semi-dedicated

[stocktrader]

I was just wondering why semi-dedicated hosting is so under-recognized and "under-offered" as a hosting option. As someone who runs a medium-traffic site, I went through a $5 per month pseudo-unlimited host for 6 years. During the last few years of the service I wanted a host that would give me more than a shared host would because I had a couple of instances where I wrestled with the host because I was pushing the resource limits.

 

I had no interest in upgrading to a VPS. Many entrepreneurial webmasters are sole proprietors who are already dipping their toes into so many technical areas (coding, design, etc) that they can't risk in getting tied up in learning additional server admin stuff (no matter how easy it is).

 

I was basically looking for a shared environment where I could get more resources. I tried Googling for what I was looking for ("shared plus", "shared host without overselling") but most web results (and webmaster recommendations) simply pointed me to "Business Hosting" shared plans where you would get more bandwidth and disk space but not a less-crowded hosting environment. At my old shared host, many customers even offered to buy multiple accounts in order to get more resources, but the host had no interest.

 

It wasn't until my site was (understandably) shut down by my old shared host that I was forced to do a frantic search for a new host. I pretty much stayed up 2 straight days looking for a better host because I didn't simply want to go to another shared host and repeat the problems. Somehow through my Googling, I stumbled upon the concept of "semi-dedicated". But even after doing extensive comparisons, there were only about 5-10 different companies who offered this service.

 

I understand that most small webmasters run sites that are low traffic and shared hosts get good economies of scale by clumping all of them together. But there are still many webmasters who are constantly worried because they run medium-sized sites (like forums) on shared hosts and need to upgrade but they don't have the money to upgrade to dedicated. And they don't even know that they have a viable alternative in semi-dedicated. Whenever these amateur webmasters post on Sitepoint or WebHostingTalk looking for advice about upgrading their hosting from shared, most experienced webmasters don't recommend semi-dedicated because it seems they don't even know what semi-dedicated even is. Whenever you do mention it, many of these experienced webmasters assume you are referring to VPS.

 

But semi-dedicated is exactly the service that so many growing webmasters are in need of - many times the resources, zero server admin headaches, and reasonable cost. Semi-dedicated also provides tremendous value. From the pricing on MDD, it seems like you are getting something like 12 times the resources for something like 3 times the price.

[TotalZen]

MDD's semi-dedicated plans are the best deal you're going to find

on the net. I used to use HostGator's but they cancelled these plans

and switched to VPS's. That's when I left - as VPS's are only suitable

for sites with load issues or special configuration needs, IMHO.

 

I agree that semi-dedicated should be the norm as a transition between shared and

dedicated, not VPS's. The latter simply gives less bang for the buck.

[ttfan]

My thoughts exactly stocktrader. I went through exactly the same steps...requiring too much resources in shared hosting but not wanting to havr the learn everything about VPS hosting. This is how I got here as well!