I’ve been looking at DreamHost as a possible switchover from Site5. I’m happy with Site5 (my current host), but they do annoy me sometimes… one thing that drives me nuts is that their cPanel system makes the shell painful to use sometimes and there are times when my server is too overloaded with others’ inefficient scripts/database queries and as a result my website suffers because of one runaway script. This happens very rarely, but it does happen…
Anyway, on to DreamHost… I have the following questions:
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Tell me a tad about your infrastructure… do you use virtualization (not VPS) in any shape or form for your shared hosting boxes? Do you at least virtualize your storage (use a SAN/NAS)? Some of your wiki pages re: snapshots and backups suggest that you use NetApp filer(s). Is that true?
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With the “multiple sites” and “multiple accounts” feature, can I create several accounts that are restricted to editing their websites only? The control panel seemed to suggest that, I just want to doublecheck.
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Are webhosting accounts permanently bound to a given physical box? Let’s say if I am not happy with the performance or stability track record of a given server, may I request for my account(s) to be transferred over to another physical box without having to move things manually? Should be trivial with a normal UNIX account, but apparently “impossible” with cPanel accounts…
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I was looking at http://patrtan.dreamhosters.com/promo.php for promo codes. Hence my question: when a promo code says that something extra is given (like 3 free extra domains), does that mean “forever” (as long as I remain a customer) or only for the first term?
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The signup page bragged about the DNS editing, claiming that it’s so flexible that it’s actually possible to break one’s DNS zone. That actually sounds appealing to me
as I do consider myself to be a power user (I work as a Linux sysadmin for a living), but let’s say if I want to host my DNS elsewhere for whatever reason, can I change my name servers, or do I have to use yours as my authoritative name servers? Can I use your DNS servers as zone slaves, rather than zone masters?
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One of my projects is going to be hosting my gigantic photo library. I actually want to use something like Gallery2 or Coppermine to host my 12 gig photo collection. Obviously, that’s going to be one heck of an initial upload and it’s going to look like I’m using the account for “backup” purposes. Would that pose a problem with the terms of service? Let’s presume that it did (although it shouldn’t, IMO, since I am uploading web content, technically), would you just nuke my entire account (including any associated accounts for other websites)? Would you give me some sort of warning first? How do you respond to “abuse” claims anyway?
That’s all for now… I might have more later.