Hosting Upgrade Question

[THX]

Hi guys, I am current customer (i don't have access to the other forums though, for some reason) and I'm trying to figure out a plan of action in case my site becomes too much for the shared hosting plan (down the road). Is there an intermediate step between shared hosting and dedicated? Dedicated would seem like overkill until a site really needed it. I know that $75 unmanaged servers are available every now and then, but this is really out of the question - it would need to be managed for it to be of use to me.

I guess I'm wondering if a site becomes popular, do we really only have two choices 1) Drop $180 a month for something that we don't yet need or 2) Find another host that offers something like VPS?

[skeetr]

IMO....once you outgrow shared servers, then the only logical next step is dedicated. Why go to something like a vps when its in all reality just another shared server? True, it costs less, it has less than half the amount of accounts on it, but its still shared. You will still have to abide by resource limits (albeit in a less strict way), and you still never know who your neighbors are.

If your business is going to get too large for shared, then you should just go to a dedicated server. I believe that if you outgrow shared, then you will be outgrowing a semi-dedicated shortly thereafter.

Take the plunge. You probably wont be disappointed.

[jakeruston]

Definately a Dedicated Server is the next step on!

[calmiller56]

If your already moving up you will soon probably be needing a dedi anyways, I always outgrow my VPS fast in the future, it really is nice having all the space you need

[Goddess Dix]

i would say if you want to plan for the future, the thing to do now is work on beggining to bring in revenue with your site. although it won't make much at the start, as you learn to finetune and tweak it, what works and what doesn't, you'll be building your traffic. so when you get to the point you need a dedicated, your site will be ready to support it.