Hello,
I am a web designer for a small company. We currently host 4 websites on another host, CrystalTech. We started about 5 years ago on a shared server. We experienced a lot of downtime and were eventually forced to get a dedicated server for two reasons. 1) We were tired of all the downtime. Actually it wasn't so much the amount of time, it was more the frequency of downtimes. 2) They didn't offer PHP at that time. We really needed to switch from ASP/Access to PHP/MySql to improve performance.
Now, I have all of our sites using only PHP and MySQL. There's no reason for us to be using a Windows Server that we have to manage. I'm a web developer, not an IT. So, it makes me nervous to be responsible for our server. When things go wrong, they charge $60/hour to fix it.
I've been doing a lot of searching, and found you. So, I'm interested in TCH. The Dedicated and 100% managed server looks like a great deal. More bandwidth, more harddrive, faster computer with more memory, and 100% managed. Sounds great! Crystal Tech has excellent service, so that would be my only reason to stay with them. But, yours seems pretty good from what I can tell without being a customer.
Now, I'm not sure if we need a dedicated server. Maybe a shared server or semi-dedicated would be adequate. Our concern is how often our site would go down on each of these types of servers, not how many minutes. Could you provide an average?
Also, what are the differences in accessibility with the different server types? With a dedicated server, would we be able to install our own software? Would we have access to server logs, .htaccess files, permissions, etc.? (I'm not really familiar with Linux, so I apologize for my ignorance here)
What type of interface is available for controlling the MySQL database? Currently, I have 100% control as the root user, and I use a program called "Navicat" MySQL Administrator. I know that phpMyAdmin is popular, but I'm hooked on Navicat. It can connect to remote servers, but do you allow this?
I think that's about it. I thank you in advance for any replies. If all sounds like it will work, we'll probably sign up, set up and test everything and switch the DNS.
Thank you,
Anders