A VPS (virtual private server) may be the hosting solution you are looking for. If your website is experiencing immense growth, it may be better to host the site on a VPS. A shared hosting environment tends to be unstable and your growing site may be taking up too much resources. Having a VPS ensures that you are allocated a fixed amount of resources. You don’t have to worry about resource hogging. In addition, you can also make custom tweaks to your site that requires admin rights. You can’t do that in a shared hosting environment.
How to choose VPS hosting.There are a few elements that you should consider when choosing VPS hosting.1) Dedicated memory.This is the fixed amount of memory that is allocated to your account. Don’t buy anything less than 512MB as that may impair performance. Memory is the computer’s workspace. Having more RAM means the computer has more “room” to work with, which leads to faster loading speed. The more RAM you have for your account, the faster your site will load. 2) Hard disk space.The amount of disk space you require depends on the type of site that you are running. If you are running a social video site, you are going to need lots of disk space. Most VPS accounts come with over 40GB of disk space. That should be enough for most sites. You can always request for additional space later on.3) Bandwidth.Fortunately, bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper. Most hosting companies offer unlimited bandwidth. Be sure to check with the hosting provider to see what “unlimited” really means. The terms may restrict you to hosting static files and images. If you are going to store other types of files like audio or video files, check with the hosting provider to see if it’s allowed.4) Control panel.Cpanel is the most popular control panel. The next most popular control panel is Plesk. Cpanel does offer more features when compared with Plesk, and it’s also more user friendly. Choose the one that you are most familiar with. You will be accessing the control panel very often as you are the key administrator.5) Price.A VPS is very affordable compared to the price of a dedicated server. Most VPS accounts start from $40 per month onwards. A dedicated server can cost several hundred dollars a month. You shouldn’t have to pay for the setup fee as well. If there is a setup fee, email the hosting company to see if it can be waived.6) Server protection.Check to see if the hosting provider offers 24 by 7 server monitoring for your VPS account. Sometimes, sites may be under attacks. A prime example would be a DDOS attack. When a DDOS attack happens, the entire server slows to a crawl, and sites are unable to load. If proper protection and monitoring is in place, such attacks can be prevented or intercepted to prevent downtime.7) Server uptime guarantee.Almost all hosting companies offer uptime guarantee. Don’t settle for anything less than 99.95%. Most offer up to 99.99% uptime guarantee.
We recommend vps hosting with at least 512MB RAM, and come with cpanel WHM control panel is a plus. Check out hostgator vps hosting plan and the review at our hostgator coupon blog. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/affiliate-programs-articles/how-to-choose-a-vps-hosting-1460381.html
Tags: Admin Rights, Bandwidth Check, Control Panel, Cpanel, Hard Disk Space, Hosting Companies, Hosting Provider, Hosting Solution, Immense Growth, Loading Speed, Performance Memory, Shared Hosting, Site Hosting, Static Files, Tweaks, Unlimited Bandwidth, Video Files, Video Site, Virtual Private Server, Vps
November 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Heya
I would like to correct a couple of things, Control Panel on the VPS isnt what you should choose a VPS based on. Depending on what you need is what Control Panel you can use. Most people can get away with a Free one like Virtualmin GPL or pay for the fancy version of VirtualMin which is still half the price of Plesk.
WHM/Cpanel though it may seem nice isn’t very useful at all if you are porting to another hosting provider, you may find yourself tied into one VPS because of it.
You should really send them an email asking some basic questions about their hosting, even if its things you know, just to test their response time to enquiries, and helpfulness. You can tell a log by their reply, if they are helpful and will help you out when things go pear shaped, or if they are going to take 3 days to get back to you when your VPS is down.
Also check out their rates for sysadmin work in case you ever need it, Some charge as much as $150 per hour, others as little as $40.
The amount of Disk, RAM, and bandwidth is variable and entirely related to what you actually need. Most people have hundreds of smaller sites which dont need a huge amount of resources, so can get away with less disk and bandwidth and RAM, whilst others run larger CMS which are higher volume and so need more.
Another handy thing to check, do they have access for you to if for some reason networking is down. A good provider will give you access to a console on the host in some form, so if the VPS is not responsive you can view error messages, or login and debug WHY its down.
Check what backups they have and do, and what you need to do yourself. Do they provide you with backup space somewhere? or do you need to organize something and pay?
Whilst your plan may be good for you now, how much is it going to cost you to upgrade?
Great article though, well written, with some excellent points. Sorry If i went on, i work at a VPS company as a SysAdmin and we see some horror stories from various other companies people have been with
Liz
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(SysAdmin at Rimuhosting.com VPS company – post may contain bias!
ps. You need to upgrade your wordpress install, its out of date!