A few basic hosting questions...

Zascar

I've had a website for a few years, a few very simple pages for personal use, mainly for files storage so I can access them anywhere. I'm now managing my dads website, he had an issue with his last host so I want to swap. He wants to get multiple domains - a .ie and a .com & .co.uk etc and have slightly differnt sites for each, and I would like to be able to manage them all from one domain. So, if I buy something like this which seems like fantastic value, does this mean that I can manage all my domains from the one package? No need for anything else?

So, If I have say 2 existing domains that I want to set up on my new hosting, how is this done? Do I need to transfer the billing of these domains (and is there generally a charge for this?) to the new host, or do I just change the (dns) settings? If I want to buy new domains is it easy to set these up?

Also, what if I need more than the allocated amount of storage. Do I need to upgrade or can I just pay a little more for an extra few hundred megs?
Or will they bother charging me at all, are they generally strict on this?
Cheers

Asok

Most hosts offer plans like that these days. For your exisiting sites you will just have to change the domains nameservers to those of the hosting company you choose. You dont have to transfer the domains to anyone but if you want to you can, as long as the nameservers are set correctly you wont have any problems. As for upgrading you should be able to upgrade your plan with zero downtime from the control panel of your provider.

mneylon

Zascar wrote:

So, if I buy something like this which seems like fantastic value, does this mean that I can manage all my domains from the one package? No need for anything else?

In a nutshell.

Zascar wrote:

So, If I have say 2 existing domains that I want to set up on my new hosting, how is this done? Do I need to transfer the billing of these domains

As Asok said, you shouldn't need to move the billing of the domains and should be able to simply update the nameservers for the domains. However you should check with the current provider as some of them have very odd rules regarding using external DNS.

Zascar wrote:

(and is there generally a charge for this?

If you move the billing to another provider you will be charged.

Zascar wrote:

) to the new host, or do I just change the (dns) settings?

See above

Zascar wrote:

If I want to buy new domains is it easy to set these up?

Usually - yes

Zascar wrote:

Also, what if I need more than the allocated amount of storage. Do I need to upgrade or can I just pay a little more for an extra few hundred megs?

That will depend on the provider, but you can usually choose

Zascar wrote:

Or will they bother charging me at all, are they generally strict on this?
Cheers

Most hosting companies are businesses, so yes you will get charged

Zascar

Thanks guys, what are the blacknight charges for extra space?

mneylon

Zascar wrote:

Thanks guys, what are the blacknight charges for extra space?

Please contact our sales team if you have any specific queries

axer

Zascar wrote:

He wants to get multiple domains - a .ie and a .com & .co.uk etc and have slightly differnt sites for each, and I would like to be able to manage them all from one domain. So, if I buy something like this which seems like fantastic value, does this mean that I can manage all my domains from the one package? No need for anything else?

When you get hosting you will get a control panel whereby you have full control of the domains you want on the hosting plan - you can add and remove them at your leisure, add new email addresses in seconds etc. So if you went for this or even this (shop around) you would have full control.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Zascar wrote:

I buy something like this which seems like fantastic value

Fantastic indeed!
I was both delighted and shocked to savor the bargainy delights of their ultra-great-value soho plan.

blacknight wrote:

Most hosting companies are businesses, so yes you will get charged

Shocking!
Why, with these insanely low low prices I always assumed blacknight hosting was a charity organisation! :eek:

Seth Brundle

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Shocking!
Why, with these insanely low low prices I always assumed blacknight hosting was a charity organisation! :eek:

On commission Donkey?

steve-hosting36

Sounds like it ROFL.

Zascar

Keep all offers/advertisements strictly to PM - or else I will ban the offenders - your loving mod, ph3n0m


Thanks guys I will be looking around for the best deal over the next few weeks. Feel free to PM me with any offers. My requirements are as follows:

Currently have 2 domains, a .com and a .ie (my personal site and my dads business website)
My dad needs to get a few more domains: 1x .ie, 1x .com and also 1x .co.uk. All hosting very slightly different versions of the same site (for search engine optimisation).

Bandwidth/transfer would be very light. I only need about 500mb space at the moment, however in time, on my personal site I may want to host some large files (~100mb) so I may need 1-2GB of webspace. If anyone wants to give me prices on a suitable hosting package, and pricecs on domain names please feel free to fight amoungst yourselves for the business ;-) lol... Ah no but seriously, my needs are very basic so things like support is very important and features availible counts too. E.G. For my personal site I want a few options for Blogs etc, I may want a PHPBB, and I like the option of installable scripts for photo galeries and the like.

The two main contenders at the moment are:

Blacknight : Linux Basic Hosting. 1GB webspace, 10GB Transfer. Up to 8 Domains. It has some nice features like This and this.

Hosting 365: Linux Basic Hosting: This has 2.5GB space and 25GB transfer. Nice to have but probably overkill for my needs. Also an excellent package but I'm not sure if the features are quite as good as blacknights.

