I recently got an E-mail from a reader of mine named Peter. It seems like Peter has some questions when it comes to the best way of getting Web hosting for a big project. Hopefully this will be of use to anybody else out there who has a big idea, but doesn’t know how to get it started, up and running Online. Knowing when to use a shared, reseller or dedicated Web hosting account can be a tricky thing to master.
Hi Mitch,
I’m an entrepreneur and blogger, and I need some advice on web hosting. I’ve been subscribed to Mitchelaneous and the Web Hosting Show for a good while now, so I knew you’d be the right guy to contact.
Basically, I’m interested in setting up an online storage company similar to streamload and box.net. I need to lease a rack and I’d like to know which companies you’d recommend. I plan to rent the space to individual users, charging around $3/GB per month (this seems to be the going rate). I don’t plan to charge for bandwidth. Obviously I’m going to need a lotta storage in the long run, but I don’t have much cash to invest right now, so who would you recommend? Do you still run your own servers? What other pointers would you give me?
It sounds like Peter has got a really nice idea going there. I am excited to see how far you get with it and the finished project. As far as the hosting suggestions go, this is what I can tell you.
I don’t usually do many company recommendations, but I would say you’d need at least one dedicated server to get started on. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about server loads from anybody else on the server and you would have plenty of room and bandwidth to grow on. Right now I host all my audio and video files for the show on a separate server that the folks at Web Hosting Chat provide me for free. I think they use FastServers.net. I haven’t dealt with the support side of FastServers.net personally, but from the user side I haven’t had a problem with the hosting experience since I started doing the Web Hosting Show.
Getting a dedicated server is going to be a little costly as well. If you feel like you don’t want to put that much weight onto yourself right now, you might go with a large reseller account or a small semi-dedicated server. Just contact a few companies, see what the going rates are and how much traffic and work you can pump through the server itself. Never let yourself get intimidated by a Web hosting company. They are there to serve you either by hosting your Web site or answering your questions as a possible client.
