Stay Away!

[Guest helpbytes]

When you look for a review of totalchoicehosting, you find nothing but

nice words, you walk over to their forums and you find the same again,

nice words.

 

But what you're finding is nice words from occasional users who maybe

have a 1 page personal website, who don't notice slowdowns in mysql

for example, or poor email performance.

 

I thought I would give them a try. My site is basically completely

powered from a MySQL database, and I use the email service to answer

all emails sent to the site, which I get a lot.

 

First thing you notice, is that at random times, the server just slows

down, and you wait > 10 seconds for your page to load if its dynamic

and using MySQL/PHP. Only the other day I accidently executed an

infinite loop, which my 450mhz PC can recover from in seconds. TCH's

4 Xeon CPU Server took more than 10minutes to recover from the 4

second execution of this loop. This shows the kind of state the

memory and swap files are in, to take that long to recover.

 

As for the email, this is where the signup failed me. I read that

they forbid incoming AND outgoing attachments that they have decided

pose a danger to you or the recipient. I asked if this was optional,

and they said yes, so I went ahead and signed up, unfortunately it's

not optional, and so you cannot receive .exe or .reg or .bat or .pif

no matter if its right or not, and asking users to zip these things

for you is not always straight forward.

 

Staying on the email, for over 3 days you could not send email through

any of the webmail clients, they all bounced. I reported this at the

beginning of the first day, where I was told it would be fixed "soon",

I had to remind them on the third day, when they finally switched

something on the server. This is further proof most users who review

TCH don't notice problems because they are a very infrequent user.

 

And yet more email issues, they decided because one of the email

clients had not been updated in a while, they would stop offering it,

despite no reports on their forums of problems.

 

And yet more on the email, the webmail clients are awful in general,

they just fail to load, usually timing out after you're performed an

action such as delete or reply, this gets highly annoying when trying

to reply to many emails.

 

A warning to users too. Do NOT be fooled by the nice comments and

reports on their forums. They have what they call a "family forum"

that only members may have access too. If you post a complaint in the

right section of their forums, they will move it to the family forum

so that non members cannot see it, i.e. the general public and

potential clients. When I complained about problems, they did this,

telling me it was just for organisation issues. Other users have seen

their threads moved too, and sometimes the "Head-Guru" just locks

forum threads, and removes negative comments, civil or not.

 

And if you do join, and ask a serious question on their forums, do not

be fooled by an email saying you've received a reply, I reckon 50% of

the forum posts are "welcome to the forums", without any form of

sensible answer.

 

Regarding their running of the servers, it's all Cpanel, they dont know anything technical, so if cpanel does not provide a patch or solution, they cannot help you, I think hosts that rely 100% on cpanel like this are nothing but users themselves. For example they couldn't stop me receiving 100s of bandwidth warnings even though it wasn't an issue for me, and they removed that email client because there was no update for a long time.

[Head Guru]

Hello,

 

I would like to take this opportunity to reply to your review.

 

When you look for a review of totalchoicehosting, you find nothing but

nice words, you walk over to their forums and you find the same again,

nice words. But what you're finding is nice words from occasional users who maybe

have a 1 page personal website, who don't notice slowdowns in mysql

for example, or poor email performance.

In fact I find this to be the opposite of your comments. I took a few moments and went thru the "reviews" section of these forums and found several unpleasant reviews. Where there far more happy customers? Yes. Why? We provide a excellent service and the forums simply show case our product and service.

 

 

First thing you notice, is that at random times, the server just slows

down, and you wait > 10 seconds for your page to load if its dynamic

and using MySQL/PHP. Only the other day I accidently executed an

infinite loop, which my 450mhz PC can recover from in seconds. TCH's

4 Xeon CPU Server took more than 10minutes to recover from the 4

second execution of this loop. This shows the kind of state the

memory and swap files are in, to take that long to recover.

