High CPU load web sites?

I'm thinking about hosting a social web site that is about ready in a week or so. I'd like to know: If the web site gets popular and if for some reason the CPU/RAM need increases to the point that the Dreamhost Private Server can't handle the load, or in case of a DDoS from Russia/China, then what is the Dreamhost policy?

Does Dreamhost mitigate the DDoS? If I want to leave for a two-node cluster in another hosting company, is it possible to get a manual backup of the database if it's a big database? I'm asking because I know some companies would just terminate the account (files & database) and ignore customer emails. I've seen testimonials of similar behavior from DH on the WHT forum. I don't know how far these were genuine testimonials.

Thanks.

If you're going to be that big, your may think about dedicated server with special services for DDoS.

But for start, DH is probably good for most websites.

If wish you DH will me too tight for you, but you have to use really a LOT of resources before that.

I don't think this will happen, but you never know... Anyway, just in case DH deletes my account for high resource usage, I'll backup all my stuff daily with a cron job.

That's *always* a good idea, even if DH says they'll give you your data back directly. In my opinion, and this is just judging from what I've seen in the past, most people who don't get their data back didn't get it back because they were hosting or doing something either illegal or against DreamHost's TOS in such a way that made DreamHost go "We don't care to EVER deal with you again."
In your case, unless you're a giant foo to them during such a time, then I seriously doubt you wouldn't get your data back. It might take them a while to get you it, but I'm quite positive they wouldn't have a problem with it.

In reply to:
If the web site gets popular and if for some reason the CPU/RAM need increases to the point that the Dreamhost Private Server can't handle the load, or in case of a DDoS from Russia/China, then what is the Dreamhost policy?

So when you say that your private server can't handle the load, do you just mean that your PS hits its limit of memory or CPU? If that's the case, then you're fine because your processes are just killed or just slow down. Since this just affects your server and not anyone else, DreamHost doesn't need to take any drastic action other than maybe recommending that you buy increased limits.

If you've bumped up your PS to 100% and are still having problems, then you've maxed the capacity of a dedicated server. Since the server is now, by definition, dedicated solely to you, you're not affecting other customers and aren't going to be subject to any drastic actions.

BTW, this is all assuming that you have both PS for your web server and PS for you MySQL server.

In reply to:
Does Dreamhost mitigate the DDoS? If I want to leave for a two-node cluster in another hosting company, is it possible to get a manual backup of the database if it's a big database? I'm asking because I know some companies would just terminate the account (files & database) and ignore customer emails. I've seen testimonials of similar behavior from DH on the WHT forum. I don't know how far these were genuine testimonials.

I don't recall ever reading about any DreamHost reaction to DDOS against a customer site here on the forums, so I can't provide any real advice here.

Have you contacted DreamHost for pre-sales support questions via the following form?
http://dreamhost.com/contact.cgi

If you're talking about buying multiple maxed out PS'es or dedicated servers, I'm sure they'd be happy to answer your questions. They seem to be happy enough in answering questions from us lowly $9.95 a month shared hosting customers. :) (my self-categorization, not theirs)