Suggestion on hosting plans

Hello fellow Dreamhosters and DreamHost staffers,

For the starters, I'm not here to complain, I mean.. I paid 20 bucks for a year of hosting, so I can't expect miracles, right?
But I would like to share a few of my ideas, that came to me head a long time ago, but I never seen them live, so..

Right now, we have 4 plans. All of us can see those in here: http://www.dreamhost.com/hosting.html

They don't differ much from each other, most notable is price and Storage/BW.

So, when average potential 'customer' looks at those plans, he thinks (my assumption)

In reply to:
Dude, my search for hosting service for my warez site has just ended!
200, 300, 400 GB storage?!
And it increases as my new games and movies are uploaded? Sweeeet!
OMG, and the BW! 10x of the storage? And also increases?! Yahooo!
PHP, shell, perl.. whats that ? O_O

Of course, I don't neglect, that you are searching for such accounts and are closing them, but this is just how those plans are advertising themselves (most hosts do that, I'm not attempting to offend here anyone!). And I guess that you just can't keep up with rapidly growing number of customers.

What I suggest is to add 3-5 additional plans, for those who plan on hosting website, not media files.
Those who know what they want, and thats definitely not (pardon me) shitload of features.

I have made my own version of hosting plans.. http://paziek.com/fake-plans.html
I hope that DreamHost don't mind, that I used part of their template in order to make my suggestions more clear (differences wise).

Okay, so I'll try now to answer some of the questions that will surely come:

In reply to:
Q: Why prices are the same, even though features differ so much? Last plan has bare minimum of them..

A: Reason for that is because number of accounts on each of the server will be the same, thus their performance may vary a lot.
Most notably "Strictly static" were webserver alone gives 8x better performance comparing to apache performance on static content.

In reply to:
Q: Why so low storage space? I want to host my warez!

A: ..

In reply to:
Q: Why limit number of DataBases, E-Mail Accounts and SubDomains?

A: So they won't be abused, for example in order to re-sell. You don't need 20000 email accounts and 2000 databases.

In reply to:
Q: Why 3 different web servers, and why not Apache?

A: Apache is flexible, but slow. There are alternatives, faster ones.

In reply to:
Q: Why disable "Daily Access Statistics"?

A: Do you REALLY need those? And aren't you making your own anyway, and put on waste those included?

What else?
Decreased storage, gives opportunity to use smaller, but much faster hard drives, further increasing performance.

Use it as general idea, or actual solution, but please, make it come true!
I think that there is load of people who aren't happy with recent changes in performance on the servers, my assumed cause for that can be found on the top of post..
A lot of your customers wish to host just site, with usually is no larger than a few MB and has small to average resource consumption.
Those who cause collateral damage are file hosts/warez - you call it.

If you really need to host such people, then sure, but I suggest using for that Tux server, and separate them from 'normal' customers.

If this really comes true, then please switch me (for free, pls :P) to the "Full service" ^^

Cheers,
Paziek.

I applaud you for thinking of ways for us to get better service plans and performance.

Let me start by saying that something that would get me even better performance on my sites and prevent runaway accounts from impacting my server is good. I like you intentions with your ideas!

I don't want to react negatively to the specific plans outlined. There are some things about them that do worry me, though:
1. I plan to host a lot of my photos that won't be accessed very much, but which will eventually take up a lot of space. Maybe not 200GB, but 1GB worries me.
2. I think the high limits of DreamHosts current plans are related to their overselling marketing plan. I believe this marketing plan is working brilliantly. I think good things should come to good people. I wish the best for the DreamHost employee-owners!
3. I like being on a plan that provides me more bandwidth than I could ever use in a lifetime because if I ever do get slashdotted, I won't end up owing DreamHost a gazillion dollars.

Now one thing that does strike me as interesting is the idea that just as they now option you to host on a php4 or a php5 server, each of your domains could be optioned to be hosted on a static html server or maybe onto a non-NFS filesystem. I dunno if the former would have much impact, but I suspect the latter would help with Gallery performance.

BTW, I don't know if this thread could be moved, but I'm not sure it's most appropriate for this forum. smile

Alternatively, you could just switch to another host that offers such features + performance that you're looking for in your above suggestions. I believe that's why so many such hosts exists anyways smile

That is called dedicated hosting.
I didn't found a single hosting company, that would concentrate on a performance, instead on a garbage-features.