 

How nice of you to openly admit that you executed a infinite loop on a shared server and caused a degradation in server performance for ten minutes. This is a clear violation of our AUP & TOS and could have resulted in your accounts termination. However with that said lets take a closer look at the server that hosts your account, shall we? The following represents the load's on the server :

 

 

12:00:00 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %idle

12:10:00 AM all 0.28 6.11 1.86 1.66 90.09

12:20:00 AM all 0.16 6.02 1.93 1.56 90.33

12:30:00 AM all 0.16 5.07 1.82 2.00 90.95

12:40:00 AM all 0.17 6.46 2.25 1.95 89.17

12:50:00 AM all 0.16 1.63 1.53 1.06 95.62

01:00:00 AM all 0.11 1.72 1.43 0.81 95.93

01:10:00 AM all 0.23 2.35 2.05 4.06 91.32

01:20:00 AM all 0.12 2.11 1.68 2.43 93.65

01:30:00 AM all 0.12 1.93 1.52 1.48 94.95

01:40:00 AM all 0.13 2.03 1.55 1.21 95.07

01:50:00 AM all 0.17 1.86 1.59 1.05 95.32

02:00:00 AM all 0.14 2.01 1.47 1.26 95.11

02:10:00 AM all 0.20 1.90 1.57 0.93 95.40

02:20:00 AM all 0.12 2.21 1.49 1.22 94.96

02:30:00 AM all 0.12 2.87 1.62 0.96 94.43

02:40:00 AM all 0.14 1.97 1.56 1.12 95.22

02:50:01 AM all 0.17 1.72 1.31 1.05 95.76

03:00:00 AM all 0.12 1.72 0.91 0.94 96.31

03:10:00 AM all 0.30 1.63 1.45 9.12 87.49

03:20:00 AM all 0.14 3.24 1.72 1.34 93.56

03:30:00 AM all 0.14 2.26 1.30 1.55 94.75

03:40:00 AM all 0.15 2.40 1.08 1.10 95.27

03:50:00 AM all 0.16 2.37 1.14 1.05 95.28

 

03:50:00 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %idle

04:00:00 AM all 0.12 2.77 0.86 1.50 94.75

04:10:00 AM all 0.61 0.76 1.31 1.81 95.51

04:20:00 AM all 0.15 1.43 1.13 0.91 96.39

04:30:00 AM all 0.15 1.02 0.73 1.30 96.80

04:40:00 AM all 0.15 0.88 0.74 0.86 97.38

04:50:00 AM all 0.14 0.65 0.81 0.82 97.57

05:00:00 AM all 0.10 0.48 0.56 0.31 98.54

05:10:00 AM all 0.24 0.50 0.63 0.82 97.80

05:20:00 AM all 0.12 0.68 0.57 0.85 97.78

05:30:00 AM all 0.16 0.90 0.88 0.70 97.35

05:40:00 AM all 0.11 1.12 0.78 1.10 96.89

05:50:00 AM all 0.17 0.95 0.74 0.94 97.20

06:00:00 AM all 0.11 1.36 0.82 0.97 96.75

06:10:00 AM all 0.22 2.76 1.25 1.20 94.56

06:20:00 AM all 0.14 2.61 1.02 1.43 94.79

06:30:00 AM all 0.14 2.85 1.19 1.66 94.17

06:40:00 AM all 0.14 3.85 1.35 1.35 93.32

06:50:00 AM all 0.23 2.56 1.40 1.83 93.99

07:00:00 AM all 0.18 1.37 1.00 1.09 96.37

07:10:00 AM all 0.34 1.52 1.18 1.32 95.64

07:20:00 AM all 0.25 1.47 1.38 1.78 95.12

07:30:00 AM all 0.20 2.65 2.03 2.04 93.08

07:40:00 AM all 0.13 1.99 1.59 1.55 94.75

 

07:40:00 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %idle

07:50:00 AM all 0.15 2.00 1.80 1.05 95.01

08:00:00 AM all 0.14 2.39 2.10 1.06 94.31

08:10:00 AM all 0.23 3.40 2.62 1.90 91.85

08:20:00 AM all 0.15 3.37 2.61 1.09 92.78

08:30:00 AM all 0.14 2.34 2.42 1.03 94.08

08:40:00 AM all 0.16 1.62 1.66 0.95 95.61

08:50:00 AM all 0.15 2.12 2.20 0.90 94.63

09:00:00 AM all 0.15 1.86 1.80 1.01 95.18

09:10:00 AM all 0.33 1.66 1.79 1.02 95.21

09:20:00 AM all 0.38 2.71 2.34 2.60 91.97

09:30:00 AM all 0.17 2.06 1.90 0.98 94.89

09:40:00 AM all 0.45 2.25 2.14 1.89 93.27

09:50:00 AM all 0.53 2.66 2.42 1.80 92.59

10:00:00 AM all 0.15 2.24 1.99 1.60 94.02

10:10:00 AM all 0.21 2.63 2.52 1.72 92.92

10:20:00 AM all 0.22 2.60 2.54 1.74 92.89

10:30:00 AM all 0.16 3.13 2.69 2.11 91.91

10:40:00 AM all 0.15 2.97 2.56 1.53 92.79

10:50:00 AM all 0.22 3.34 2.92 1.46 92.05

11:00:00 AM all 0.36 2.98 2.59 1.57 92.50

11:10:00 AM all 1.29 3.23 3.09 4.72 87.67

11:20:00 AM all 0.54 3.97 2.63 2.42 90.44

11:30:00 AM all 0.65 2.99 2.49 1.77 92.10

 

