General Announcements http://forums.mddhosting.com/index.php Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:46:55 +0000 60 Current Specials http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/273-current-specials/ One year for $38.25 - two years for $76.50 - monthly at $6.38 or monthly at 10% Off on any standard shared plan!
The coupon code "half-price" gives 50% off on a one time basis on top of any other automatic discounts bringing a year of basic shared hosting to $38.25 and two years to $76.50! This coupon only applies to one and two year hosting plans.

Should you wish to go month-to-month you can receive a 10% recurring discount with the coupon code "10off"! Offers valid only on standard shared hosting accounts. Limit 1 promotion per order, not valid with any other offer. Promotion valid for new customers only.
]]> Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:46:55 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/273-current-specials/ How to do a SOPA website protest while minimizing the impact with Google http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/676-how-to-do-a-sopa-website-protest-while-minimizing-the-impact-with-google/ @mattcutts tweeted the link saying "Here's how to do a SOPA website protest while minimizing the impact with Google: https://plus.google.com/115984868678744352358/posts/Gas8vjZ5fmB"

The advice holds true for any time you want have a blackout or maintenance page and not hurt your Google rankings.

Don't forget that many major websites are participating in the SOPA blackout this Wednesday. If you plan to join in, now is the time to plan how you will participate. More information regarding the SOPA blackout can be found on http://sopablackout.org/]]> Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:46:30 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/676-how-to-do-a-sopa-website-protest-while-minimizing-the-impact-with-google/ It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you keep all of your scripts UP TO DATE! http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/660-it-is-extremely-important-that-you-keep-all-of-your-scripts-up-to-date/
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Updated Abridged Version:
  • Keep all of your scripts up-to-date at all times without exception. Examples of scripts: WordPress, Joomla, Magento, Drupal, etc...
  • If you are not using a script, uninstall it. A script you are not actively using is likely to become severely outdated and, as such, become a severe secrity risk to your entire account.
  • If you are running any plugins/hacks/modifications - keep them up to date. It's a common misconception that due to a plugin being "inactive" or "disabled" it cannot be used against you - and this is incorrect. If you are not going to use it, remove it or make sure you keep it up to date at least.

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Many hosting customers do not realize the issues caused by running outdated scripts and insecure plugins, as most do not deal with compromised accounts on a regular basis. It's a misconception that the server has to be insecure for an account to be compromised. Any account running an outdated script, plugin, or theme can easily be exploited and then used for purposes not intended by the webmaster such as sending SPAM or outbound DoS attacks.

When a script is updated, it is not only done to release new features. There are often SQL injections and other issues that give attackers the opportunity to gain access to your script, your account, and your file system that are patched with new releases and updates. When an attacker uses one of these exploits - more often than not - they are not doing it just to destroy your site. An attacker will usually leave your site alone as not to attract attention, and then will upload malicious files such as a spam script or dos script.

Recently we have had a large number of accounts that have been compromised due to outdated or unused scripts, and the attackers are uploading attack scripts to the servers. As our servers have ultra-high-speed connections (1,000 megabit) this makes them a perfect tool for taking others offline - and means that our entire network and all of our customers suffer when an attacker uses one of our servers to perform outbound attacks.

You may think that it's not going to happen to you or that it's a rare occurrence, and I assure you that it's not. We have suspended no less than 10 accounts over the last 24 hours due to outbound attacks and compromised scripts. We do perform a full server security audit every time we investigate one of these cases to ensure the issue isn't something on our end, and those investigations have all come back clean.

Please check your account(s) and make sure that all of your scripts, plugins, and themes that you are using are UP TO DATE and that you've removed any that you are not actively making use of. Just because a plugin is "disabled" or a theme is not in use does not mean that it cannot be used against you by an attacker. Any accounts found to be sending outbound SPAM or DoS attacks can potentially be permanently suspended. If you've ever installed a script "just to test" or to mess around with it, it is VERY important that you remove that script or make sure that it's fully up to date.

We are taking this issue very seriously as it's been causing network outages to individual servers periodically as an attack crops up and we have to identify the source and disable the account. This is bad for the customer whose script is exploited, bad for others on the same servers we may have to temporarily disable the network while we find the culprit, and bad for our entire network as the traffic and packet flows can cause slowness and packet loss.

In the event that your account is compromised due to outdated software, you may want to look at the services offered by Sucuri Security.

