Compare: Baby (shared) or Aluminum (reseller)

[eJM]

I have 2 other hosts at the moment, 1and1 and site5, and am looking to find a single hosting solution to meet my needs. Been with 1and1 for a few years now, but frequent database errors on my most active site (that includes a vBulletin forum) caused me to hunt for a new service. I opened an account at site5 thinking it would solve my problems, but their all to frequent down time has prevented me from moving all my sites to them, including the forum site.

Host Gator appears to have the features I want and the customer satisfaction is high, so now I just need to decide which plan will be my best choice. What I have and do will help you help me decide, so here is a synopsis of my situation:

My most active site is a niche site with a forum and blog system with a current 700+ members, 1800 uniques, using 25mb mySQL database and just celebrated 1 year anniversary.

I have another site that includes a forum and much less traffic, but hope to improve on that in the coming year.

There are 9 other personal sites spread between the 2 hosts that get varying amounts of traffic, but nothing substantial.

I am just getting involved in web design on a professional level (been doing it for several years as a hobby), but I am not necessarily interested in doing a hosting business. However, hosting those projects I am working on may be convenient and an additional source of income. It's not terribly inconvenient to work on sites hosted elsewhere though.

My personal habit, good or bad, is to buy domain names I think would either make a good professional or directory site, or be a good investment as a domain name I could resell at a profit. All my domains are registered through GoDaddy.com - I have over 50 domains. I would like to make quite a few of them live and begin getting some Adsense income from them at the very least.

My usage statistics currently: 2gb disk space used, approx. 6gb bandwidth per month.

My hope is that some of you will be able to help me decide what my best option is. Price is not the issue at all. I would like to get rid of 1and1 as quickly as possible - saving 29.95 a month and hundreds of database errors. I'd like to dump site5 after my 1 year contract expires in about 10 months - saving the exasperation of down time a few times a month. Thank you for any guidance you can offer.

R'gards,

Jim McClain

[charlesgan]

seem like you are growing fast and still growing strong.
investing in the right hosting plan in crucial, and to think for future longer term, i will suggest a reseller plan.

each of your domain will have their own cpanel. and beside that, you can resell the extra space for some extra income. with reseller plan, you learn to manage the whole big thing. and when you grow bigger and bigger, moving to a dedicated server is painless

[slapshotw]

I also suggest the reseller plan. The multiple cPanels will make your life much easier.

i would also suggest the Reseller plan for your websites.

[smp]

Originally Posted by GatorDustin

i would also suggest the Reseller plan for your websites.

You would do you're a Gator.

I fourth the notion, get a reseller plan.

Regards, Steve Xx

[ldearing]

Originally Posted by eJM

... Price is not the issue at all...

okay, so its only about the features....reseller package hands down ... a no brainer !! create a large package with most of your resources for your biggest sites, small packages for your mini's.. seperate cpanels ... dns control .... officially (TOS) be able to resell some of the space, a built in growth path through resellers plan and eventually into dedi

good luck and welome !

[eJM]

Thank you for all the replies. Don't hate me, but I didn't take your advice. I went with the Baby plan and will have no trouble upgrading from there when the time comes that I will need it.

Thanks again. I'll be seeing you all here on the board as issues arrise that I need help with, or that I can help any of you with.

R'gards,

Jim

When you are ready to upgrade, or if you would like some items added on to your account you can go to. http://support.hostgator.com/addons.php

[eJM]

Thanks, Dustin. Are you the Dustin that helped me find the fantastico install link for TYPO3? If so, thanks again.

Jim
PS:I installed TYPO3, struggled with it for a while and then uninstalled it. I think I'll try Joomla instead.

Yes that was me. I also try to help in the forums when I can.

Joomla seems to be the most popular CMS.

[joemailey]

Originally Posted by eJM

Thanks, Dustin. Are you the Dustin that helped me find the fantastico install link for TYPO3? If so, thanks again.

Jim
PS:I installed TYPO3, struggled with it for a while and then uninstalled it. I think I'll try Joomla instead.

I run many joomla sites. Love it. seems to do anything you want it to do :-)

You should have fun with it.

[eJM]

What have you done about the register_globals off issue? The global.php file has a couple of settings that emulate "off", but I still get that error in the admin that tells me it's "on".

Jim

[joemailey]

i have this in my .htaccess file

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 php (at the very top of it first line)

it works prefect. that command switches you to php version 5.


also had reg globals of in php ini but i didn't need it after using php5.

#php_value register_globals 0
upload_max_filesize = 32M
post_max_size = 64M
zend_extension = /home/hardware/public_html/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so
memory_limit = 32M
enable_dl = on
zend_extension = /home/hardware/public_html/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so

[eJM]

That did the trick, thank you.

Jim