Both are fantastic value packages - i don't really thing one is better than the other, each has its advantages depending on individual customer needs. I have heard excellent things about the service and support of both companies. I would be interested in hearing the opinions of the boards.ie users. (but lads lets keep this civil ok...)

Another question for you all: Management Consoles like Direct Admin etc- which is best or do they all pretty much do the same thing? Which one is easiest to use?
Thanks for all your help!

steve-hosting36

Most control panels pretty much do the same thing. We use Hsphere, which is very simple to get the hang of. Our offer also includes one click installers for Wordpress (blogs), phpBB and more scripts.

democrates

Blacknight and hosting365 are the two I have preferred using, and both are excellent.
I also keep an eye on novara but haven't used them or taken on development for any of their customers yet.

As you've probably realised it's possible to negotiate a discount if you get onto the sales folks. It's a healthy market here, you only have to compare with 1&1 or even network solutions. Also local support is cheap and timely to access as well as top notch quality I've found.

The low basic package prices are growing the market, a small business website can be up and running for under a grand including development and then it's less than a tv licence per year after that, I find that easy to sell and good to have in the mix with some not so small projects.

I'll be doing more sites down the line and it would be my intention to spread the business around, it's in our own interests to keep the market healthy so we can stay local with hosting and boost Irelands rankings as an IT (desti)nation.

Edit: A nice-to-have would be a Dell-style package designer with drop-downs for ram, transfer, etc. Would take some darn fancy cost accounting to keep the rack-space economics stable in fairness.

seodave

I've been hosting with myhost.ie recently and they seem excellent, particularly on support, and no I don't work for them.

DonkeyStyle \o/

kbannon wrote:

On commission Donkey?

No way man, shills are scum... I was just having a bit of fun
Though I have been keeping an eye on the basic personal plans of both blacknight and H365 and the recent addition of mysql to both deals is fan-dabby-dozey.
Oh Hosting365, with these mysql databases you are really spoiling us.

steve-hosting36

ROFL - you ain't seen nuthin yet

Zascar

Guys what are the main differences between the support? They both seem to have the innteractive flash tutorials. Knowledge base, and email support, but Hosting 365 has free teephone support. Not sure if Blacknight have that...

mneylon

We have a locall number and a support desk.

Sposs

Hosting365 has freephone support from 6am to 10pm for all shared hosting customers.
And 24/7 phone support for dedicated customers.

Ph3n0m

Oh come on :rolleyes: this kind of information about support, etc is easily found on each hosting companies website - in pretty damn obvious places

steve-hosting36

ph3n0m - boardsers are lazy (isn' tthat in the charter somewhere ??? )

Zascar

Ph3n0m wrote:

Oh come on :rolleyes: this kind of information about support, etc is easily found on each hosting companies website - in pretty damn obvious places

Cheers. Actually I looked but failed to see it on the blacknight page. The main Support page doesn't mention telephone support.

But Steve is correct we are lazy...

Ph3n0m

Maybe but their contact page lists the number.


So if you got to the blacknight site, on their homepage, middle left - you cant see an image that says "call us?"

Zascar

Yes but I'd say that is more towards sales and not necessarily support. Hosting 365 directly say they have 'Free Telephone Tech Support', I was looking for clarification, is that ok with you?

Ph3n0m

No problem with clarification but

a) Could you not have contacted them directly?
b) pm'd them from boards.ie?
c) or combined your questions into a single post?

Dont mind me, just being sarky for the sake of being sarky

Gordon

I don't think Ph3n0m wants this forum to go down the webhosting forum's route, and posts like #4 there are just begging for webhosts to jump in and go off topic.

Asok

I think we should re-open the web hosting forum for the sheer comedy gold it generated :P.

Zascar

Ok fair ennough. I suppose if posted here its informative for other users too.

I haev been in contact with both hosts and both have offered me fantastic deals. Both excellent to deal with. Thanks guys I will be in contact soon.

steve-hosting36

Asok wrote:

I think we should re-open the web hosting forum for the sheer comedy gold it generated :P.

Here ! Here !

mneylon

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Here ! Here !

Are you ever going to learn to spell?

Sposs

Asok wrote:

I think we should re-open the web hosting forum for the sheer comedy gold it generated :P.

True

However i think people should realise that when hosting companies go to war the only winner is the customer as each company strives for cheaper plans with better support and better Infrastructures.
Instead of always giving out about the behaviour of hosting companies (especially on boards) people should realise and appreciate how passionate these companies are about the industry and just be glad there not all like ***********. (:eek: please don't sue me)

/sposs ends his Gerry Springer style thought of the day

DOLEMAN

Zascar wrote:

Guys what are the main differences between the support? They both seem to have the innteractive flash tutorials. Knowledge base, and email support, but Hosting 365 has free teephone support. Not sure if Blacknight have that...

Tbh I would be more concerned with -

Do they answer your support/billing/sales e-mails?
How long does it take for them to do what you ask them?
Do they make fake promises?
Are they polite or condescending?
Etc.

Having a free phone number etc. doesn't mean much really...