Recommendations for a web hosting provider

DistortedVision

Hi,

I'm looking for a new web hosting provider. I've been with 1&1 for 7 years and upgraded a few days ago from their Standard to Unlimited package.I use my hosting for photo gallaries and videos for friends and family for various domains. None have a proper website. The other purpose to backup critical data: photos, videos, important documents and my Outlook .pst file.

When I upgraded 1&1 said I had to transfer my files myself as they won't do it. I had 50Gb of data and traffic is very light. But when I tried to upload my FTP client kept reporting that the quota had been exceeded. Contacted technical support who told me you actually get 30Gb which increases by 1Gb once you reach the maximum. Hardly unlimited is it? Anyway it wasn't increasing the quota and after it was escalated to 2nd line support they told me that I can't use my webspace to store any private data as a backup or otherwise. Even though I'd been storing my data for 7 years in this way.

Anyway, 1&1 refuse to increase my quota so I'm looking for a new hosting provider. I would prefer a UK based company that allows me to use it to backup personal data. Also I have 8 domains which have been registered with Network Solutions and another registrar. I would like to be able to use hosting with no additional charges with all of them. Also I'd like spam filtering at server level and webmail access to POP email accounts at my domains.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I looked at UK2 today and I spoke to them and they said that storing personal backup data is no problem. My only reservations is that their pricing did not seem transaparent and there seemed to be lots of extra charges on top of the basic hosting fee.

Hope someone can help!

Many thanks!

Gunstar

http://catalyst2.com - UK based, fair pricing, great uptime, great support.

Mikebellows

Have a look at one.com

tronator

Distorted_Vision wrote: »

When I upgraded 1&1 said I had to transfer my files myself as they won't do it. I had 50Gb of data and traffic is very light. But when I tried to upload my FTP client kept reporting that the quota had been exceeded. Contacted technical support who told me you actually get 30Gb which increases by 1Gb once you reach the maximum. Hardly unlimited is it? Anyway it wasn't increasing the quota and after it was escalated to 2nd line support they told me that I can't use my webspace to store any private data as a backup or otherwise. Even though I'd been storing my data for 7 years in this way.

When I joined 1&1 about a year ago I had the same problem (IIRC I hit the quota at 20GB), but after one or two calls they enabled the whole 50GB. I use them for my encrypted backups too, so they won't know what I have stored there anyway...

punksluck

Got completely fed up with 1&1 over the years. They suspended my site due to high traffic levels!! I found a guy called Andy who runs a company called DX3 webs. They mainly manage Magento e-commerce based servers but I'm sure they do domestic as well as business. I've never had any problems with these guys. Andy is always to hand to answer my calls, day and night! No more call centers :j

Andy is based in Manchester and has a couple of guys who look after things in the evening so someone is always there in case you need support. I pay him £170 per year for my unlimited business package. I would never, ever have got this kind of support for that price anywhere else.

www dx3webs com
..if you call them, tell him Scott recommended him to you.

Benet

Have a nosy at http://evohosting.co.uk

Fast uk servers, great and super fast support. Been with them since 2004, very seldom had any issues and when I have they've always been sorted out sharpish.

DistortedVision

Thanks guys I'll look into all of them - much appreciated.

Wondering if any of you have any experience of Livedrive? I was thinking about using that for my personal backup data as most hosting providers don't allow it. You get unlimited data backup from £3 a month. They also have a cloud service called Briefcase which is like DropBox but its accessed as a network drive or by FTP. They have a 2 week free trial so I think I'll look into it.

Will still be moving from 1&1 for my hosting. Their technical support is really frustrating amongst everything else.

Jamie_Carter

A friend recently told me about www.123connect.co.uk they are supposed to be small, friendly, and UK based.

Roland_Sausage

Most of them will have a clause in the small print that you must be using the service for a website and not for data storage.

If you are looking for data storage/backup you might be better with something like Crashplan.

lemontart

google servage they are pretty good,

Jamie_Carter

If you have a .co.uk website, and want good rankings, then make sure it is a UK based server. With 1&1.co.uk the server is actually in Germany.