11:30:00 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %idle

12:20:00 PM all 0.25 3.46 3.13 6.07 87.10

12:30:00 PM all 0.18 4.53 2.94 5.02 87.33

12:40:00 PM all 0.27 3.27 2.69 3.50 90.27

12:50:00 PM all 0.19 2.69 2.43 2.61 92.07

01:00:00 PM all 0.18 2.88 2.22 3.29 91.42

01:10:00 PM all 0.33 2.45 2.38 2.05 92.79

01:20:00 PM all 0.21 2.09 1.96 2.06 93.68

01:30:00 PM all 0.40 3.02 2.89 2.41 91.28

01:40:00 PM all 0.24 2.64 2.32 2.94 91.86

01:50:00 PM all 0.46 3.15 2.73 2.22 91.45

02:00:00 PM all 0.97 2.62 2.63 4.03 89.74

02:10:00 PM all 0.38 2.13 1.91 3.01 92.57

02:20:00 PM all 0.26 1.75 1.69 1.89 94.42

02:30:00 PM all 0.14 2.18 2.19 1.96 93.53

Average: all 0.27 2.41 1.83 3.53 91.95

 

That clearly represent a base value on your server. That value = EXCELLENT SERVICE. This server is NOT overloaded or overburdened.

 

A warning to users too. Do NOT be fooled by the nice comments and

reports on their forums. They have what they call a "family forum"

that only members may have access too. If you post a complaint in the

right section of their forums, they will move it to the family forum

so that non members cannot see it, i.e. the general public and

potential clients. When I complained about problems, they did this,

telling me it was just for organisation issues. Other users have seen

their threads moved too, and sometimes the "Head-Guru" just locks

forum threads, and removes negative comments, civil or not.

 

And if you do join, and ask a serious question on their forums, do not

be fooled by an email saying you've received a reply, I reckon 50% of

the forum posts are "welcome to the forums", without any form of

sensible answer.

You are more than welcome not to come back and visit these forums. Our forums are maintained by a group of volunteers and have always had a family presence. Your original thread was moved to another area of the forums as to maintain organization in the forums. You were also sent a PM about this.

 

As far as locking threads and moving threads. These are choices made by the moderators and managers of the company. After all these are company owned support forums. They are not YOUR personal play ground.

 

And finally :

 

Regarding their running of the servers, it's all Cpanel, they dont know anything technical, so if cpanel does not provide a patch or solution, they cannot help you, I think hosts that rely 100% on cpanel like this are nothing but users themselves. For example they couldn't stop me receiving 100s of bandwidth warnings even though it wasn't an issue for me, and they removed that email client because there was no update for a long time.

 

We maintain 180+ servers, 40,000+ websites, 25,000+ customers and we are just users? Although you have a right to your views, I also have a right to mine. You clearly have no understanding how to run a business or how to maintain a server farm. Most users want to know when their site in running out of bandwidth. This is a good thing. If it was the other way around, you would blast us because our system never warned you.

 

Bottom line is this.

 

Good luck with your new web host.

[vengavenga]

Hi Helpbytes,

 

Sorry to hear that TCH hasn't turned out to be suitable for your needs.

When a company hosts over 40,000 websites it's inevitable that there will be some dissatisfied customers, but I honestly believe that TCH has less than others.

 

We run a webdesign business and virtually all of our clients sites are hosted by TCH as part of our reseller package - every single one of them uses SQL databases that work without any problems. During my working day I am nearly always working on the sites on the server and would instantly notice problems.

 

In 18 months or so, I can only think of two major problems that have occurred - one was a billing problem just after I signed up ... it took a bit of sorting out, but they (Bill in particular) were very open in holding their hands up and admitting to having made a mistake - that was resolved to my satisfaction.

