Tag Archives: Reliabox review

Reliabox – What Makes It So Reliable?

  By Joel | September 6, 2012 - 8:52 PM |
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Hey, thanks for checking out my review page for Reliabox web hosting. At the time of this post it is the only third-party Reliabox review on the Web that I’m aware of.  If I’m wrong, please let me know so I can stop making that claim!  My writing skills are limited to whatever flows from  my mind according to what I know, so please excuse any lack of information or details that you might expect.  The best thing to do is contact me with questions, or click here visit the Reliabox website.

Previous posts talked about my reasons for creating this blog, and what makes good and reliable Web hosting. There is much more to everything I’ve talked about, but I think I’ve touched on the most important things, and given you a solid idea of what to look for when shopping for a Web hosting provider.  After this post you should be armed with enough information to make a solid and informed decision.

I also promised in my previous post that I would address the topic of server quality in a Web host.  A server is basically a computer on steroids.  It has a hard drive just as your own personal computer does, but it’s configured to do one specific job – store all the files of your website, and perform other magic tricks in order to keep your site alive, secure, and accessible to the world.computer system

Websites as we know them cannot exist without servers, and a high quality server is a very important part of reliability.  It absolutely needs to be in top shape in order to deliver on all the promises that a Web host gives.  Without it, everything else suffers: uptime, backup integrity, speed, etc.  Even the freedom to expand your site as it grows is dependent on the quality of the server.

Now here’s where the rubber meets the road. Even though all servers do the same basic job, all servers are not created equal!  They vary in processing power and speed; they have different load tolerances and configurations; they’re even at the mercy of the manufacturer! And… they come in different formats, which is what I want to tell you about.  Now this might get a little too geeky for some of you, but bear with me. :)

 


 Server Types


PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment) Disk Drive
(Pronounced “payta” or “patta”, depending on your upbringing.)

These drives are also called IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and EIDE (Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics). It all relates to the kind of interface that connects the disk drive to the motherboard. The magnetic disks inside it spin at around 7200 RPM.  It’s an older type of drive found in older computers, is slower, and is superseded by…

servers

SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) Disk Drive
(Pronounced “sayta” or “satta”)

These drives also use spinning magnetic disks, but they’re thinner and have faster data transfer than PATA.  SATA disks are available that spin as fast as 10,000 RPM.  They’re also more efficient, and use less power.

 

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) Disk Drive
(Pronounced “scuzzy”  – Yes, really!)

SCSI drives are similar to IDE drives, but the magnetic disks within it spin at a still higher rate than IDE and SATA drives (up to 15,000 RPM).  This type of drive also requires a controller between it and the computer’s motherboard; the others are directly connected.

In all three disk formats above, higher RPM means faster data access, but it can also mean faster breakdown!  Wouldn’t you break down faster if you spun 15,000 RPM instead of 7200?  Well think how a hard disk feels.  And all the data is hanging on for its life!

So when a web host uses servers with these types of drives, no matter how well maintained the equipment is kept, those spinning disks are running 24/7/365, and the data – your website files – is constantly being spun around mega fast, and the magnetic particles that make up the data that make up your website get fragmented over time. (Such an occurrence is unavoidable on any typical hard drive, even on your own computer.  That’s why we have the Defrag function to run periodically.)  Eventually, though, one or more of those spinning disks is going to say “Enough!”, and call it day, bringing everything to a screeching halt.

You can lose your website that way, especially if it’s the backup server that kicked the bucket.   Not what I consider reliable hosting.

Mankind has gotten along pretty well all these years with spinning disks, but what if there was one more type of hard drive that greatly lessened or even eliminated the potential for spinning disk death? Would you continue to look at the above options when choosing a Web host?  Personally, when I heard of this next format I completely wandered away from my current host to one that gave me more confidence and security in keeping my website safe in all respects.

Reliabox uses this more stable format.  It’s called…

 

server-2SSD (Solid State Drive)
(Pronounced “ess ess dee”  – hehe, sorry, couldn’t resist)

This type of drive serves the same purpose as the above formats; the difference being that, instead of all your website files spinning mercilessly at up to 15,000 RPM on a magnetic disk, a Solid State Drive holds your data in calm, cool, stationary memory chips.  Can you feel the relief already?  Just the thought of my data not getting dizzy makes me feel better.

