per year! However, it’s majorly lacking in the perks department. Only 30 FTP Accounts, 30 Subdomains and 30 Databases. No Addon Domains. I left them because they don’t allow addon domains, which is a bit of a hassle for a design enthusiast like me. It’s a shame.
• Speed – Pretty good however it always took quite a while to login to WordPress.
• Downtime – None at all!
• For Who? – Perfect for hardcore bloggers, small businesses and personal sites. Good plans, good prices as long as you don’t need to host more than 1 domain and more than a handful of subdomains.

Related posts:

1. Host Review: Crucial Paradigm

• Speed – I cannot stress this anymore. I’m SO impressed with the speed of uploads and downloads. I think it might because they don’t oversell.
• Support – I haven’t had any problems with them, so I haven’t had to contact them much except to change domain names. Very fast replies.
• Downtime – None
• Price – Comparatively to the other hosts I’m reviewing, Crucial Paradigm is a little bit more expensive. However, I haven’t had any problems with them for 3 years (unlike the rest). In the web hosting business, you get what you pay for. 5.95$ per month is amazing for services like this.
• Claim to Fame – Reseller and Dedicated Server hosting. Crucial Paradigm isn’t as famous for their shared hosting as their server hosting.
• For Who? – Everyone who wants (and can afford) good web hosting. Because of their reliability, it’ll be perfect for designer porfolios, blogs, eBay sellers and businesses.

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