Help with DECENT hosting for BUSY site
 

Here's the thing - been working on one site for the last 2 years, and now it's paying off. The site has been growing every day, and I started out on a (decent) shared host. I run an adult blog, and I use a super cache to server HTML files and keep the database load minimal (the cache doesn't even invoke PHP to serve the HTML files). Today has been my busiest day so far with 65,000 uniques, 37GB of bandwidth and 340,000 hits. I'm way, way under my disk space and bandwidth (not even 15% of what I'm allotted), but every time I go over 300,000 hits per day I get an email stating my account could be suspended temporarily for "high load". They don't have any other accounts or services other than the shared account at all - so I'm probably going to have to get off to a new web host that can accomodate me.

Here's the thing, I've used both VPS, and Dedicated hosts. Even though a shared host is shared with a bazillion other sites, most aren't that busy - and the shared server has like either 8 or 16GB of ram. When you go onto a VPS you usually get at max 2GB of RAM and on a Dedi you usually get 2 or 4GB to start. Before I started using the super cache when I had a site with 15,000 uniques per day it would max out a VPS with 2GB RAM, and even sometimes tax the 4GB dedi at 20-25,000. I think now with the cached site those problems are gone because super cache says it can serve 250,000 pages per day no problem (and I'm assuming a VPS or Dedi could handle that).

Having give that explanation - I'm sure that one of you has a fairly busy site like this one, what do you USE and what do you PAY per month? I know I need to make a move, but going from paying like $45 every 6 months to say $100 a month is a big jump.

Make your recommendations for hosting and what YOU would do if this were your site now.

thanks!

Well i would certainly like you to consider Caro.Net as the new home for your site.

While a VPS might handle that for awhile, why not avoid the issue of having to move again in the near future and let me work you deal. We currently have some great unadvertised specials and in addition I can offer you some incentives to help ease the move.

Hit me up directly and lets tailor the details to your specifications!

dedi's are way more expensive then shared hosting, it surprices me that you were able to stay that long on a shared plan.
I'm guessing you are using wordpress and wp super cache?
I'm paying 99$+ control panel (15$) a month for duocore 2,4gHz and 2Gb ram, 2500Gb transfer a month. It all depends on how much your site is bringing in, if your site goes on overload causing 10% visitors not to access your site and those 10% bring in more then a dedi costs ... then you should change right away.

btw why are you only looking ram wise, i think cpu will tick on harder then the ram. For instance some VPS plans are allowed to use the same cpu rate on all plans but only the ram gets upgraded. So it doesnt matter for me using a 512 ram vps or a 2gb ram vps since its the cpu that kills it.

Try Exmasters or sig for virtual.

where are you getting your hosting deal? The link for JaguarPC you gave has sucky bandwidth.

www.phatservers.com ...

iweb.com they are the best and cheap.

For VPS go for jaguarpc tho

http://www.ServerProvider.com/dedicated.html

Contact me on icq 311848143 or aim sami1080.
I'll work you out a good package.

We are a fully managed service with 24/7 tech support and server monitoring as well!

contact the host in my siggy

Shoot me an email and I would be happy to sent you a quote for what you're looking for. It may be a solution to think about combining a dedicated server with some CDN delivery.

Thanks

Andy K
CCBill & CaveCreek Sales
andy @ ccbill.com

You can try http://www.exmasters.com, help with moving of content (without any downtime) included!

WordPress can be a CPU killer depending on what plugins you are/aren't running.
super-cache is definitely recommended.

So you pay 7.50 a month? If you're site is that busy I think you need to spend a little more than that. What is your budget?

Soft Layer. I am not affiliated with them in any way and have no vested interest in recommending them.