Basics when choosing shared, VPS or dedicated hosting?

[Rai_Yan]

I have only experience hosting websites on shared accounts. Though I am bit familiar of the resource specifications (CPU, RAM, Bandwidth, etc.) that the VPS and the Dedicated hosting site are offering, I do not really know when to recommend those. My initial instinct is telling me that if the site's performance getting too slow on shared, its time for VPS. If its getting slow on VPS, then migrate to dedicated. I am quite sure that this a very irresponsible assumption , so...

Is there some sort of a benchmark or guidelines that can give me a bit of a confidence advising someone that shared, VPS or dedicated is the right hosting for them?

[kpmedia]

You have the basics down (VERY BASIC!) in that you move shared to VPS to dedicated.

However, there are more options: semi-dedicated, reseller and cloud.

(1) semi-dedicated = more powerful shared, sometimes called "enterprise" (ie Stablehost) or "businesses" hosting. Note that "business" is sometimes a marteking term, and not reflective of the offering (ie, not semi-dedicated)

(2) reseller = split all domains, so not trying to cram many into one shared account

(3) cloud = the infrastructure only. "Cloud" hosting is still shared, reseller, semi-dedicated, or VPS. Note that the term "cloud" has been raped, and is meaningless at many hosts. There's also several definitions of cloud, and all can be accurate. Site5 is one of the few hosts offering an actual cloud of this nature.

Now, again, you only have a basic understanding...

For example, a low-end cheap VPS can be less powerful than a good shared host's dedicated server. So moving "up" to VPS would actually be a downgrade. So you need to be careful withe specs chosen. Much of that depends on the site itself, and what it needs. Some need CPU, while others need RAM or I/O.

Even a cheap dedicated server with non-RAID SATA may be a downgrade from a site with RAID-10 SAS or SSD, if it relies on I/O to serve downloadable content fast (ie, podcasts).

We never give generic advice on this site because, as you can see, generic advice doesn't really work.

So, tell me your site, and what issues you're having, or think you might in the future. We can discuss your options better.

Also...

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[Rai_Yan]

Thanks! If not for your review, I would have fallen to the hands of EIG VPS services.

My last site I registered was on fastnext.com and I was disappointed when I found out that they hosted my site on a Ukraine server, not in the US as stated on their website. Though my client find their downtimes intolerable, their customer service were quite responsive to be fair.

I am going with your recommendations right now. I am looking at the Enterprise/Premium account of mddhosting.com or stablehost. Maybe whoever can migrate my client's website seamlessly.

I am glad I stumbled into this forum. Thanks again!

[lvpshosting]

Another thing you must pay attention is the quality of the support. Many "unmanaged" VPS hosting providers will do almost anything for you even if they offer "unmanaged" hosting plans, but there are those who also offer "unmanaged" plans and the only thing you will get from the a static answer as "you have unmanaged VPS everything is your responsibility", and since you do not have any big experience with VPS's you will use and need the support dept. on your side.