does DH adhere to any SLA?

nothing in this world is perfect... a downtime here and there should be expected...

but for those lasting hours here at DreamHost, in a fairly regular basis (judging from the forums as well as the status updates) - i begin to wonder, are there any SLAs that DH adheres to?

Nope. Feel free to review the TOS (there's a link on the main website) as it doesn't state any SLA. I'm unaware of any "regular basis" downtime either. I'm not sure if it's an issue of complete impatience or, possibly combined with that, complete "newness" to shared hosting and/or non-SLA providers.
I've not had any major downtime on my sites to complain, and when I do file tickets, they are answered and worked on quite quickly.

You might also consider the fact that DreamHost has hundreds if not thousands of servers, issues are to be expected almost daily from one server or another in that regard.

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judging from the forums as well as the status updates

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While DH don't adhere or offer a SLA, it should be noted that given the number of domains they host, I consider these forums to be fairly quiet. You can take a look at some uptime stats for one of my sites to get an idea of downtimes, bear in mind that this monitor only checks every 30 minutes so I believe those figures are somewhat bloated, since the downtime could have only been for a few minutes when the check occured. You can also pick when I was moved from one server to another.

this uptime stats that people use - this is more related to the site, right?

now what about email services - bouncing emails, etc.? these are also considered downtimes? no?

Yes the stats are related to websites only, they don't check email services, as for email I very rarely have problems, but I don't send a lot of email, so I am probably not the best to use as a measure.

Never an issue with email here. I receive all of my mail, worst has happened was they had a short period where you couldnt login...It was fixed very quickly. I am completely satisfied.

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Never an issue with email here.

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I occasionally get a timeout on some of my mailboxes (using POP3), but I suspect this is because the mail server is busy at the time and Outlook2k3 just doesn't wait long enough. Retrying immediately after the timeout usually results in success.

Mark

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I occasionally get a timeout on some of my mailboxes (using POP3), but I suspect this is because the mail server is busy at the time and Outlook2k3 just doesn't wait long enough. Retrying immediately after the timeout usually results in success.

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Sometimes I got error when sending using dreamhost's SMTP because authorization problem (I do supply correct username & password), maybe it something to do with SPF record ? I know it's not a wise thing using our site's SMTP instead of ISP's SMTP. But sometimes I do have problem sending with the ISP's one, and in that case I switched on using Dreamhost's SMTP. Sometimes with success and sometimes with failure. Anyone ever experience this ?

And to comply with anti-spam policy, my sending average is only about 5 emails per hour for 1 recipient/mail.

Dino