If you have any questions at all about this, please let us know.]]> Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:06 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/660-it-is-extremely-important-that-you-keep-all-of-your-scripts-up-to-date/ WHMCS Version 5.0.3 Available for Download (Reseller Accounts Only) http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/659-whmcs-version-503-available-for-download-reseller-accounts-only/
If you are currently using a WHMCS license from us, you can download an updated copy of WHMCS from our billing system at https://www.mddhosting.com/support/login.php -> My Services -> Product Details (The little white page with a green arrow) -> Downloads (listed towards the bottom of the page).

Keep in mind that this is WHMCS and not WHM - if you do not know what WHMCS is, then chances are this does not apply to you.]]> Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:12:32 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/659-whmcs-version-503-available-for-download-reseller-accounts-only/ BlogPress SEO is Malware http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/351-blogpress-seo-is-malware/
There have been reports of a new WordPress plugin called BlogPress SEO that could result in your blog or WordPress website being hacked if it is installed. Please do NOT install this plugin.

You can read more information here: http://mtekk.us/archives/enemy-of-the-spammers/blogpress-seo-malware/

If you have already installed the plugin, please contact us ASAP so we can check if your WordPress site or WP-Admin details have been compromised.

If you have any questions, please respond here or open a support ticket.]]> Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:19:41 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/351-blogpress-seo-is-malware/ <![CDATA[[Critical] WHMCS Security Update Affecting All Versions]]> http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/653-critical-whmcs-security-update-affecting-all-versions/
WHMCS has announced a critical security patch which can be found at http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?p=206522.  You can download the appropriate file for the version you're running, extract it, and then upload the functions.php file to the "includes" folder inside of your WHMCS installation.  If you need assistance with this - WHMCS Support is available to you directly at https://www.whmcs.com/members/submitticket.php?step=2&deptid=13.

WHMCS Version 5.0 is out, and we suggest downloading and upgrading your installation, if you have not already.  The download can be found in our billing system at https://www.mddhosting.com/support/login.php -> My Services -> Product Details (Little white page with green arrow) -> Downloads (towards the bottom of the page).]]> Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:54:07 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/653-critical-whmcs-security-update-affecting-all-versions/ <![CDATA[[Resolved] PayPal Subscriptions Not Posting Properly]]> http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/652-resolved-paypal-subscriptions-not-posting-properly/
Should you receive a notice that your invoice is overdue, by all means, please get with the billing department at https://www.mddhosting.com/support/submitticket.php?step=2&deptid=4 and provide us the PayPal Transaction ID to your payment and we'll apply it to your invoice and account so that you do not experience service interruption.

We are going to be temporarily pushing out the suspension grace period from the normal 2 days to 14 days until this issue is fully resolved.]]> Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:19:01 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/652-resolved-paypal-subscriptions-not-posting-properly/ Black Friday 2011 - 60% Off Shared, Reseller, and Semi-Dedicated Accounts http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/643-black-friday-2011-60-off-shared-reseller-and-semi-dedicated-accounts/
We're excited to announce our 2011 Black Friday deal! The coupon code will be valid for 60% off of any billing term on any shared, reseller, or semi-dedicated account and there is a maximum of 240 accounts that can be created with this promotional code with them being disbursed on the hour, every hour, in batches of 10. Coupon uses do not carry over from one hour to the next and once the coupon uses are used per hour, there will be no more until the following hour.

The coupon code for Black Friday 2011 is "blackfriday". We know ... creative, right? :)

Starting at 12:01 AM EST our front page will display details on the promotion such as how many coupon uses are available for the hour, how long until more coupon uses are issued, and a countdown until the end of Black Friday.

This promotion is only available to new accounts from new customers and only applies to shared, reseller, and semi-dedicated level accounts. The coupon code is valid only on 11/25/2011 from 12:01 AM EST to 11:59 PM EST.]]> Sun, 27 Nov 2011 09:05:26 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/643-black-friday-2011-60-off-shared-reseller-and-semi-dedicated-accounts/ WordPress - WP Super Cache - and LiteSpeed http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/613-wordpress-wp-super-cache-and-litespeed/
WordPress Super Cache is an EXCELLENT plugin and we strongly suggest all of our users running WordPress run WordPress Super Cache. When configuring WP Super Cache we recommend using the following options:
Posted Image

Once you have checked and/or unchecked the right boxes you will scroll down and click the "Update Status" button right below all of the settings you just changed.

