5 pre-sale questions

[phineas]

I'm giving Hawk semi-dedicated hosting a very close look and have about 15 questions in all. But I'm trying to work the rest through the sales ticket system. Let me start with the five questions that are most important to me:

 

1. Are the MySQL databases stored on the same server as an account's websites?

 

2. Are the storage limitations inclusive or exclusive of MySQL database storage?

 

3. Do you offer true IMAP/SMTP email – with SSL protection of both outgoing and incoming messages?

 

4. Do you support SFTP? I want to use the FileZilla’s “SFTP – SSH” functionality to manage my site files. Is this supported? My last host supported SSH and FileZilla worked great with it: http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/

 

5. Can I create multiple FTP accounts with different logins?

 

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Tony]

1.  They are stored on the same server as the accounts website

 

2.  The storage limit would include the usage from mySQL

 

3.  We do offer SSL protection for both incoming and outgoing.  We provide you with a hostname for each so it's a signed certificate.  We also support SNI over the services as well so you could install your own certificate if you wished.

 

4.  We support SFTP and recommend all users use it

 

5.  You can create multiple FTP accounts but keep in mind for these they would need to use FTPS as SFTP only works on true linux user accounts which the FTP accounts are not.

[phineas]

Tony, thanks for the fast responses on what is a holiday (in the States, anyway). I might as well ask the rest of my questions. Hope you don't mind:

 

6. How many accounts per shared-hosting server on average?

 

7. How many accounts per semi-dedicated server on average?

 

8. Any issues with customer-installed, server-based WordPress and Invision IP.Board?

 

9. Do you have a demo of your control panel?

 

10. Do you take at least daily MySQL backups? (I know you tale site backups.)

 

11. How many concurrent MySQL connections are permitted with shared hosting?

 

12. How many concurrent MySQL connections are permitted with semi-dedicated hosting, 50?

 

13. Can I get semi-dedicated hosting in a Washington DC data center?

 

Thanks!

[Tony]

6.  We'd be unable to disclose a number as it can vary wildly and we don't want to give anyone the wrong idea.  We base it off of actual load of a server so some may have more than others.  Also dependent on hardware as well as technology changes we have hardware that may be able to hold more users.

 

7.  Same as number 6

 

8.  No issues with those we have many customers running those applications.

 

9.  We do not but we run cPanel (http://cpanel.net/ ) and the majority of the features will be the same.  We add a few extra like the ability to switch from PHP 5.2 all the way up to PHP 5.6 through your cPanel however. 

 

10.  We use R1Soft for our backups which is a block level system and we utilize a feature to make sure MySQL backups are consistent.  We take daily backups of the entire server on our shared web hosting servers and take 2 backups daily of our semi dedicated servers.

 

11.  25

 

12.  50

 

13.  At this time we do not offer them in Washington DC but we are evaluating adding it as an option.

[Jordy]

Hi guys,

 

I've been with hawk host for a few years now, I came onto the forums for some technical help (script related, not server) and just happened to stumble along this thread.

 

I noticed that Phineas had his question answered quickly, but what impressed me was that it was answered by the CEO! As a business owner myself I really appreciate this, I love it when I see a CEO actually doing some customer facing work instead of just hiding away somewhere. 

 

I just came for some MySQL help and ended up with yet another reason to love my host. Keep it up Tony!

 

Oh and Phineas, for what its worth from an actual user. I have installed and removed more Wordpress sites and plugins than I could possibly remember over my time with Hawk Host, both via FTP and Softaculous. I've never had a single issue that wasn't caused by me playing with code. I can't speak for IPBoard, but I've used some of the other popular ones just to play around with and had no issues.

[phineas]

Thanks to both of you!

 

I think the limit of 50 concurrent MySQL connections is a deal-breaker for me, unfortunately. I probably need managed VPS service. (No way I have the spare time for unmanaged VPS.)

 

But Hawk seems like a great company.

[Tony]

Thanks to both of you!

 

I think the limit of 50 concurrent MySQL connections is a deal-breaker for me, unfortunately. I probably need managed VPS service. (No way I have the spare time for unmanaged VPS.)

 

But Hawk seems like a great company.

 

Are you sure you are actually utilizing 50 concurrent MySQL connections?  I just don't believe you are because if you were you'd be serving 4.3 million page views a day with that number of connections. At those kind of traffic levels you'd be running off a dedicated web server alone.  For most users they're probably using just a few connections at most as MySQL connections are quick less than a second typically.  If you're basing your numbers off software that reports number of users online keep in mind it's talking about someone who has visited the site in the last 15-60 minutes.  So for a forum with say 300 users online it might only have 5 MySQL connections at any given time.

[rgdot]

Just to add from years of experience running forums and sites. 50 MySQL connections is lots and has little to do with number people on your site at same time as reported by any stats or analytics.

[phineas]

Thanks I've had this discussion before and had that limit before. I think my situation is unique. Let's leave it at that.