Reliable NZ-server hosting?

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fatjoez

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#249509 14-May-2019 16:28

Currently with Openhost & previously Webdrive.
Looking for an alternative with NZ servers and high reliability.

Requirements:
Basic web server PHP 5 & 7
Email 10GB storage total
Email aliases + forwarding
1 domain
UPTIME + reliability
Some basic automated backup in case of outages or server crash...

Recommendations please?

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meow
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#2236767 14-May-2019 16:40

You didn't mention pricing but https://sitehost.nz are excellent.

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epr

260 posts

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#2236768 14-May-2019 16:41

Look into vBridge. Good quality service and NZ based great wee team they know what they are doing.

Sorry I didn't read the content of your post before writing this I am not sure about vbridge and web hosting.

bigalow

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#2236770 14-May-2019 16:47

why don't you get a cheap vps than shared hosting

michaelmurfy

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#2236775 14-May-2019 16:59

biggal:

why don't you get a cheap vps from vultr.com in Sydney

He specifically said NZ based hosting and the VM you mentioned was IPv6 only, and is no-longer available.

Also to all - this is not a thread for affiliate codes. Please recommend a solution that fits in with what is being asked.

fatjoez

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#2236790 14-May-2019 17:18

Main 2 reasons for suggesting NZ hosts only

1. Local telephone support for my colleagues who are not tech inclined nor wanting to wait for email support (especially when the email server goes down...)

2. Fractionally better performance for local data servers vs offshore (less of a concern in 2019 I guess with Fibre internet...)

Checked sitehost but they have either 5GB (too small) @ $35 or 20GB (OK) at $80 month (out of budget).

Not considering VPS as due to above prefer a standard hosting+email server with a user friendly control panel to administer hosting controls, email management (aliases, forwarding etc) and domain management (which most VPS I've seen don't have)

With the above in mind we could perhaps consider expanding to offshore data centres with local support?

Thoughts???

FYI: I am looking into vultr VPS. as mentioned above it does seem to require a little bit more work to setup in terms of deploying apps etc and we would prefer something ready to go but still researching it.

michaelmurfy

meow
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#2236795 14-May-2019 17:30

Yes - Sitehost are rather expensive but I didn't know your budget. Sitehost are very good at NZ hosting however.

If you want VPS like performance, and don't want to have to manage it take a look at Cloudways: https://www.cloudways.com/en/

You can sign up and spin up some instances to play around with.

Edit: for email there is zohomail (https://www.zoho.com/mail/) which are cheap. If you want to self-host it then take a look at https://mailinabox.email/ also.

Lastly, I don't like people posting referral links on here - especially those who post without really doing any research but if you do want some credit to try out Vultr then feel fee to PM me and I can give you a code.

fatjoez

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#2236797 14-May-2019 17:32

Yes thanks I should have clarified this. Budget is $10-20NZD per month.
Currently I think it's $11 12 with openhost for their package plan 10GB.

For the record I have a separate hosting account with mediatemple on their standard grid hosting which I could use but for the reasons above until now I had refrained from doing so. However mediatemple for anyone familiar are a very big hosting name in America and reliable without a data storage cap from memory

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Kraven

729 posts

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#2236799 14-May-2019 17:50

Take a look at Webslice, owned by the Sitehost group.

xpd

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#2236828 14-May-2019 19:06

Can you just clarify what you were getting from OpenHost - was it web hosting or server hosting ?

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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Delphinus

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#2236832 14-May-2019 19:12

fatjoez: Checked sitehost but they have either 5GB (too small) @ $35 or 20GB (OK) at $80 month (out of budget).

Another vote for Sitehost. I realise this is a bit out of budget, but you could get the $35 plan and then just add some disk, rather than upgrading the whole server for some disk.

fatjoez

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#2236947 14-May-2019 20:50

xpd:
Can you just clarify what you were getting from OpenHost - was it web hosting or server hosting ?

Hi XPD. Currently on Openhost Linux - Foundation ($120 year) 10GB storage (shared hosting & email)
https://www.openhost.co.nz/web-hosting

I checked webslice.
Ignoring the 1st month only discount they have a 12GB plan (large slice) but at $27.95/month a little pricier than I'd hoped for getting essentially the same functional product as we are currently.

That said so far the closest option.

Are there any databases of NZ hosts?
Trying google but it's hard to find as you get a lot of sponsored overseas hosts popping in results.

mattwnz

20108 posts

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#2236949 14-May-2019 20:56

Is this for a business? Why are you wanting to change? $120 a year is cheap. These days many businesses tend to use google apps or outlook, due to superior reliability. Even some web hosts recommend it over their own email. IMO use web hosting for websites, and email providers for email for businesses. Especially if reliability is the key.

fatjoez

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#2236997 14-May-2019 21:14

Openhost is OK for the price just frustrated by 2 things lately.
A change of control panel from Plesk to something inhouse/3rd party that is missing functionality of Plesk.
Also an unscheduled 3 hours downtime during business hours of website & email at a critical time.

We've been with Openhost a few years and before that webdrive (same parent company).
Just a little shaken in terms of confidence per above events hence why we are looking at options.

Moving for us is complex as we have both websites with linked databases & email.
So looking for providers that offer a point of difference beyond the basic specs (storage, bandwidth etc).

Based on above event of downtime in our case it was made clear by the downtime that for shared hosting each customer is only on one server. If that server goes down the customer goes down as we did. No redundancy.
From memory the casual host I have MediaTemple and I'm guessing others, even on shared hosting have a redundancy so customers can stay up if a physical server goes down.
This is something I'm looking for too but I guess we will have to contact each host individually and ask the question since it's not really something advertised.

xpd

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#2237024 14-May-2019 22:18

OK, then its webhosting you're after if after a similar product, not server hosting. Server hosting is a different kettle of fish and relies on you setting up the environment in most cases and gives you dedicated host to use, and not shared - the host would just give you a basic Linux install with SSH and leaves you to it.

Webhosting will give you the pre-setup platform such as what you are currently getting via Plesk or similar.

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michaelmurfy

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#2237062 14-May-2019 23:36

Keep your email separate from your hosting.

If this is for a business - then use either Zoho, Fastmail, Gsuite or Office 365. If you use hosted email with many of the "cheap" providers I can tell you now, you will experience email delivery issues. It is worth the extra cost and to be perfectly honest the cost is low.

Regarding the hosting - yes, it is a higher cost but with this higher cost comes better speed and capacity which is what you asked for in your original post.

You can't pay nothing for something reliable - you have to pay something a bit more for reliability.

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