Hosting companies, reccomendations?

[gopher]

I'm posting this here rather than in the computer section as it is non technical and more around the business needs.

Can anyone recommend a hosting company, pref UK based on customer service, technical ability, speed of response etc. I know Register1 gets a lot of thumbs up here but they don't offer what I want which is a windows based dedicated server.

If you happen to know if they offer this then great, if not can you let me know who you did\do get good service from anyway and I will check out if they offer what I want.

The best deal money wise is around £50pm, but just looked for reviews and although not many they all seem to point at very bad customer service, and some of that is recent. I know you get what you pay for but at the same time if I am paying more then I do want better service.

(also I think there may have been a post similar to this recently but a search did not bring anything up)

Thanks

Paul

[silent k]

I've used a Donhost ( www.donhost.co.uk )dedicated server for the last 6 months and they've been pretty good, the uptime has been very good and the speed of support responses has been fairly good. What let it down for me was they used a shared firewall which meant I couldn't set my own rules and lot of ports were open I wouldn't expect to be open. Before them I used Pipex (Donhost is part of Pipex group but the datacentre is not in docklands) which I found to be awful. The response time for problems was terrible - I had several severe problems with my server which took over 24 hours to fix each time, during which the server was offline. So I only stayed with them for 3 weeks. I've just bought my own server and have gone the colocation route which is better for me as I have complete control over the firewall and server. I did look at Register1 initially but I didn't go with them as there was no uptime guarantee.

Which host you go for really depends on what is important to you I guess, the main thing for me was the uptime for the host we use. You need to think about things like whether you want to run the server completely yourself or do you want the host to be responsible for things like updates and the firewall rules.

Not sure whether that helps or not really!

>> Edited by silent k on Wednesday 31st May 17:04

[Plotloss]

'er indoors uses oneandone

Seems to stay up and they offer windows dedicated hosting

Never had to call them or deal with them though which is where it may all collapse...

[pmanson]

I've use www.xsession.com for my own site (as I know the owner and don't have to pay for it!

I recently tried www.primehosting.co.uk on a recommendation from someone on here and they get a big thumbs up as well.

[Skoda_Rob]

Plotloss said:

'er indoors uses oneandone... Never had to call them or deal with them though which is where it may all collapse...

I found their customer service pretty abysmal, although admittedly that was surrounding the "cancellation" of services which most companies don't seem to put much effort on getting right anyway...


Rob.

[Jamesuk28]

Yep I had huge problems with 1 and 1 over cancellation. Threatened to take me to court, so I said see you there. They then probably realised I spend a lot of time in court (work matters nothing dodgy honest) and decided to go forth and multiply.

I switched all our hosting and domains to 123 reg. Whose control panels are very good but customer service is terrible.

[gopher]

Thanks for that guys, certainly enough to look into.

Also taking a look at Munchers offerings.

1 & 1 seem to give good service unless, like others have said, you want to cancel or reduce business - I too have been threatened with court over domain names that they automtically renewed despite me sending them an email saying I wanted to lapse them.

[Skoda_Rob]

gopher said:

I too have been threatened with court over domain names that they automtically renewed despite me sending them an email saying I wanted to lapse them.

Sounds familiar - except I sent a cancellation fax (as it says on their website to do now), and it went "missing". This apparently was my fault so I was liable for the renewal fees...


Rob.

[jacobyte]

We colocate at Newnet, although we've used Rackspace and Serverworld in the past for managed servers.

[Muncher]

www.ip1hosting.net

Used by several PH'ers

[JamieBeeston]

gopher said:

I know Register1 gets a lot of thumbs up here but they don't offer what I want which is a windows based dedicated server.

Dedicated Servers we do with... Windows / Solarix / Linux / BSD / Debian / Slackware / You Name It.

Reccomended by 41 PH'rs
www.Register1.net/servers.php click Order and play around with the options

Reccomended by 16 PH'rs
www.Serverstream.net/windows.html if you need a 2 hour Hardware SLA and 24/7 Telephone support / High Availability Kit / Redundent Kit etc.

i've dropped you a mail with more details

J

[gopher]

Thanks Jamie, that does look a good price and with the reputation you have on here I may well be in touch.

Cheers

Paul

[fullphat]

I Cant reccomend Paul at Noc4 enough. Feel free to contact him, hes available most of the time on msn and over the phone which is handy and his prices aren't bad either- www.noc4.net

>> Edited by fullphat on Thursday 1st June 20:16

[JamieBeeston]

gopher said:

Thanks Jamie, that does look a good price and with the reputation you have on here I may well be in touch. Cheers Paul

No worries.. let me know if you have any queries

J