(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:27 am)
Recent problems with server load has forced me to look for new hosting, so I just registered for a Media Temple dedicated virtual server for $50/month. It’s too bad, because I liked FutureQuest. If you have the money to spend, I highly recommend them due to their customer service. Unfortunately for me, I’m in that weird in-between place where regular shared hosting packages aren’t enough, but I can’t afford a dedicated server for hundreds of dollars a month.
I’ve heard that the new Media Temple grid server is still shaking out, but the older dedicated virtual setup is supposed to be pretty good. The price is right too, and if stability is good I can consolidate some other sites I’m maintaining for some friends under one roof and save a bit of money.
Incidentally, the server spikes appear to have been caused by Mint. The recent LifeHacker links today and a week ago drove about 25K pageloads each for the day. The server spiked with a load of 100+. FutureQuest’s technicians narrowed the problem to the Mint installation and shut it down. I got into it and disabled all the extra Peppers, asked to restore the service, and the server was fine until 6PM, when it spiked massively again. This time I found a vestigial download counter script that was still triggering Mint, so I nuked the whole installation off my account. (this is what was causing the 404 download problems in the evening). But it was too late: the site will be booted from the server next time a spike occurs.
I’ve always wanted to try MediaTemple, so I’m not that put out by this development. It does mean, though, that this is the last post until after I get the site moved and stabilized again. Please be gentle in the meantime :-)
19 Comments
Im on Media Temple’s GS but im using a lot of GPUs so im going to transfer to DV the problem is..
i dont know how to migrate my stuff
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I’m not sure how helpful this will be to you, Ralph, but here are the notes I took:
Moving WordPress Databases and
Moving WordPress Part I. I’ll be referring to these as I go through my server move again.
Good luck with the move David. I’ve moved around so many different servers over the past few years that my head is still spinning. I’ve heard good things about Media Temple. I am just wary of any “virtual” dedicated solution based on past experiences. The price sure does beat my bill for Rackspace though (thankfully shared among 30 clients)!
Thanks and goodluck
I’m lucky to have my site hosted at my last company on my own box on a fat pipe, and despite all the good stuff I’ve heard about Media Temple, I’ve been thinking a real server at serverbeach.com might be more interesting. A dedicated linux box for less than $100/mo…
I’ve not done the research to determine if they are worth it and they are reliable so research more if you are interested…
I hope you can stick within 256MB RAM on that VPS! Although if all you’re serving from the VDS is this blog I reckon that should be OK.
With regards to mt’s gs, an awful lot of the interest is hype – it’s something other hosting providers have been doing for years (although a little more refined than some of them). see Ben Rockwood’s writeup for more technical details.
I am using MediaTemple as well, I hope you enjoy it too. ^_^
Dave,
Check out this link from a designer in the UK who just moved off the grid server. Might be a useful point of reference for you.
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/off_the_grid/
cheers,
doug.
The grid server really has been awful. Even now I’m still seeing intermittent MySQL failures and the only thing protecting my entire site from going down during those times is WP-Cache.
Definitely post an update about dv once you get settled in; I doubt it’s worth the cost for me now but may be in the future.
I recommend LayeredTech in Dallas area.
Very stable, great bandwidth connections, etc.
I have a dedicated server with them for $75 (unmanaged, you need to be your own sys admin)
Its been the most reliable server for me to date.
Best of luck!
David
Congratulations, Dave, on being so successful that you have growth pains. That is no small feat!
I’ve got about 20 websites (some of them high traffic) on a MediaTemple dedicated virtual account, and it performs beautifully.
I’ve had the dv account for a little over a year (just migrated to the upgraded 3.0 account that you’re referencing) and I have nothing but praise, especially for their 24/7 phone tech support staff.
Thanks for all the feedback all! I still haven’t heard back from MT, which is odd because it’s been over 24 hours. Hopefully something hasn’t gone amuck with my order. Sigh.
There was once a time where I might have gone for the unmanaged $75 server, but one of my least favorite things in the world is staying up to date with security patches. We’ll see how it goes, though. I’m not sure the DV is a managed solution, but I’ve been told that there’s pre-configured installations of common packages that might make things easier. My point of comparison, though, is compiling packages from source on command-line slackware 3.0 distributions, so maybe things have gotten easier since then.
MediaTemple is good… I’m currently with DreamHost and I love them. I personally recommend DreamHost to anyone, and other people have recommended MediaTemple to me. Hopefully it all goes well!
I’ve been on the Grid Server since it came out (with MT on their SS service for a year before that) and while the road this fall has been really rough, it appears things are getting better. Well, I hope at least.
Problem is, I’ve been royally spoiled by MT’s gorgeous, and highly functional, control panel. Going to any other host in this regard is a huge step down.
So far, I’m mostly mired in the Waiting Game. My initial experience with MediaTemple was marred by some kind of email snafu. Either I miskeyed my email, or there was some delivery problem. Compounding the issue was me using a gmail address with the + sign to tag it uniquely. I finally got on the phone and they reset the password. On the plus side, I didn’t have to wait more than 5 or 6 minutes (headsets make this a lot easier).
Then I found out, after much aggravation, that there was a SECOND email that had all the “how to access your account control panel” info in it. After getting on the phone again, they were going to resend that info, but after not getting it I called again and was told that they actually CAN’T resend it, but it was fairly simple so I took the information down.
Spent a few hours going through Plesk to get a feel for what it does, and I think I have it figured out. It’s a little weird, not really that well documented, and the help systems are filled with broken links. If I hadn’t had the experience in adminstrating my own servers, I’d have been lost in it. The latest holdup is waiting to get root access to the server so I can up the maximum packet size for mysql and import my blog database. And so…I wait some more.
You’ll be well-pleased with MT’s overall service. I am. I was on a smaller, almost ‘mom-and-pop’ sort of webhost, and they just couldn’t keep up. I’ve never experienced problems with MT and things are organized generally very well, and their knowledge base articles sometimes solve problems without having to dig too deep. Nice.
But another mark for the Media Temple DV. I am on the Grid now, but will switch to the DV again when I get a few more clients who will cover the cost. Plesk, in my opinion, is really well thought out. And while my DV never had one second of downtime or problems, I can’t say the same for the Grid. It’s still shared hosting essentially. But the DV is wonderful.
seeing if I can add a comment.