Well, of course, for one person this garbage might be life saver, but for other it is just as I said.

I'm just suggesting to try more customized plans, with less features and better performance, for - still - a price (and expenses for hosting service) of shared hosting.

As for 1 GB storage - yeah, that would be definitely not enough for gallery. But thats how such 'custom' plans are - not for everyone. They are 'custom' after all :)

I'm planning to start my websites. I'm willing to get a free download site with mobile contents such as midi,mp3,theme,wallpaper etc etc. When i'll start(not already did) i'll need upto 50 to 80gb storage (1-3rd to half of L1) for this site.And bandwidth? Maybe 1st month will reach hardly 1-50gb. I also want to have related and my own forums,blogs which will not require too much space and bandwidth. But after 6 month my storage usage will increase approx. 30-50%.Also same or more for bandwidth. But one thing is most important thats my site is not commercial site,so my earnings will only come through adsense/yahoo and a few via DH rewards. But these may not be too much on a just started site. So i need an affordable host both on price and service. (I think DH is that kind.) What do you think about my kind customers(whom DH is giving atleast an affordable solution)? Yes,some people wants and needs better performance. But CAN ANY SHARED HOSTING PROVIDER do this completely???? Thats why dedicated hosting service was founded. I'm just making my comments.Never intentionally to answer anyone's word.

I think you kill your own argument with the warez stuff. As far as other users go, downloading is downloading--whether the file is legal or not. And downloading files isn't what tends to bring a server to a slow crawl.

The sites that actually have stuff to move are more likely to go with a company that will look the other way, regardless of disk space or other features (Piracy was around before major overselling). They need nothing more than a static HTML page that links to the files.

Plus, if they're just looking for accounts to burn through, they'll probably look at price before space. Even with a $20 promo-code year, it's a bad deal when you lose it the first month. Better off with accounts between free & $5/month.

Other than that, the idea seems to be charge more for less. Good luck with that!

On a lighter note, I'd say your sample page is a copyright violation and linking it here will index it in search engines. Kinda funny, for someone that doesn't want to be on servers with people doing illegal activity. Keep in mind that calling it an example, and "hoping" that DH doesn't mind (not the same as getting written permission), just looks like the warez sites that say delete files in 24 hours and buy it if you like it, thinking it somehow makes it more legal. tongue Plus, you're hotlinking their images, which is a good way to burn up someone else's bandwidth instead of your own--good thing we get so much of it, huh? tongue tongue

Just to address individual things you mentioned...

In reply to:
So, when average potential 'customer' looks at those plans, he thinks (my assumption)

Dude, my search for hosting service for my warez site has just ended!
200, 300, 400 GB storage?!
And it increases as my new games and movies are uploaded? Sweeeet!
OMG, and the BW! 10x of the storage? And also increases?! Yahooo!
PHP, shell, perl.. whats that ? O_O

If that's your best guess at what the average customer thinks like, it really makes it hard to take anything else you say seriously. But...

Diskspace: Not all warez sites are full of CD rips. You don't need much space to break the law. Besides, I'd guess that programs like Limewire, Kazaa, etc... have taken some of the warez-load off of web hosts.

Bandwidth: It's probably easier to stay under the radar using multiple accounts with lower limits. If you cause a spike in BW here, you can probably count on them looking at how you're doing it. If it's legal, fine... if not, bye-bye, problem solved.

PHP & Perl: Just about everyone uses one or the other. Even a site that is mostly static will likely have at least one contact form, counter, or something that uses it. I can't picture a shared host wasting money on a stripped server that would have close to no demand.

Shell Access: I don't worry about shell access because DH knows what they're doing. Your average CPanel reseller that doesn't offer it, and claims it's for security, probably really means a) the company I resell for doesn't allow it, or b) I don't understand it, so I can't support it.

When you roll out the huge amount of servers that DH does (probably more per week than many hosts have), it's way easier to keep them the same, which surely helps keep the prices lower for their target market.

Limiting domains, DBs, etc: I don't see how that lowers abuse. I'd rather be on a server with someone that has 200 legit domains, than someone with one that causes problems. Giving a person 100 domains instead of 1 doesn't mean they'll think, "Okay, I used my 1 legit domain... time to add 99 warez sites." Same with DBs. Only takes one to bring a server to it's knees.

