Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > Should I re-sell or get a dedicated?
Posted by horoscopes2000, 05-03-2001, 04:58 PM Hi people, I made the mistake of signing up as a reseller with Cavendo.com, and despite me phoning them for 5 weeks they have not returned my phone calls so I still do not know how to add extra domains, or subdomains to my account. The reason I signed up in the first place was because I was so impressed with their tech support - 24/7 - seem very knowledgeable etc, but now i find Cavendo are merely ***** resellers (or have adedicated with them) and am considering signing up with ***** direct. But I have the following reasons to worry : 1. With Cavendo I am safe from the idiotic ***** billing dept. Are they still awful, or are these incidents few and far between? 2. They have a dedicated deal for $59 per month, but you only get a machine with 32MB Ram, and 1 IP address. Does a web server need a lot of memory/cpu power, or does only 32MB Ram not matter? I have one main domain of my own, my wife has one, then between us we have 3 or 4 others that don't do a whole lot. Also I can transfer a couple of domains from friends/family. Am I better off reselling or getting a dedicated? If I pay $49 for a reseller account then $10 per domain added, it's going to work out more expensive than this cheap dedicated deal, but I am really not sure which
Posted by MSW, 05-03-2001, 05:02 PM Hmmmm, before this gets into a long heated debate again, please do a search on ***** here BEFORE you do ANYTHING!! Believe me, it is worth doing the search. You will thank me later!
Posted by horoscopes2000, 05-03-2001, 05:14 PM Hi Michael. Thanks for the reply. The funny thing is, I have seen many of the negative feedback about CI, and to be honest I was wondering if they were "old problems" that have now been resolved. I have been with them (unknowingly until 2 weeks ago) for 6 weeks, and I have found them to be pretty good. Almost no downtime, and *very* good, and in depth tech support. They people I'm having problems with are Cavendo, who are the sales dept. It seems such a "nice" change to have a useless sales dept (Cavendo) and an excellent tech support. Their tech support was so good that I wanted to stay with them just for that! But I am worried about the double billing issues. Hence I was wondering if the people posting problems may be the vocal few, or whether almost everyone has problems with them.
Posted by dektong, 05-03-2001, 05:34 PM do a close search and you will see some of the ***** problems are indeed just recently happened. Having said this, I should say no host is perfect... So if you, despise all the findings you have and all the friendly warnings you receive, want to try *****/Cavendo (and hoping your experience with them would be a good one) then by all means... go ahead... ***** might be cheap, but I think their support is poor. Instead of going with *****, I would suggest VenturesOnline.com which has a really great support and soon to have a really great network. Good luck and cheers,
Posted by Synergy, 05-03-2001, 09:23 PM Well I really think ***** IS GOOD if you pay them more. At my work, their site is hosted by *****. I actually think they are pretty good. I do have friends hosted on ***** and didnt complain at all. Maybe some people are just having bad luck with them.
Posted by GordonH, 05-04-2001, 04:54 AM OK Get a dedicated server. Thats all I am saying. I regretted not having done it sooner myself. Don't worry about the cash aspects. Sell annual plans to start with (I did a 300MB 10GB $99 special) Sell a few and you have covered your set up and first months prices. Gordon
Posted by mozd3v, 05-05-2001, 12:55 PM Just a suggestion - BUT try come up with something dynamic to add to your hosting operation. I SEE so many little start ups offering hosting - same stuff everywhere. To get ahead and to gain market share you have to have somethink special plus the support of a good reputation and superior services.
Posted by avara, 05-09-2001, 08:59 AM Just wanted to say that although I have heard bad things about ***** in the past, I have a friends who has signed up with them and he is very pleased. ***** seem to have learned from their mistakes, and now have 3 DNS servers on 3 seperate network segments (remember when they went down for several days due to DNS problems during the switchover to Y2K?). That said, some people have reported problems with billing. To answer your question regarding the 32 megs of memory: it should be fine as long as you don't try to use it to host any MySQL-powered web sites.
Posted by spongebob, 05-09-2001, 03:51 PM I agree with GordonH - go the dedicated route. I'm doing this myself; the (well-researched) cost workup looks really good.... Particularly nice is that you won't have to worry about shared solution resource abusers slashing into your uptime. It's just a little more work...
