Hi, I have a friend who's using http://dreamhost.com, and just wondering if anyones used them before?

-Nathan

Yep, I am using them at the moment. Fantastic service

Jamie

Good Service! No more words! Get coupon for Dream Host here!

i was considering them a year ago but they realllllly oversell tho

There are $97 off Dreamhost coupons out there. A Google search can reveal quite a few of them easily.

i was considering them a year ago but they realllllly oversell tho

All compaqnies oversell little bit. But it is nothing bad with that.
Main thing is service. If there are more companies like dreamhost, valuhost.com, namecheap.com it will be really great.

I was put off using Dream Host as I've heard a lot of bad things about it:

http://www.upstartblogger.com/why-dreamhost-sucks

I know this won't be received as intended, but that doesn't usually stop me

Until this thread, I'd only heard negative things about DreamHost - mainly related to frequent outages (some with data loss), and very very slow database servers.

Based on that, in your position, I'd probably be looking for an alternative.

However, it depends on your needs... there are loads of coupons out there which enable you to get hosting from DreamHost for very little, and therefore if you just want/need some hosting for a small amount of development work or something like that - maybe it's the right provider for you.

I certainly wouldn't look to host my ecommerce site, or other revenue generating website with them though, as I think the only thing I'd be able to rely on would be losing money at some stage as a direct result of their low quality.

So it depends what you're looking for from your hosting service...

Good luck in your search anyway.

I've been with dreamhost for a few months now and there was only 1 outage that last 30 minutes, all it took was an email and the website was up and running again in less than 5.

Their service is the best I have seen and I can't fault them

Jamie

Hmm, it's a pretty good deal, especially with that coupon. I was assumed they were overselling disk space since the starter plan says you get 145.6 GB.

Just a question. How do you know how much a host oversells? I know it has something to do with the amount of CPU% that you use, but I don't know how to actually find that out?

EVERYONE oversells disk space. Even the people that you think aren't overselling their space, they are. Otherwise, they would never be able to make a profit.

Originally Posted by Nathand

Just a question. How do you know how much a host oversells? I know it has something to do with the amount of CPU% that you use, but I don't know how to actually find that out?

There's two distinct points here:

• Overloading a server (putting too many customers/sites/domains etc. on 1 server)
• Overselling a server (selling more resources than are available)

They are closely linked, but not necessarily the same thing. An oversold server would usually be overloaded, but not always.

Without full access to the hosting provider's servers etc. then you have virtually no way of knowing if (and how much) they're overselling. There are a number of indicators to this though:

• Lots of domains on the same IP might suggest that a server is serving pages for more domains than it is likely to be able to handle. This is a bad way to tell though since 1 really busy site can consume all the resources of a typical shared hosting server easily... so that would be just 1 domain! Likewise, you could have someone who has 50 domains all pointed to their tiny personal website that only they ever visit - hence very little load on the server
• Reports of frequent instability - the hosting service is unreliable. Obviously this can be caused by lots of things, but one potential reason is that the server runs out of resources (e.g. memory) to handle the number of requests etc. for all of the sites it's hosting
• IMO the best way to determine if a host is overselling is to do the math! Consider that a decent dedicated server may cost in the region of $200-$500/month - that gets you hardware and transit. On top of that you need 24x7 support technicians, various software (e.g. cPanel, Plesk etc.), backup space etc. Lets say that this server has 500GB of usable disk space. If a provider is selling a plan to you including 100GB of space for $10/mo then it's easy to see that they're not going to cover their costs! Hence to do so they must be overselling (since they'll sell more than 500GB worth of space in their hosting plans to make money on that server).

I think the CPU usage issue you're referring to is the fact that many providers who build plans that are unsustainable (i.e. if you use the amount of resources "on offer" the service won't work) also have conditions in their terms that prevent you from using more than x% of the resources - such as CPU, network etc.

This allows them to terminate/suspend etc. your account if you use more than they'd like, and because it's difficult for you to measure your own CPU usage, then it's also very very easy for them to hide behind for whatever reason they want!

The problem is that all hosts will include a clause like this in their standard terms, because it has a genuine purpose regardless of the amount of overselling (or lack of) - any size of account can eat up all the CPU with badly written or otherwise resource intensive scripts... so hosts have to be able to defend themselves against this scenario.

Originally Posted by mackaltman

EVERYONE oversells disk space. Even the people that you think aren't overselling their space, they are. Otherwise, they would never be able to make a profit.

Overselling's about marketing - making a profit is about charging a market acceptable rate for the service... assuming that rate's higher than your overheads, then you have a profit.

You don't have to oversell to make a profit - you just have to convince your clients that they don't actually need 200GB space for their 5MB website! Then you can easily sell your 5MB plans and make a profit without lying to people

Haha, I know what a profit is. And if 90% of all customers ask for more than they need, another 50% of all those customers want something that is automated when signing up for hosting. It's better that you have the customer hooked first, then later let them know that they can reduce their plan. However, as far as profiting for most of these hosting companies, they start off as resellers, therefore they need to oversell in order to make a profit. Charging more than the industry accepted value, would result in an unsuccessful business.

I have also been using DreamHost for about one and half years. I really like their control panel. I think it is really worth to host with them. However, they have a website www.dreamhoststatus.com where you can check what is happening in the moment. They rarely have downtime or troubles which I don't like.

i have heard a lot of good things about them. i think they are reliable as well.. and thats all you really want...

However, as far as profiting for most of these hosting companies, they start off as resellers, therefore they need to oversell in order to make a profit.

Not really. As a reseller you're rarely in the position to outbid 1and1, Godaddy, Dreamhost or other big players. Small providers, with limited financial backing, must fill in the niches in the market.

These days, the big companies are spearheading the overselling trends, not the small resellers.

I agree with that; overselling isn't something that only resellers are up to - although it's almost certainly most dangerous in that situation. For resellers, it's more likely to have financial implications for them - a large company can be expected to (be able to) put up with a little more heavy usage without it all going wrong.

However, in the interests of fairness and quality, why take these risks and go for someone you know is overselling massively compared to another potential provider?

We have a few clients that still have or did have hosting accounts with Dreamhost, and from what we can tell, their service is ok, but not as ok as it could be.

We havent alot to go on, but from what we've seen, their uptime isnt the greatest (for our clients anyway)

Mind you, we are in Australia so anything could be going on between here and there.

Regards,

Dale Evans
Manager

I'm with Dreamhost at the moment. I'm fairly happy with the service they offer. They $97 off deal is very good. I've been with them for about 6 months. I have to say that once my first year is up I will probably switch to somewhere else. Why? Well, although their web hosting is great I've had quite a few problems with their email service over the past 3 weeks or so... long delays for emails to reach me etc. I'm currently looking for a separate email provider (I want an exchange host anyway) so this isn't a big deal. I'm on the lookout for a decent VPS at a good price with CPanel to replace dreamhost at the moment (much prefer CPanel to the Dreamhost panel although it is quite functional).