Lower down on the page it may tell you that your mod_rewrite rules need updating - and you can click the button to have WP Super Cache update the rules for you automatically, or you can do so manually if you desire.]]> Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:53:46 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/613-wordpress-wp-super-cache-and-litespeed/ Free Domain with a new annual hosting plan! http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/596-free-domain-with-a-new-annual-hosting-plan/ new shared, semi-dedicated, or reseller hosting account with us you can receive a free domain registration or transfer with the coupon code "freedomain" when ordering a plan on a 12 month or longer pre-payment. New and existing customers are eligible for this promotion, however, only new hosting accounts are eligible. This promotion cannot be applied on renewals or upgrades. Only one domain per order will be discounted. This coupon code is not valid with any other offer or coupon - limit 1 coupon per order.

Eligible domains: .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz.

If you have any questions, let us know!]]> Thu, 15 Sep 2011 00:42:30 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/596-free-domain-with-a-new-annual-hosting-plan/ <![CDATA[Internet Thievery - "Providers" who have stolen our new design.]]> http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/577-internet-thievery-providers-who-have-stolen-our-new-design/
It's unfortunate that they would steal a design and then take so much time to butcher it when they could have gotten a free [and legal] design somewhere else.

I guess this is what thieves will resort to.

Posted ImagePosted Image

For more details, you can check my blog post here.]]> Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:46:10 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/577-internet-thievery-providers-who-have-stolen-our-new-design/ If you are already using CloudFlare - *DO NOT* use the cPanel CloudFlare Plugin http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/564-if-you-are-already-using-cloudflare-do-not-use-the-cpanel-cloudflare-plugin/
I believe that the cPanel CloudFlare plugin should warn about this or, at the least, check for an existing account and then provide a warning that a nameserver update would be required to prevent the site from going offline and that you should contact your hosting provider.

We're working with CloudFlare over this, as a few of our customers have experienced this issue.]]> Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:58:47 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/564-if-you-are-already-using-cloudflare-do-not-use-the-cpanel-cloudflare-plugin/ CloudFlare - Now available from within your cPanel http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/560-cloudflare-now-available-from-within-your-cpanel/
CloudFlare protects and accelerates any website online. Once your website is a part of the CloudFlare community, its web traffic is routed through our intelligent global network. We automatically optimize the delivery of your web pages so your visitors get the fastest page load times and best performance. We also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. The result: CloudFlare-powered websites see a significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks.

On average, a website on CloudFlare ...

... loads up to twice as fast
... uses up to 60% less bandwidth

... has up to 65% fewer requests
... is more secure
 against attacks
All for free!

Running a website includes all sorts of hassles like making sure your site loads quickly and that it is protected against spammers. CloudFlare makes running a website easier by taking care of it for you.

Stats and reports
You have good tools to examine human traffic coming to your site, but no insight into search engine crawlers and bots. With CloudFlare, now you do. You get an Analytics report with information that you didn't have before.

Threat control dashboard
CloudFlare protects your site from online threats like spammers and hackers. The threat control dashboard shows you the threats that have been stopped from accessing your site. You can also easily block IP addresses and countries.

Always online
As a website owner, you want your site available for your visitors. Sometimes things happen and your server goes down. CloudFlare's "Always Online" feature keeps your site online, even if your server goes offline.

If you have any questions at all about CloudFlare there is a wealth of information available on their site at http://www.cloudflare.com/.]]> Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:29:11 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/560-cloudflare-now-available-from-within-your-cpanel/ <![CDATA[[Important] Keeping your Script Installations up to date is critical!]]> http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/553-important-keeping-your-script-installations-up-to-date-is-critical/
Across our network over the last week we have seen a large number of outdated WordPress installations that have been compromised for the purpose of uploading a phishing site and/or a spam script. Phishing is a serious issue and is something that we take very seriously. We've audited our servers and server security both internally and externally and have determined that the security issue lies with the outdated WordPress installations themselves and not a server-wide issue. The latest WordPress version as of this post is 3.2.

We ask that you, at this time, do please check all scripts that you have installed in your account to ensure that they are up to date. With WordPress it is as simple as logging into your WordPress dashboard as you will see a notice at the top letting you know if there is a new version available. For updating WordPress you can reference this short guide: Updating WordPress (Text Tutorial) or this video tutorial: Updating WordPress (Video Tutorial).

Do keep in mind that by not updating your software installations you risk your account being used without your permission by hackers and other malicious users and that you could end up with your account suspended due to malicious misuse of your account. We do realize that this misuse would not be intentional or even conducted by yourself, however, we cannot allow our services to be used knowingly or not for illegal purposes.

As of this post here are the statistics for our standard Shared and Reseller servers. Keep in mind that these are just WordPress installations alone.