Then you add: "So they won't be abused, for example in order to re-sell." Uhh... that's not abuse. DH clearly states that you can resell on any plan.

"Those that cause collateral damage are file hosts/warez sites:" Naa... the ones that cause damage are the ones that bring the traffic and aren't ready for it. Downloading files isn't a big deal. Make a poorly coded site about your cat and a ton of traffic will affect other users. Those users aren't going to feel any better because you didn't affect them with an illegal site.

Or just make a single static page about a touchy subject and get the whole server attacked by people that disagree with you. You can do that with a few KB of disk space and zero server-side scripting.

Anyway, it sounds like you just want something they don't offer, which is fine... but throwing out panic buzzwords like "warez" doesn't really show a need for it.

And when you want to strip away everything you don't need, it's generally time for a dedicated server where you can set it up however you want. Then you don't have to worry about what features others want. It's also quicker than waiting around for a shared host to shift into reverse and start offering something there is no demand for.

Basically, the effect users have on each other is the result of how the host controls the situation--not the features themselves. Security happens behind the scenes at the data center--not on the sign-up page.

But that's just my opinion! wink

In reply to:

It's also quicker than waiting around for a shared host to shift into reverse and start offering something there is no demand for.

This is actually very untrue. There is a rather decent amount of demand for a "customized" server. But that's exactly why dedicated hosting exists - for such customized needs, as it would be rather costly and unconventional for any shared hosting provider (or just a cheap host period) to offer such a setup. Even for Dreamhost I imagine, it would be more costly than it's worth to maintain such a setup; which is as you said, much easier and cost efficient to maintain a static setup.

That's why I specified shared. wink

True, customized servers are in very high-demand... but isn't that basically because specific customized settings are not? tongue That's why I said it's dedicated time, since it's unlikely that he'll find many people that agree with his specs.

The other reason he would need a dedicated server is because he's using the behavior of other users as the foundation of his argument. Stripping away a few things doesn't defeat trouble-makers.

Images are hotlinked just to make it faster, it would load hours from my account :o

I'm not using word 'warez' just on my assumption or wild guess.

Just to point out a few, that I still remember and found out about just by luck:

http://www.chiisana.net/public/
I think that its up for at least a year now. (found out after owner posted a large screenshot of its BW overages billings, so they either lie about it, or actually use up those 2/3/4 TB of BW)

http://www.jaguarpowered.com/
I don't know how long is that one, but 3-4 months at least.

And why I claim that this is the cause for slow load?
That is because APACHE is slow to respond and APACHE is mainly used while serving static content, I mean - blank page loading a few seconds? That is surely MySQL problem crazy
Well, sorry about that one :s
Pings are ~ 200ms, with is average for me while connecting to US-based servers.

Those plans, and whole post is just a suggestion, not my demand or something like that.
I'm just telling, that I would chose shared server with such specs, over current ones.
They obviously don't eliminate all possible ways to overload server, but at least they won't be used for serving large files. (I don't really care about warez or not warez, it can be even free Linux CD's)

If its just me, then I guess I have to send ticket over ticket hoping that they get rid of all troublemakers from coffee :o

Those sites aren't warez, they're just unlicensed anime.

I understand why you need high performance shared server environments, but even on my server, I don't have any type of performance issue at ALL. Maybe your php codes aren't optimized or your ISP has a routing issue.

Or, like someone suggested before, just switch away to another company like SurpassHosting.com . Those guys oversell like crazy, but they kick tons and tons of users all the time because they have a super strict TOS that limits http connections to 30. Thus, their performance is superb, but they're A-holes when it comes to actually honoring their promises. Thus, if they offer something like 200GB space and 2TB bandwidth, it literally translates to 20GB space and 200GB bandwidth. Divide every limit by 10 and you would get the actual usage allowed before they kick you off.

As for DreamHost's overselling issue and performance degradations. I haven't seen any major performance issue here and they are dealing with overselling by cutting down on limits daily. DreamHost's network is very stable and their servers can handle the load that they advertise. My site gets thousands of hits daily, and it loads in less than seconds even though I'm all the way on the east coast!