Posted by SmartHosting, 05-09-2001, 03:53 PM Hi horoscopes2000, If you have the knowledge and understanding of managing your own server, then going with a dedicated server plan is always the desired solution as it gives you utmost control over your server (that is, if you are given root privileges). If you are a reseller with a dedicated server, and root privileges; you are pretty much free to do anything you want: create your own plans with unique specifications, etc... But again, it comes with a big overhead, when you want to get into this. Simple tasks to the webhosting provider can seem very complicated to you (and vice-versa, what can seem simple to you may actually be more complicated to do). As a result, if you don't really know what you're doing, and you take it on yourself to be root, you may be in for a bumpy ride. Some dedicated server packages come, with what's called, managed services. This is a service that is usually taken advantage of high-end clients, that need a dedicated server for the technical aspects (i.e. need to sustain millions of hits, thus, needing more memory, don't want to be limited by resource policies, etc...) - yet don't want to take on the technical responsibilities of managing the server - thus stripping you from root privileges. On the other hand, some give you both, but if you are root on a UNIX system, you will most likely not need a control panel, since you will most likely want to stick to the command prompt anyway - as for Windows dedicated servers, you don't really need a control panel, since it's Windows ;-) Reseller plans. These tend to be more "turnkey solutions", and it's just a matter of shopping around for the best deal. Keep in mind that by "best deal", it doesn't mean "unlimited disk space for $1/yr.", but a deal where the pricing can be reasonably justified. The reseller plans will usually lessen your headaches, problems and questions - if not completely remove them (compared to a dedicated server). In this situation you want to make sure that you and your clients (resold accounts) will have access to a good control panel, to reduce your overhead of needing to assist them in basic tasks (i.e. setting up a mailbox). In most scenarios, you may be as well off being on either dedicated server or on a reseller plan - financially. Keeping the above in mind, however, if you are not familiar with managing a server, and your business relies on your website, you should go with a managed solution such as a reseller program (and then get a computer at home and install the server OS and experiment until you feel confident enough about your System Administrator skills to upgrade to a dedicated server). What it really boils down to is how much you want to make money-wise off of your choice, how much time you have on your hands (the less, the more easy-to-use the provider should be that you choose) and whether or not you want to have complete control over every aspect of your website (the more control, the more responsibilities you will usually have). Of course, keeping in mind your budget, to adjust the above to your budget. When you have an answer to all of these, you will quickly see what solution is best for you. Please, keep in mind that apart from Reseller Programs, there are also other programs that will let you save and get the quality you're looking for, such as Referral Programs, Affiliate Programs, and other programs such as our SignupBuddy program.
Posted by horoscopes2000, 05-23-2001, 11:00 PM Well, it's a little while since I posted my original query about ***** and Cavendo, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. I wanted to post and thank all of you for your advice on this matter (particularly dektong). In light of your past experiences I decided to go against hosting with ***** or any of their resellers, and further to Dektong's post investigated 4webspace.com What I have found is a company that seems to outshine every host I have ever been with in every aspect. They are the most approachable, helpful people, and have not complained once about my numerous calls or chat sessions while I attempt to learn the ropes with my first dedicated server. I've only been with them for a week or so, but can honestly say that if what I have seen so far is typical of the way they run their business, I will be with them for a very long time to come. I honestly cannot praise them enough. They *always* answer the telephone, normally within 2 or 3 rings, whatever hour of the day you phone. Their chat window is *always* manned and does not suffer from frustrating queues like some others (CI), and the user forums are a very valuable source of info allowing me to learn from others past experience. Thank you to you all, thank you to dektong, and thank you to 4webspace.com
Posted by aura9, 05-23-2001, 11:58 PM Have you thought about maybe going for a dedicated Cobalt solution. I signed up with Rackshack about a month ago. Everthing is perfect so far. I'm hosting 4 sites already which pay my monthly fee. Cobalts are really easy to administer too. If you're a resourceful person and like to figure things out it's worth a try in my eyes. Although as stated in an earlier response, It is a lot of overhead. I've found this site to be tremendously helpful in finding answers to common problems. And all of the users (from what I see) are extremely helpful. Just another avenue to think about.
Posted by horoscopes2000, 05-24-2001, 12:37 AM Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I already signed with 4webspace.com last week and purchased a RaQ3. I completely agree with your opinion of the Cobalt servers, even a complete muppet like me can learn how to get off the ground after only a short time of trial and error.
Posted by aura9, 05-24-2001, 11:38 AM Well it is something to think about for the future. Any problem I have had, I have solved myself. It's great when you don't have to rely on crappy tech support for things to get done. Anyway, Good Luck!!!
Add to Favourites 
Print this Article