Echo Server:
Total Installations: 1351
Out-of-date Installations: 1257 (93%)

Fresco Server:
Total Installations: 1068
Out-of-date Installations: 932 (87%)

Gemini Server:
Total Installations: 702
Out-of-date Installations: 513 (73%)]]> Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:13:26 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/553-important-keeping-your-script-installations-up-to-date-is-critical/ Over 800 video tutorials are now available! http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/545-over-800-video-tutorials-are-now-available/
Do please feel free to peruse the tutorials at your convenience:
http://www.mddhosting.com/support/tutorials.php

We do suggest bookmarking the tutorials URL for future reference.]]> Wed, 29 Jun 2011 07:29:05 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/545-over-800-video-tutorials-are-now-available/ Forum Layout Changed, New Site Design in the works! http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/481-forum-layout-changed-new-site-design-in-the-works/
We also upgraded our forums from IPB v3.0.X to IPB v3.1.X and in there were enough changes to the forum templates that it would be a lot of work to update the old integration with the current design to the new version of the forum. Since we're going to be bringing a new design online we're simply going to operate with the forum as you see it now until the new design is live.]]> Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:03:58 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/481-forum-layout-changed-new-site-design-in-the-works/ New MDDHosting.com Design - Seeking direct customer feedback. http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/495-new-mddhostingcom-design-seeking-direct-customer-feedback/
We're currently having our site fully redesigned and we're interested in hearing what our existing customers think about the new design as it progresses. If you're interested in seeing and critiquing the new design simply drop me a private message here on the forum with your primary domain and email address on file for your active hosting account(s) and we'll consider granting you access.

We will only be granting access to a select few customers of our choosing. If you are selected we will require a non-disclosure agreement simply covering the new design and any other information provided by us to you in relation to the new design or our plans for the new design as well as your feedback to us concerning said design and plans.

If you have any questions at all about this opportunity, feel free to ask them here.

Thanks!]]> Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:19:00 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/495-new-mddhostingcom-design-seeking-direct-customer-feedback/ Upgraded Network Graph on Server Status Page http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/485-upgraded-network-graph-on-server-status-page/
We did finally manage to upgrade the network graph on the server status page (http://www.mddhosting.com/support/serverstatus.php) with an Observium graph that shows total network traffic over the last 24 hours.]]> Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:44:28 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/485-upgraded-network-graph-on-server-status-page/ Open Letter - Semi-Dedicated Accounts and the Cypress Server http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/467-open-letter-semi-dedicated-accounts-and-the-cypress-server/ Important Update 04/17/2011
LiteSpeed Technologies, the company who produces our web server software, has released a new revision of their software that incorporates a feature that dramatically increases the web server speed and reliability especially under heavy load conditions such as during a backup. Please read this thread for full details:
http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/483-litespeed-41-released-aio-means-extremely-increased-reliability/

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This is a message that was emailed to all customers on our semi-dedicated platform including the Cypress server concerning recent performance and reliability issues we have faced on the platform as well as where we are taking the platform in the future.

1. Where we are now, what has happened, and why.

I am sending you this message, as well as posting it on our public forums, so that you can understand why we have been having the issues with the server your account is located on over the past week. It has always been my policy to be as open and honest with our customers and not to try and hide issues, spin issues, or otherwise provide any information that is less than accurate. Mistakes have definitely been made by us on several levels when it comes to our semi-dedicated offerings and these mistakes have caused the platform to be less reliable and to lack the performance that the platform is designed to have. I am going to go into detail as to what mistakes we have made, why those mistakes were made, and what plans we're putting in place to bring semi-dedicated back to it's planned levels of performance and reliability. I do understand that some of this may be too technical for some of you so if you need any part of this message clarified or explained in more detail, please do not hesitate to respond and let me know what you need clarified.

Originally we started offering services on Intel Quad Core servers with 4 GB of DDR2 RAM and RAID10 with four 250GB SATA2 hard disks. On these servers we were able to put around 250 accounts while maintaining high reliability and performance across the board for all of our clients on these servers. For a long time shared hosting is all we offered and the plans on these servers worked well for almost everybody without issues however there were a few customers who were running very heavy scripts and wanted more CPU and Disk I/O available for them to use as they needed. Upon putting great thought into the needs of this special set of customers we came up with our new semi-dedicated offerings.