(qualification) Usually.

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This is going off topic, so lets end this..

diwu1989, sure, distribution of someones property (video/music/apps/games) without his approval isn't warez at all, especially when copyright holder isn't distributing his property on the territory of US or/and didn't sold license to someone else to do so.

Unlicensed anime usually means something like that: "We don't have resources to look for illegal distribution on territory where we actually aren't distributing. So unless we license it to someone near your territory and that someone takes action to save his income - you are pretty much safe".

As for my apps - so far - I don't have any visitors, I'm using my account to test some of my apps (now just one) on a different server than my own PC.
The same site is hosted on a different host (pretty much as cheap as this one), but with visitors and such - no lag at all.

So I thought - Perhaps its my ISP.
I checked a few other sites, located on all over the world - responding normal/fast.
Then I think - perhaps its just my routing problems to the dremhost - so first I ping it - avg 200ms - nothing unusual.
After that goes traceroute - nothing unusual.

So why I have to wait a few seconds for my site to actually show ANY signs that SOMETHING is happening? Not a single byte is sent to me for a few seconds - that is normal? For my account - pretty much.

In reply to:
Images are hotlinked just to make it faster, it would load hours from my account :o

Cute excuse, but your site is still a copyright violation that is using someone else's bandwidth for the images.

Clean up your own account before coming here to whine about what others are doing.

In reply to:
I'm not using word 'warez' just on my assumption or wild guess.

I know. You used it hoping that it would alarm people into taking you seriously, since simply saying "I don't want people hosting files on the same server as me" would have sounded even more retarded.

See...

In reply to:
but at least they won't be used for serving large files. (I don't really care about warez or not warez, it can be even free Linux CD's)

Who cares what you want?

No one took your warez whining seriously, so you come clean and basically say you don't want people to host files. And again, downloading files isn't what causes trouble.

I'll type it slower this time so you get it: If you don't like sharing the server resources, stop using shared hosting. Get a dedicated server.

What are you going to whine about next? That someone on your server is using too large of a font and it's clogging up the internet?

Don't bother fighting with him. He's right.

Just like all the others that come here with their dreams of being righteous purveyors of stuff that "can't be found legally" here.

In time, they all fall.

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Okay, since it seem like I was on the most wanted criminals list, so that incredibly abusive page is no more.

TOS tells to use account for website hosting purposes mainly.
So, when some1 hosts index of movie files, wrapped in a nice(or not) template, then I say its not being used primary for hosting a website, but more like those xxx GB of movies (or whatever it may be).

And yes, I still claim that serving large amount of files does impact on server performance, if you can't see that, then thats your problem.

I doubt that you could serve 15 TB of files monthly, with the current server configuration, even if it would be dedicated for you only.

Get 3 or 4 people who decide that it would be nice to use up 'their' BW quota (actually shared, as you said), and server turns into night.mare for other users.
I'm all for sharing, but not for stealing. And they are stealing from me my service, since having to wait 10 seconds for any response from the site is no service at all.

All what I'm saying is that it would be nice, if DreamHost would actually care about their customers without the need to fill in ticket after ticket.
And since they don't seem to have enough time to manage that, then preventing users from their abusive behavior before they even signup might be a good solution.

Well, I guess I'm not DreamNinja as you are, and simply can't endure as much, nor can see any pleasure in the process.

In reply to:
Okay, since it seem like I was on the most wanted criminals list, so that incredibly abusive page is no more.

No more or less of a criminal than the ones you were complaining about, but it was your hypocrisy that was annoying. You really don't see the stupidity of a copyright violating bandwidth thief whining about what others do with their accounts?

In reply to:
TOS tells to use account for website hosting purposes mainly.

So you think every site on the net that isn't plain text is on a dedicated server? As bandwidth & diskspace get cheaper, plus more and more people are on fast connections, sites tend to get fancier. Video blogs are gaining popularity, musicians like to put their mp3s on their band sites, etc...

DH is going to use the bandwidth & disk space they are paying for, regardless of what size files are being moved. That's NOT what causes the server slowdowns. Botched/inefficient scripts & DB queries are generally the problem.

In reply to:
And yes, I still claim that serving large amount of files does impact on server performance,

Claim it 100 more times if it makes you feel better--still doesn't make it right, though.

