You might have some trouble visiting the site today, because I’m switching hosts for the second time in three days.
Why am I switching from MediaTemple? Well, first let me tell you why I wanted to host with them in the first place. On their website they boast that you for only $20/month get 1000 GB of bandwidth and 100 GB of ‘premium storage’ - whatever that means. Now, what I needed was bandwidth, and lots of it. TutorialMagazine is a graphic-intensive site, serving up many gigabytes a day of tutorial screenshots. I needed a host that could serve up these images and leave me room to grow. I thought MediaTemple was that host.
However, MediaTemple gives you a limit of 1000 GPUs per month. A GPU is a Grid Processing Unit, or a measure of how much server processing power your site is consuming. I assumed that I wouldn’t use anywhere near the allotted 33 GPUs per day (1000 GPUs/30 days in a month). However, I found that during the days I was on MediaTemple, I used about 10 GPUs every day! Over the past month we’ve gotten around 1000 visitors a day, which isn’t much compared to some other great tutorial sites out there (like photoshoplady and tutsplus). I hope the site will grow, but with MediaTemple my growth would be capped at around 3000 visitors per day. It doesn’t matter if they offer a billion gigabytes of bandwidth, I still wouldn’t get to use them because of the GPU limit. Here’s a look at yesterdays GPU usage report:
Now, I did try to reduce my GPU usage by caching queries to the database and optimizing the site in general, but I didn’t see significant improvements.
I found ANHosting, that provide 5000GBs of bandwidth/month and only cost $6.95/month (when you sign up for two years), and I’m in the process of moving the entire site to their servers now. I did have an issue with cPanel not showing the correct bandwidth limit (it says 5000MB instead of 5000GB)..but a support guy told me in a live chat (very handy btw) that they would get it fixed.
So far, so good.
I’d love to hear about your MediaTemple/ANHosting experiences. Why not leave your comment below?
I could launch into a mile long rant about exactly how I feel about MediaTemple …in fact, I did. I wrote this long diatribe about how much I hated their downtime and their useless support, right as I was in the process of moving all my domains off of their servers.
I never published the rant anywhere, but suffice it to say, I was pretty angry with them.
It’s really sad, because they started with such promise, but so many users were (and clearly still are) having issues with the Grid Servers that it’s got to be killing them.
I hear the dedicated servers don’t suffer the same issues, but you definitely made the right decision getting off their service quickly.
Best of luck with the new server and the site.
Thanks for your comment Liz!
It annoys me how everyone who has trouble with the Grid is just asked to move to a dedicated server. That’s not a way to run a business.
Luckily, I was within my 30 day money back window to get out from mediatemple with a full refund. No complaints yet with anhosting, great support and everything.
I love your site by the way, great color scheme and content. I’ll be a regular visitor, for sure
- I have so many Threadless shirts my closet is overflowing.
Jørgen,
TutorialMagazine.com
huh oh… I have just moved to MT a few days ago, and I planned to build a site similar to my current blog in content, but better designed.. I don’t get a lot of traffic yet, but after reading you rant here, im feeling a little bit uneasy…
You say AN Hosting has 5000GB of bandwidth, but what does that have to do with GPUs? I am with Media Temple, and have never had a bandwidth problem, as you haven’t either by your entry. Your problem is with their GPU allotment. So what does AN Hosting offer in terms of GPUs a month? Are they on a grid server? Can they handle a heavy traffic surge or will they pull the site offline to reserve resources? It seems your comparison is uneven. I am looking for a host who can better handle my GPU usage as well, but I don’t think AN Hosting should be touted as the alternative without a fair and even comparison.
Tracey, thanks for your comment. I’ve looked into it, and ANhosting offer an almost identical restriction in terms of CPU load. Here’s from their support page: “While our shared services are suitable for the bulk of our customers, there comes a time for some websites when they are better suited for a larger plan, which allows for more dedicated CPU and memory resources. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to discontinue service to any customer with a website or other hosted data that takes up more than 10% of the resources of the server’s CPU. This means that if your website is found to be utilizing more than 10% of the CPU and memory of the service, we reserve the right to take your site offline. If this becomes necessary, you can either upgrade your hosting package, or request a pro-rated refund of the amounts you have paid in advance for the services. Due to the severity of this, and our ability to act quickly to correct these situations to avoid server issues, we will do everything reasonably feasible to provide you with a warning prior to taking your site offline, but we accept no obligation to do so.”
However, I’ve still not to hear from ANhosting that I’m breaching the 10% limit. With mediatemple, I was guaranteed to cross the threshold with fewer visitors than I have today. If nothing else, I get the same service for much less money. I should have made a more fair comparison, the post was written in a burst of anger and frustration
I’m very happy with ANhosting so far, in terms of support at least. Their server uptime could be better.
Would that we could trade the greatest leaders of our time for ONE that held reverence and respect for our Constitution, the ideals, and propositions it set forth. It was not set up to be interpreted, ignored, and twisted to meet the desires and whims of whatever lack-wit decides to abuse that great work for their own gain.
ignored, and twisted to meet the desires and whims of whatever lack-wit decides to abuse that great work for their own gain.