MediaTemple down for 30+ hours | Hacker News Reader

MediaTemple down for 30+ hours

blog.robwebb2k.com

11 pointsrwebb23 comments

Sick of Dreamhost, I turned to MediaTemple today. I knew that spending an extra $7 on my existing $10-a-month bill wouldn't be a problem, but I just had a bad feeling about it.

I successfully switched 12 domain names in under 3 hours, and focused on getting mail and everything else working. As I was working it struck me, why the hell did I sign up with this host? Understanding that their (GS) systems are based on one domain, with a piggy back system of extra "containers" for applications, I realized that I bought myself into a crappy host that I will not enjoy throughout my time with them.

I am not hating on (MT), but as a liberal developer, I believe that XPanel with a pretty skin is not the host for me.

What's wrong with Dreamhost?

The MySQL server isn't keeping up with my framework's queries.

They will work with you on getting moved to a faster/better server. They fixed everything for me within twenty minutes of my email.

I've used both Dreamhost and MediaTemple for hosting rails apps. I would recommend neither for anything serious.

I still use Dreamhost to host some non-critical stuff and very low traffic site (like my blog that nobody reads), store backups, and host my SVN repository, because it is so cheap and they give you an enormous amount of space and bandwidth. If you want a very cheap Dreamhost account, sign up with promo code SIDVISCOSITY and choose the L1 plan and 1-year prepay. This code gives you $97 off, which comes out to about $25 for the whole year (I profit nothing from this).

MediaTemple's grid server sounded great, but we had a similar 24-hour+ crisis once that made me look elsewhere. Also, they lock down their servers so much, you can't really run anything other than the standard RoR stack without jumping through hoops and pulling teeth. See previous blog posts with MediaTemple gripes: http://blog.wamily.com/articles/tag/mediatemple

The ultimate solution for hosting (a Rails app) is just get your own VPS from a reliable provider. I recommend RimuHosting (http://rimuhosting.com), and I am running two Ubuntu VPS's there. When we switched from MediaTemple to Rimu, I measured a 50x increase in speed in multiple areas of my app. For those who don't know, a VPS your own virtual server. You truly get your own OS, your own database server, with root access and everything, but it's on shared hardware so its far cheaper than a dedicated box. The MicroVPS2 plan at Rimu is $30/mth ... thats what I recommend for a starter Rails hosting setup. Rimu does a very good job helping you get set up initially, but you will need some Linux admin skills to really roll with it. This is good stuff to know though, so now is a good time to learn. I'm happy to answer YC'ers questions if you email me.

If you sign up for Rimu, please tell them that wamily.com sent you.

Grid servers are a cool idea, but there haven't been good reports on either mosso or mediatemple. (See webhostingtalk.com) Last time I checked, the grids didn't run all the software a standard VPS would run, and they also frequently had issues. Has anyone had a good experience running on a grid, i.e., one that was better than a collection of dedicated machines or VPSes?

Can I ask (as someone who runs a small colocation-oriented provider), what set of criteria do you use and what is a typical budget for your sites?

+1 with this, particularly sucks for anyone on (mt) working on a fb app since the latency makes fb's proxy time out.

fb seems like the most likely thing i can think of that made them implode if they truly had a "spike in demand"

MediaTemple is incredibly mediocre but no one else gives you a TB of bandwidth for $17/month.

Have you actually tried to use the whole TB? :) I think this deal is along the lines of "unlimited" internet that cable companies offer and "unlimited" hosting that many shared hosts "provide."

No, I haven't come close, I just got suckered in when I was looking at different hosting companies and they had the best numbers. One difference between them and other "unlimited" hosting is that I think they do mean it -- I asked them if they had a simultaneous connection limit or any of the tricks other shared hosting providers used to cut people off that use to much bandwidth and they said no.

I would switch to a $20/month VPS like slicehost that provides a tenth as much bandwidth but I don't really need to set up my own services at this point and I don't have much motivation to switch, though I really should before my startup is launched. Latency is kind of bad too, my sites just feel slow when they load.

What host would that be? url please? :D

the first one is http://www.mediatemple.com and the second one is http://www.slicehost.com

Dreamhost gives you plenty.

Yes they do. Are there any coupon codes to get waived setup fees on month to month payment plans?

Coupon code: PROMOY1L197

Choose yearly option. Comes out to $22/year.

slicehost is great, if your not 'in with in crowd' to get free hosting from mt.

if you pay(money) for it, you'll at some pay(downtime) for it.

I'm speaking from shared hosting/grid experience, not their dedicated stuff

slightly unrelated, but I have been on a few mid to high-spec (mt) (dv) boxes for a few years and haven't had any big problems other than things I inflicted upon myself like trying to install PHP5 or a new OS.

we're switching to M5

http://www.m5hosting.com/

great prices and great service so far

slicehost are great http://www.slicehost.com/

I believe that is my new choice in a host.

yeah, everyone seems to love them. they're at capacity now, they have a waiting list.

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