 

The only other incident was a very long down time over a year ago - can't remember how long it was (maybe 8 hours or so) but information was available throughout the process of the problem being solved. Obviously I and my clients could have done without the downtime, but these things do happen.

 

Whenever I submit a helpdesk ticket to ask a question or get them to change some setting or other for me, it's very rare that I have to wait more than 20 minutes for a response - never experienced support like that anywhere else.

 

I consider TCH to be my closest business partner, and wouldn't consider going elsewhere. My reseller account is now as full as I want to let it get, so I opened a second account at the weekend without even looking elsewhere.

 

Not saying your comments are unjustified, just pointing out that for every "bad" experience there's at least one (and in the case of TCH I suspect many more) good ones.

 

Ali

Edited August 29, 2005 by vengavenga

[Head Guru]

Hi Ali -

 

Thank you for the kind words.

 

I do agree with you that every situation has it own unique set of circumstances.

 

It's good to see your name again.

 

Bill

[cajunman4life]

Being a business owner myself, I know it's not easy to please everybody. It's unfortunate when a customer is unhappy, however it happens. Personally, I haven't had many issues with TCH. And the few times I did, the help desk squared everything away for me. I do business with TCH because they haven't yet given me a reason not to. Since I've been here I've found that TCH is one of the best hosts out there, bar none. Also, you won't find this company hiding any negatives... you can read all negative reviews freely right here (and elsewhere on the net). However, you'll find there are more positives than negatives. And that speaks highly of a company.

[abinidi]

Personally, I find these claims laughable, and I'm impressed that the Head Guru was able to reply with a straight face. That, in and of itself, should show how professional TCH is.

 

As stated above, there are over 25 THOUSAND customers, who have chosen to host over 40 THOUSAND websites with TCH. That should speak as louder proof than one of the very few dissenting voices.

 

If you are wary, try it out for a month. It only costs four dollars, and there is no setup fee. If you are as happy as the other 25000 of us, you will have your new home. If by chance you are unhappy, you're out less than five dollars.

 

I, for one, am here to stay.

[Striver]

When you look for a review of totalchoicehosting, you find nothing but

nice words, you walk over to their forums and you find the same again,

nice words.

 

But what you're finding is nice words from occasional users who maybe

have a 1 page personal website, who don't notice slowdowns in mysql

for example, or poor email performance.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Or perhaps it might just be that the reason so many people are saying nice things about this company is that they have truly earned such praise. Now I admit that I'm not big on mysql data bases, but I'm not exactly a casual, occasional user. I have been programming and hacking since the days of punch cards. I have written in multiple languages including extensive work in binary and assembly. There are things I don't know but one thing I do know for sure is that you never test run your programs on a shared server. I have a nice little Linux white box sitting right here next to me that I use for such things.

 

I have been building web sites since the Internet went public (I beta tested Compuserve's web hosting service). I have run web sites on everything from that little white box to a Beowulf cluster. I have seen just about every type of problem that can happen with hosting in both the technical and human aspects. Now I admit that my current web site really isn't much more than a one page personal site, but I use it extensively as my primary email connection and I would immediately notice any major outage or slowdown.

 

I deal with Total Choice Hosting because I know I don't have to worry about the server end of it at all. If there is a server problem that these people are not all ready on top of, just let them know about it and they will be all over it immediately. It is becoming exceedingly rare to find any company so concerned with providing top quality service. Personally, I can be an old grouch at times. I have even been known to chew out a TCH rep or two, but take my business elsewhere? I'm not stupid! I have been elsewhere and I didn't like it at all.

 

 

Lee

[dcumpian]

I've been with TCH for a year and a half and run an online business from my website. The website has been down exactly four times in that year and a half. In 3 of the 4 cases, it was down for under 3 minutes.

 

While the MySQL databases are the fastest I've experienced, they are perfectly acceptable for forum hosting and other "light" database storage. Using MySQL to dynamically generate your entire website begs for a dedicated MySQL box to support the traffic volume. You are asking quite a lot of a $4/month hosting service.

 

Regards,

Dan

[hooksie]

In reply to the claim that dynamic web pages take too long to load, I would like to state the heart of my website hosted on TCH is a forum run qith mySQL and only rarely do I experience dramatic slowdowns.

[borfast]

Let's see, I think I'm a dumb user, I have a small (very small, actually, when compared to TCH ) webhosting business, which I run using a TCH reseller account and thus, cPanel/WHM. I don't have many clients but I can tell you for sure that I would not be able to do everything I need to do if it wasn't for cPanel and other software to aid me with the client billing.

