Ask HN: Which web hosting provider should I use?

Hivelocity has great prices + cloud (http://hivelocity.net/ and http://hivelocity.net/specials for dedicated server bargains)

Softlayer has great support + cloud (http://softlayer.com)

Heroku has a ton of convenience (http://heroku.com)

They can all easily provide the hardware etc necessary.

I love Dreamhost for bulk hosting. Here's why:

http://dylanized.com/the-dreamhost-control-panel-is-made-for...

Not sure about database size.

A very inexpensive and reliable option is Bluehost.com Their support is quite good. Have used them for 7 years. I handle a lot of traffic, more than 500k page views per month.