Our semi-dedicated servers were originally the exact same configuration as our regular shared servers and the only difference was that instead of having up to 250 accounts they were originally limited to only 25 accounts. Running the same hardware with fewer accounts required higher price points for the accounts. With such a tight limit on the accounts we were able to take the total disk and bandwidth allocations for the server itself and evenly divide them up for our clients to use. This was an excellent platform for our customers who needed more CPU, RAM, and Disk space than our average customers.

Over time as we've worked to improve our services we've upgraded server hardware and even moved to fully owned hardware instead of leasing our equipment. There have been several hardware configurations between the original quad core servers and the current dual quad core servers with hyper-threading that all accounts are now served from. The servers we use now are extremely powerful and robust compared to the equipment that we originally started offering services on which has meant changes for all of our plans over time.

One large change for all plans was the move from SATA2 7.2k RPM drives to SAS 15k RPM drives. The SATA2 drives we had been running were enterprise class drives however there are many benefits to SAS drives in a busy server environment. The first major difference between the drives is that the maximum data capacity of SAS drives is substantially lower than the maximum capacity of a SATA2 drive. Currently the largest SAS 15k RPM drive you can get is 600 GB and costs on the order of $500 each where as the largest SATA2 7.2k RPM drive you can get is on the order of 2,000 GB at $220. The second major difference between a SAS drive and a SATA drive is the number of IOPS the drives can do, meaning the number of input and output operations per second. In a shared environment with a lot of random reading/writing such as a web server the higher the IOPS, the better the performance.

When we made the move from leased hardware to owned hardware we were facing an interesting situation on our semi-dedicated offerings that we had not faced with any other plans or hardware in the past. On our semi-dedicated servers we had plenty of CPU and RAM to go around however we were running out of disk space. The average regular shared customer uses under 1 GB of disk space and roughly less than half a percent of regular shared customers use anywhere near their actual disk allocations. We found over time that the opposite was true of semi-dedicated offerings and that the average semi-dedicated customer will use 34 GB of disk space and only roughly one half of a percent will use less than 1 GB of disk space.

Our first major mistake was increasing the disk allocations to semi-dedicated customers when we increased the disk allocations for all other plans including shared, reseller, and VPS offerings. We increased these allocations before we learned that the average semi-dedicated customer will use most of what they're given and, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. Our second major mistake when we went back to the higher capacity SATA2 disks to give the semi-dedicated servers the capacity they needed to service the accounts instead of admitting our first mistake and rectifying the situation by reducing allocations and making other changes to the accounts.

The primary reason we opted for going for the larger and slower disks instead of reducing the disk space allocated to the accounts was simply due to the trouble it would have caused our customers at the time and the fact that we believed that the SATA2 disks could keep up due to the extremely limited number of accounts and this is true 99% of the time. On average when there is not a backup being processed on the server or anything other system-wide that is disk intensive the semi-dedicated servers hum along beautifully and perform just as we had expected and intended.

As you likely know we've had performance and reliability issues with the server that you are on over about the last week and those reliability issues stem from two different yet related issues. The first issue is that we had upgraded to a newer version of the Operating System on the server as the new version promised improved disk performance and reliability and this was one of the major issues we had faced with the server your account is located on due to the slower SATA2 disks. It turns out that the version we had installed which was supposed to be stable was actually not as stable as expected and caused the server to crash every few nights at random times and almost always seemed to interrupt the R1Soft backup system that was running on the server to protect your data.

R1Soft requires a full server scan which can take up to 15 hours to perform as it backs up every bit of data on the server the first time that it runs. Each time the system runs after that point it is supposed to only look for data that has changed and then copy that data over which means that the process only takes between 30 and 120 minutes each night and tends not to inhibit performance. One major downside to R1Soft that has resulted in the issues the server has faced is that anytime a backup process is interrupted R1Soft will perform a full server scan again on the next cycle instead of checking for changed data as it should.

We feel that keeping up to date backups of the server and your data is of the utmost importance as a majority of hosting customers tend not to perform their own regular backups and, as such, we've run these backups although they have caused performance issues. We do use R1Soft as needed to restore files and databases for our customers when they make a mistake such as dropping the wrong database or they have other issues where they don't have their own backups and their site is damaged. We faced an issue last week where a database was not able to be restored via it's raw files on the disk to the server which resulted in the user having lost about 3 years worth of data in their database. Now understand this correctly - we didn't lose their data - the customer did be it a mistake on their part or a mistake in the script they were working with however we did do what we could to help them get their data back to no avail.

