Moving my Site

Hi, I'm new but seriously considering moving my site to Dreamhost. Basically, what I'm hoping for is some sort of guide or post or basic walkthrough on just what I need to do to make that switch. Right now I'm located at iPowerweb, on a Windows machine, I've got about 5 databases (including a phpBB forum with lots of posts) and a GB of FTP files to transfer.
So how's the whole transfer thing work? Does one pay for Dreamhost first, then just start transferring files and fixing settings? What about domain names - do I cancel my iPowerweb domain name first or something? Does phpBB transfer databases easily? And are there other fun tricks that I should be worrying about lol?

(oh, also, how long is it expected for this sort of switching to take?)

Sorry, in case it's not painfully obvious, I'm new to this sort of thing lol. Anyone who can answer any of these questions for me would have my eternal gratitude.
I figure it's probably a bit more community-friendly to ask these likely frequently-asked-questions here on the forums rather than bugging the poor sales crew lol. But I guess I'll have to if there are no replies.

-Warren (www.lostvideo.net)

Hi,

There are actually a few articles in the wiki that answer your questions:

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Transfer_your_site_to_us

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DNS_-_Viewing_site_before_DNS_change

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/DNS_-_Accessing_your_Database_before_DNS_change

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Wget - comes in handy for transferring files.

You definitely don't want to cancel anything before you're up and running here. The 2nd link walks you right through that part of it.

Once it's working, you can either just point your nameservers here or transfer your domain registration here. You get a free domain registration with any plan, so you can use it for your existing domain, or register a new one.

I believe you will have enough information after you read those articles given by seiler.

A quick view of how to do this is:

1. you do not have to cancel your domain.
2. add a record (point domain) to DH by modifying DNS first.
3. add domain/sub-domain in DH
4. upload all the files to DH.

after you have done all these, your site should be accessable during transferring. It is fine to leave the domain with your original registrar.

For more info, you can refer to the links given by seiler.

In reply to:

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2. add a record (point domain) to DH by modifying DNS first.

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You will probably want to get things transferred and working at DreamHost *before* pointing the DNS at DreamHost, this will minimize any downtime for your visitors. The wiki articles posted by seiler explain how you can use a free dreamhosters.com sub-domain to upload and test your site before making the DreamHost hosted site the 'live' site.

Mark

Thank you for the help! This is exactly what I was looking for!

Don't move your site to Dreamhost. You'll experience downtime like you've never imagined. I have to contact their customer support about once a week to tell them that my site is inaccessible.

Well, just think about it...

Our files are down for 10 long days now. Admins are suppossed to be working on the problem, but they are still missing. In dreamhoststatus the problem appears as "Solved" but obviously it is not so for us.

It may be just a particular case, but I find it outrageous...

Been with DH almost a year and I have yet to experience more than an hour of unplanned downtime in one single instance. I am on Sprite and show a consistent 99.8% uptime monthly. Sounds like you guys have just had some bad luck.