 

Also, my personal website, also hosted with TCH, runs on Drupal, which uses MySQL at its heart. It does use a caching system (though I can't remember if I have it active or not, I admit) but then again, it's a well designed system. If your system is supposed to handle big loads but does not use caching and becomes slow due to lots of database accesses, then your system is badly designed and/or badly programmed.

 

As others have said, perhaps all the good reviews (and note that, just like Bill said, there ARE some negative reviews) you saw are there because TCH has earned that position. TCH has an excelent support team, highly skilled tech staff and Bill Kish runs this business in a way that should be an example for many people on this planet.

 

This thread alone should tell you something... you made some negative comments about TCH; if they were true, they would have been accepted but since they're not, TCH's customers themselves are posting here to correct you. And if you give yourself to the trouble of looking through the reviews, you'll see that this is what usually happens when someone complains without reason.

 

Oh, and if you think that managing nearly 200 servers is a task any "regular user" can do just because the servers have cPanel installed, then by all means, do it yourself and start your own web business! You'll be rich in no time! From your comments, I can see you're no more than a "regular user", so you should be able to do it without a problem...

 

Good luck in finding a new webhost.

Edited August 31, 2005 by borfast

[marie b.]

It comes down to preference.

 

If you're happier somewhere else, then move there. No-one is forcing you to use TCH. However, it's simple stupidity to post a whining diatribe that can be easily refuted.

 

Also, what were you expecting in posting it for all to see instead of taking your grievances to the relevant people in private? Support from people who are obviously happy with the hosting they receive here?

[carbonize]

At this point I just wish to add that I have noticed times when my site has been extremely slow. Last night it went down, admittedly only for about five minutes.

 

As to Helpbytes he is currently using some spare web space I have on another host.

 

 

 

TCH-Thomas edited out hosts name. There is no reason to mention other hosts.

Edited September 1, 2005 by TCH-Thomas

[bellringr]

Not sure why you think we care where he is now, but ok.

[carbonize]

Trust me I don't think you care but I posted it as it was relevant to the thread.

[borfast]

It was relevant to the thread? How?

[TCH-Rob]

OK,

 

Lets not let this get out of hand.

[neilsbrother]

I am new here to Total Choice forums, and wanted to comment on the self proclaimed Expert I had seen in another board I frequent from time to time.

 

If you are so unhappy then leave! no sense in you sticking around to antagonize all the others here that really enjoy Total Choice Hosting.

 

I would think that your only doing so because you enjoy pushing peoples buttons for a kick.

Why dont you Grow UP!

 

There are many folks I know that had hosting accounts elsewhere and then came here.

Big reason I did so was because the support here really does care and they do work with you.

If you had or have a beef with the company why STAY ???

 

I just dont get this thread.. Elsewhere this thread would have been locked by now.

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to the forums neilsbrother

[carbonize]

I am new here to Total Choice forums, and wanted to comment on the self proclaimed Expert I had seen in another board I frequent from time to time.

 

If you are so unhappy then leave!  no sense in you sticking around to antagonize all the others here that really enjoy Total Choice Hosting.

 

I just dont get this thread..  Elsewhere this thread would have been locked by now.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

He has.

 

Only a company with something to hide would lock or delete a thread that was criticising them. If a person has something to say about the way something is done it is good business practise to confront them and discuss it, even if what they said was wrong.

Edited September 1, 2005 by carbonize

[TweezerMan]

Welcome to the forums, neilsbrother!

[TCH-Thomas]

Welcome to the forum, neilsbrother.

[cajunman4life]

Welcome to the forums neilsbrother!

[Head Guru]

This thread has gone on far enough.

 

Carbonize - I normally do not call customers out on the carpet, but your site was not down last night, not even for five minutes. This is from your server:

 

16:24:50 up 84 days, 14:47, 2 users, load average: 0.61, 0.66, 0.86

 

Every one that follows these forums knows that you and helpbytes are friends. So much that you hosted his site on another one of your hosting accounts just the other day.

 

Grow up and move on.

 

If you are not happy here I can refer you to 10 other hosting companies that you can host with. Heck, I will even hold the door open for you.

 

What ever personal vendetta you have with me or TotalChoice Hosting is fine, that's your business and right, but enough is enough. I personally am tired of the games being played in this thread.

 

Thread closed.