In reply to:
if you can't see that, then thats your problem.

You being wrong is my problem?

In reply to:
I doubt that you could serve 15 TB of files monthly, with the current server configuration, even if it would be dedicated for you only.

Do you just keep blurting out random sentences? There are people here that are using all of their resources, which is fine, since most customers use less than 1%.

In reply to:
Get 3 or 4 people who decide that it would be nice to use up 'their' BW quota (actually shared, as you said), and server turns into night.mare for other users.

Wrong again (wow, that's a real surprise!). They balance customers out amongst their tons of servers based on what they use. They cap servers where they cap them, it could be a thousand people doing hardly anything, or 3 people doing a lot. Either way, you are SHARING.

In reply to:
I'm all for sharing, but not for stealing.

The only person I've seen steal here is you with your hotlinking. When someone uses the resources they are paying for, only a retard would call that stealing.

In reply to:
And they are stealing from me my service, since having to wait 10 seconds for any response from the site is no service at all.

Move to a dedicated server, as you've been told several times, if you have a problem with sharing. That is how web hosting works.

In reply to:
All what I'm saying is that it would be nice, if DreamHost would actually care about their customers

They do care, that's why they base their plans on what their target market wants. Might also explain why they're one of the biggest hosts in the world.

If you're even half as smart as you think you are, start up this perfect business you see in your head and show DH how it's done. Nevermind, that would be much harder than whining.

In reply to:
preventing users from their abusive behavior before they even signup might be a good solution.

Can't be done. You need to get over it and either spring for a dedicated server, or spend the rest of your life in tears because you can't figure out why people have to share in a shared hosting environment.

In reply to:
Well, I guess I'm not DreamNinja as you are, and simply can't endure as much, nor can see any pleasure in the process.

It's just that you don't get anything.

Smart people get a dedicated server if it's justified. They don't sit around and cry like idiots because they're not getting dedicated service for $9/month.

You'd probably whine even if you had a dedicated server, claiming that the heat from the other servers were slowing yours down. You might as well just build your own data center with only one server in it. Then build your own network with a link to every computer in the world, so you don't have to share traffic with the the rest of the internet.

You're both wrong.

Clearly global warming is what is causing the slowness on DH's servers. I have proof even!

http://tinyurl.com/2s3na2

... tongue

I can't believe we can't stop posting on this thread.

I contend that because you're right (and we're just too pigheaded to shut up) no amount of discussion is going to change anyone's minds. Therefore let's all go get a life and let this topic die.

Wholly - Use promo code WhollyMindless for full 97$ credit. Let me know if you want something else!

OP does have a point when he recommended lighttpd.

I think using freeBSD with lighttpd would make the shared servers much much more stable and efficient.

DH likes suggestions so much they allow customers to vote on what they want.

Go to your control panel and look for the suggestions option and vote.

Change the world. (or at least make a meaningful statement)

Wholly - Use promo code WhollyMindless for full 97$ credit. Let me know if you want something else!

If you're confident about freeBSD's stealth service then suggest DreamHost using suggestion menu. But i think all Debian servers must not be replaced with freeBSD at the first time. It must be tested with resource hunting websites before the action. Because most users here didn't ever used it before. I think it'd be better if DreamHost would(if people vote and DH agree to test) let existing experienced users test with their both high resource hunting and static websites(either replacing their existing servers to freeBSD or leting them have a test through another server dedicated for the test). But i'm not sure which would be better within freeBSD and Debian...........

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I wouldn't count on it ever happening. There's no real reason for a shared host to offer multiple operating systems, unless one targets a completely different crowd--like Windows. So I'd expect DH to offer BSD right after they roll out their first fleet of Windows servers. wink

They have way over a thousand servers and keep adding them all the time. A big part of making that easy work would be keeping them the same. Not to mention all of the work to make sure the panel will play nicely with it.

Besides, for every person that says they should use FreeBSD, you'd find another that says that they should use Redhat, CentOS, Suse, etc... And if you go to a host that uses one of those, you'll probably find customers complaining that they're not using Debian.

In a shared hosting environment, the best OS is the one that the people maintaining the servers are experienced with. You generally get more choices when shopping for a dedicated server, where OS choice is a little more important.

Suggestion on hosting plans