And THAT… is why I moved my web hosting over to Reliabox. Click here to check them out yourself.  There’s more details there than I can write about here.

Hosting my websites on SSD technology provides three huge advantages for me.  Like I said in my last post, these three things are also important to good Web hosting services, and with solid state drives in the mix I can be more confident than ever of the reliability factor as well.

The Big Three advantages of SSD technology over traditional hard disks:

  1. Even More Speed – Spinning magnetic disks are limited by their physical state, and commonly causes data bottlenecks on servers. Solid State Drives don’t have this limitation, however, and so are 100 times faster than your average hard disk drive. This also means faster page load speed.  And it’s a well-known fact that fast-loading web pages translates to higher visitor retention – which in turn can mean more sales or whatever action you want your visitors to take.
  2. No Disk Failure – Solid State Drives have no moving parts to break or go bad, which gives them a much longer lifespan than standard disk drives. Longer lifespan = more uptime = happier visitors.
  3. Total Reliability – Less power is consumed with SSD technology, therefore giving off less heat. So you have very little worry about the server getting overheated, which can cause problems with other parts of the server.

The SSD element alone is what tipped the scales in favor of Reliabox for me.  I value my data, the website files I worked so hard to create. There are tons of Web hosts out there, and I’m sure some have SSD servers as well, but Reliabox happened to the be first one I came across that does so – or at least makes it known! So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.  I hope this Reliabox review was useful to you.  Whether you’re shopping for reliable Web hosting services right now, or you will in the future, keep this company in mind when making a final decision.

Click here to get Reliabox

Click here to get Reliabox.

 

Thanks for reading!

Good Web Hosting – What really matters?

  By Joel | September 2, 2012 - 1:59 PM |
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While it’s true that determining the true quality of a web host is difficult if you have only been with them for a short time, there are still some benchmarks to pay attention to that give you a clue as to whether you’re using a good one.  This is what I will cover in this post: How to know when a company is offering something worth spending your money on!

 

First of all, let’s get price out of the way.  Pricing can fool you.  An expensive host can offer crappy performance and customer service, and an inexpensive host can be awesome.  It all depends on the people running the show.  So while the old adage “you get what you pay for” remains true in many cases, it can’t be taken as gospel. The web hosting industry is simply too competitive to judge it by price. Therefore, other factors must be considered before price.

FYI: Compared to other hosts I’ve been with, Reliabox does offer comfortably low pricing for the average user, and attractive rates for their higher end services.

 

Another thing to look at are the features of a hosting package.  Everyone has different needs, so this post really can’t discuss features with any authority, since I have no idea what you’re looking for in that respect. Pretty much any web hosting provider worth its salt will offer the following features:

  • FTP Access
  • POP3 Email Accounts with Autoresponders, and Mail Forwarding
  • Control Panel
  • Support for FTP, PHP, Perl, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, SSH, MySQL, crontabs
  • SSL (secure server), Shopping Cart
  • Multiple Domain Hosting and Subdomains

There are other features available most of the time, but those are some important ones that will make your Web presence complete. So having these features doesn’t necessarily make a host a good host.  It just makes them a host. ;-)

 

So what about support? All hosting companies will offer a degree of customer service, the quality of which will vary. We all want to get the best customer service possible, and to be honest there is no such thing as perfect customer service. It’s all relative, and dependent on the customer’s perception of company competence at the time of need.

What I mean is, if a minor issue occurs the customer may not be in a panic, so the support team could be as slow and half-hearted as they want to be; the issue gets resolved and they have a satisfied customer.  But if a major issue arises, and customer service is still sloppy, well then they’re the worst thing since the discovery of broccoli.

For the most part, customer service is competent and quick enough in most good Web hosting companies.  The perception aspect of it, however, isn’t quite a big enough factor to make a difference in choosing a reliable web hosting company .

 

So what exactly makes a web hosting provider reliable?