Having faced this issue with a database not being able to be restored via the raw files on the disk we ordered the MySQL add-on for R1Soft and activated it for the server your account is on. This module is supposed to make a complete MySQL replication of every database allowing us to restore down to the individual table level as needed instead of simply having to shotgun replace the entire database in the event that there is an issue with a database. This new module did not perform as expected and instead of taking a few minutes to back up the databases it actually lengthened the backup process each night from about an hour out to about 15 to 20 hours during which time the server was sluggish and nearly unresponsive. This is originally what caused issues at the start of this week.

After determining that the MySQL addon wasn't going to do what we needed to do and that it was causing more issues than it helped us solve we canceled the backup process and things returned to normal. As you know from my explanation above, R1Soft will perform an intensive full block scan on the server the next time the backup process is run which resulted in more performance and response issues while the backup system performed this process once again.

As of today we have full backups of the server that your account is on and the system will now go back to performing the short and less intensive backups of the server that should not degrade performance and should run less than an hour every night. This is good news but it's not the end of this message and we will be making changes to the semi-dedicated platform in the near future to eliminate these issues entirely and permanently.

2. Where we are going, what changes will be made, and why.

Having admitted the mistakes we've made we're going to now tell you what we plan on doing with our semi-dedicated platform in the future to remedy these mistakes. It's not going to be an easy transition for those that wish to go through with it however we're not going to force anybody to make the changes. If you're currently happy with your plan and service you are welcome to keep things as-is on the current server. Now that we have a full backup of the server and we're on a stable version of the operating system we plan on leaving things as-is for as long as possible to avoid the performance issues you have faced over the last week.

We are going to be bringing online a new server for semi-dedicated accounts using the same high speed SAS 15k RPM disk drives that we use in our shared, reseller, and VPS servers. What this means is that a full backup scan on the new server will only take 4 to 6 hours and that during this time performance will be impacted minimally. Due to the high speed of the SAS drives even while performing a full block scan the server should still be very responsive and the difference in load times should be on the order of milliseconds instead of seconds.

While performance, speed, and reliability will be increased by going to these high speed SAS drives the total storage capacity will be greatly reduced. Our current SATA2 powered semi-dedicated servers can house up to 2,700 GB of data where as our new server will max out at around 576 GB of data. The resulting major decrease in disk capacity means that we will be forced to greatly reduce the disk allocations of all semi-dedicated level plans. These plans are expected to range from 2 GB to 5 GB versus the current 25 GB to 100 GB while the pricing is expected to remain the same.

With disk allocations of 2 GB to 5 GB per account we can allow each and every customer to use 100% of their disk allocations and still place these customers on high speed SAS 15k RPM drives. Anybody who is currently on a semi-dedicated plan now would be welcome to make the transfer to the new server however the account will be required to conform to the new disk limits on the new server. Anybody who wishes to keep their current allocations will be welcome to stay on the existing server for as long as they keep their current account active. There is a possibility that we may be able to acquire the newer 600GB SAS15k RPM drives which would effectively double the capacity of the server as well as allowing us to double the allocations to 4 GB to 10 GB per account however we will need to have accounting run the numbers before we can determine if this is feasible.

Another option for existing semi-dedicated customers only is that we will provide you a Basic VPS at a recurring 50% discount. The number of VPS we can provision with this offer is limited so if this is something that you wish to take advantage of I would suggest doing so as soon as possible. One thing that I do wish to make clear before anybody says that even at 50% the VPS is too expensive is that we actually pay $10 per month for cPanel licensing per VPS which brings the maximum income we see per account would be $17.50 which is actually lower than the cheapest semi-dedicated account we're currently offering. Our goal in moving you to a VPS is not to make more money off of you but to improve the reliability and performance for you without greatly increasing your cost.

I do hope that you will get back to me with any of your thoughts, suggestions, opinions, etc... We do expect things to be stable on the server you are on for quite some time so if you do wish to wait a bit to see how things work out, that is up to you.

Thank you,]]> Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:45:05 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/467-open-letter-semi-dedicated-accounts-and-the-cypress-server/ Terms of Service Updated http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/444-terms-of-service-updated/ Hello!

We have updated section 7 of our Terms of Service outlining Resource Usage as pertaining to generating backups of accounts. Due to the size of many accounts on our services the backup generation process can cause performance issues for others on the server and in order to keep performance as high as possible we've outlined when it is appropriate to generate backups and set some guidelines for resellers generating backups of multiple accounts.

For all of the details please review sections 7b and 7c of our Terms of Service found at http://www.mddhosting.com/tos.php.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.]]> Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:00:32 +0000 http://forums.mddhosting.com/topic/444-terms-of-service-updated/