We are on Dreamhost (Virtual) Private Server
In last 2-3 months, we received many complaints from our visitors regarding downtime, specifically “500: Internal Error”. Also one of our service, OrkutFeeds, was completely down for one week. Reason was continuous rise in traffic for both Devils Workshop and OrkutFeeds.
We do not blame Dreamhost…
We do not blame Dreamhost as they always offered more than one can expect from a shared hosting plan. From long time, we were planning to move to Virtual Private Server(VPS) hosting. But making a choice between Dreamhost Private Servers (PS) and Mediatemple dedicated virtual (dv) hosting is really tough. We have many open questions about Mediatemple which need 2-3 weeks time to sort them out.
For time being, we have shifted our web and mysql server to Dreamhost’s Private Servers. We will monitor our sites performance closely and then we will make final decision whether to continue on Dreamhost or move our high traffic sites to Mediatemple.
We will be on Dreamhost always…
One thing is sure, even if we decide to move to Mediatemple, we will continue to host our non-profit services like Orkutfeeds on Dreamhost shared hosting plans as long as possible. We just can’t afford paying private server charges for free services. Its OK for us, if our free services run slowly.
Also we offered free hosting on our Dreamhost account to few non-profit organizations, friends and some of our readers. They all run low traffic websites which don’t require virtual private servers.
Things we like about Dreamhost PS…
- Moving to PS was very smooth. Only thing I remember was clicking on “Enable PS” option from control panel.
- Dedicated IP – Every private server gets a dedicated IP. Dedicated IPs have many advantages. One of them is better treatment from anti-spam plugins like akismet.
- If something goes wrong on any of our site, we can instantly reboot our server.
Things we don’t like about Dreamhost PS…
- You can not be selective about Dreamhost PS. Its either for all sites/users or for none. Given a choice, at this stage, we would have moved only Devils Workshop & OrkutDiary to PS.
- Cost! Dreamhost’s shared hosting plan offers best value for your money. Same is not true with their VPS solution.
- Same control panel. Dreamhost have one of the best control panel but what we need exclusive support for reselling and ability to manage resources on per site/client basis.
I will update you with more details about Dreamhost Private Servers soon as we explore it. If you are among our regular visitors, please let us know if you can see any improvement in speed. 
Rahul Bansal has written 589 posts.
I am a geek (wordpress), blogger (tech) & entrepreneur (rtCamp). He writes at devilsworkshop.
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Well, congrats on a great move. Will let you know if I find any problems
You mean to say you were on shared hosting all these days? If yes, how did you manage? :-O
Site is loading faster ?
My Wordpress sites on DH Shared plan are soooo slow :/
btw… orkutfeeds blog is not working:
“Error establishing a database connection”
g!
Even I;m tired of website down time.
I face the issue frequently ..probably I will consider moving to some other host.
I am not trying to promote/advertise, but I have gone through lots of trouble and pain when I was on shared hosting.
Have a look at these posts as to why I think shared hosting is useless
(Ignore the first post of the search result)
DH gives a lot of downtimes these days. Though, they are for short period of times – 1 hour max.
The one I remember, which happened with OrkutPlus was it was down for around 4-5 hours. And the last one – I think around 1 or 2 days back, it was a error that WP wasn’t able to connect with Database which lasted for around 30 mins.
Visit http://in.business.yahoo.com/
There is a good package waiting for you !
I’ll be moving to PS very soon so looking forward to your reviews for Dreamhost and Media Temple…
Thanks
@Pavan
Thanks. I found a problem myself and fixed it now.
@Raju
We are on Dreamhost. That’s how we managed it!
I am aware of your problem you had with shared webhost.
@G Moura
Thanks for bringing Orkutfeeds blog error to notice. Fixed it now.
About your wordpress blog, enable caching. You can also use plugin like wp-super-cache.
@Gautam
Wordpress database error can pop-up when there is large spike in traffic. Also keep check on Orkut Tools you are hosting.
I got warning in past for our OrkutFeeds.
@Hacker
Thanks, but we are looking for something bigger than yahoo small business hosting offers.
@Mayur
Sure. I will post about my PS experience soon.
They are now offering 2 year hosting & a domain free for Geocities users
@Abhishek
Nice offer.
The footer shows you are hosted on MediaTemple ..??
We were on Dreamhost Private Server on the 31st of january
But now we are on Media Temple, use this link to know more