Whenever I look at a web host, I already know that all the above will most likely be available, and are not the biggest concerns for the reasons mentioned.  A website that is always there, always available for visitors – that’s what we ultimately want, right?  Reliable web hosting is the key.  And reliable web hosting is a large part of good web hosting. The main points I look for when it comes to reliability are:

  • Speed
  • Backup
  • Uptime
  • Expansion
  • Server Quality

They aren’t listed in any particular order of priority, mainly because I feel they are all equally important for solid hosting.  Let’s look at them one at a time:

 

Speed
Even though speed isn’t strictly a reliability factor, it does have a major impact on visitors to your site.  There are the occasional bottlenecks on the Internet that can slow down a web page temporarily, but a consistently slow website doesn’t encourage return visits.  An ongoing problem with speed is a sign of an unreliable web host.

 

Backup Facilities
No matter how great a server is, with all its modern and well-maintained hardware, a crash can happen for many reasons.  That’s just the nature of technology.  Nothing lasts forever.  And if your website files are on a server that crashes, in many cases those files are gone right along with it.

A good web host will keep backups of all your files.  The method and frequency of backups will vary from host to host, but the important thing is they must have a backup policy!

 

Server Uptime

Uptime is basically the amount of time that the server is connected to the Internet, so your website is always accessible to visitors.  This is vital to a successful online presence.  The Web is a 24/7/365 deal, and people expect to be able to reach your site at all times.  Just like a regular real-world business, if it’s advertised as being open 9 a.m. – 5p.m., then customers expect to come in at 4:55p.m. if they like.

A website that’s not available at least 99% of the time, on a consistent basis, is an unreliable website.  If you’re running a site for profit, downtime can cost you more than a few minutes of blank space. And it would be the web host at fault if they can’t keep their servers connected to the Internet.

 

Expansion

This relates to reliability in that you may find yourself needing more server space and/or bandwidth as your website grows; especially if you’re running an online store or something that attracts tons of visitors every day.

To keep up with growth you will need to upgrade your hosting; perhaps to a VPS or dedicated plan. The way a web hosting provider handles growth is important.  This is especially true when it comes to automatic upgrading or not.  You don’t want to find yourself in the embarrassing position where your current hosting plan runs out of space, and your account gets suspended until you upgrade.  Making it automatic will avoid that situation.

 

Server Quality

Due to the length of this post, I am going to save Server Quality for my next post in a day or two.  It is the last one on the list not because it’s least important – it’s actually very important – but because the detail in which I want to into is lengthy, and as I said this post is already long enough!

 

Please check back in the next couple days to read what I have to say about it, and we’ll also get back to focusing on my Reliabox review as well.  I know this post wasn’t so much about that directly, but it helps to understand a few important aspects of what constitutes good web hosting, before getting into the actual review.

Thanks again for reading!  I’ll see you again soon.

- – Joel

A Reliabox Review. Reliable web hosting – or is it?

  By Joel | September 1, 2012 - 9:14 PM |
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This Reliabox review discusses aspects of good web hosting amongst today’s many web hosting solutions. Here is a good place to begin when you want to compare web hosting.

It has been a giant leap of faith for me, moving my business over to this web hosting service. Writing a review page is a also big step for me because I basically am not a fan of writing articles and posts; which leads me to something I want to make clear before getting this project in motion:  I do not consider myself a good writer. ;-)

What I mean is, I don’t have a flair for knowing all the buzz words and phrases that are supposed to convince someone that I know what I’m talking about, or that it’s worth listening to.  Nor do I have the attention span required to pore over every word I write in order to make it sound like I know what I’m doing in the first place.

So if you’re hoping to be inspired by my words, you might be in for a let-down, haha.  I write it the way I think it!

The reason this review exists is pretty much because I couldn’t find one.  When choosing a product or service to invest in I always search the Web to find third-party reviews of the product or service that I’m considering. This time, however, there was none, so I had only the information from the Reliabox website itself.  But it did look like a very good web hosting solution, so I’ve taken the chance, and will use it to get first-hand experience with this company.

We all want reliable web hosting, right?  Hopefully the knowledge I gain from this experience will be of some help to you and others who come to this page, as I give my honest opinion of the overall performance and quality of the service.  Stay tuned for my next post that will go over some of my early findings.