1&1 Hosting down most of the last 2 days

[ParkQuick.com]

Most of my sites are hosted at 1&1 where they had the free 3 year professional hosting in the latter part of 2003. Until recently this has been a great bargain, with 99% plus uptime and unlimited domains that can be hosted there. In the past month the sites have started to be down for hours and hours at a time. My sites were down most of yesterday and again today. The same thing happened about 2 weeks ago.

Have others had problems with them? Which hosts are reliable and cheap? (and I see that no ads are allowed here...)

Thanks,

Len

[Dr. Domaining]

If I was you I would stick with 1&1. The majority of hosting companies run in to problems here and there. You aren't going to get much better than 1&1.

[Moondancer]

Were they down the same amount of time both times? As master of the domain said... there will be times with any hosting company that problems crop up... we had a hard drive failure last year that had us down for about 12 hours total but we maintained contact with all the clients on that server to let them know our progress.

However, long downtimes are not the norm. I would suggest you write customer support and ask them about the downtime you are experiencing before making a decision to look for another company. If the down times continue and/or become more frequent then there are problems they either cannot or will not fix and it's time to look... or you can be looking just in case.

[Vivvy]

Downtime is pure and simple a money and time loss for you. While I can understand that all hosts have some downtime, if your host isn't keeping you in the loop about what is causing that downtime and what their plan is to fix it and keep it from happening again, then you need to consider whether or not the business arangement you have with a host is working for you, that is just common sense.

I had 15 sites at your-site.com and they started having serious downtime problems. The first time they apologized, gave me a free month and I took it on the chin. The second time in just a couple of months I also was patient.. things happen. The third time I started moving sites out. I think that's plenty patient. When 15 clients call because their sites are down your business becomes paralyzed by this and it is serious.

1&1 is a HUGE company, with huge resources. They should have redundancies out their rear ends which should make downtime virtually unheard of. When large companies have extended downtime it is much more likely a sign that they aren't investing in their own infrastructure than it is a problem out of their control. 1&1 is a good example of a company that is charging far to little for far too much, which means stealing from peter to pay paul and not upgrading or taking care of the equipment and technology they have.

I use JC-hosting.net and can't begin to say how pleased I am, and the reason I mention them is because they are the best example of how a company SHOULD handle downtime. One time in the last year, a breakdown in equipment caused downtime. Clients were told what the problem was right away and given an estimated time of fix, but beyond that and the most important, they addressed the problem to keep it from happening again.

I don't have much respect for the uber-large hosting companies that have downtime. The more money you have, the more clients you have, the less downtime you should have. When a company like 1&1 has downtime that should be a HUGE red flag and I would be more likely to give them less leeway and patience than I would a smaller company. Multiple downtimes in a month are just not acceptable.

Vivvy

[stevey]

thats the reason i brought my own server, all hosts i been with seem to have problems and never say whats happening, so i rent my own server now and i know what is going on all the time and in the 5 months ive had it, it hasnt gone down once, only down time ive had with it is when i have rebooted the server when upgrading the kernel

[Moondancer]

Originally Posted by stevey

thats the reason i brought my own server, all hosts i been with seem to have problems and never say whats happening, so i rent my own server now and i know what is going on all the time and in the 5 months ive had it, it hasnt gone down once, only down time ive had with it is when i have rebooted the server when upgrading the kernel

Sometimes running your own server is not feasible from a maintenance or cost standpoint. When considering such a move, you have to think in terms of costs and benefits. Having a server that is relatively empty is a waste of money that could be better spent on something else.

******************

Thanks, vivvy, for the vote of confidence. I have a hard time addressing hosting questions. I don't want to be accused of trying to steal someone else's business because I say something bad about the hosting company. Although I know we aren't the only good company out there, I also have a hard time recommending other ones because "hey, I could use that business, too" ... LOL... but if someone asks something specific I will try to address it.

The bottom line for healingsites is that she/he shouldn't have to pay for poor service regardless of which hosting company... as Vivvy so aptly pointed out.

Sometimes big companies get so big they forget how they got there and tend to ignore the smaller customer. I've listened to numerous complaints about some of the biggest and wonder how they can be that way. I suppose being that big they don't worry so much about turnover as long as they stay listed in the top hosts rating sites... which aren't updated nearly as often as they should be and often use poor rating criteria to boot.

The best way to find good hosting is to contact the company itself, by email and by phone. Ask the questions that are important to you based on your particular needs. If you get someone on the phone who gives you script answers, walk away, because that's how your customer service will be with them. If you get an email response that sounds more scripted sales pitch than honest answers, walk away. Once they have your money, their interest in your customer satisfaction is distinctly lower.

Ok... jumping off the soapbox now.

[ParkQuick.com]

Thanks for the replies. When I factor in the lost income, the free hosting looks like less and less of a bargain. I also don't like the fact that they have no "trouble ticket" type of system that other services have used. I will call them up and discuss things and then maybe shop around. I appreciate the lead, Vivvy.

Len