Since the beginning of 2007, PaulStamatiou.com has been hosted by Media Temple on their then newly launched (dv) dedicated-virtual 3.0 platform. Before that I was on the (dv) 2.0, so I’m quite familiar with their offerings. While the service and hardware itself had been great, I was a little put off by the fact that most of the software was outdated – old versions of PHP, MySQL and even the OS. Media Temple has listened more closely to people like me and developers hosting applications on the (dv) with their roll out of the (dv) 3.5 today.
Why not just call it 4.0? Well the (dv) 3.5 is running PHP 5, MySQL 5 and CentOS 5 – see a pattern there? In addition, (dv) 3.5 boxes come standard with Plesk 8.3, Perl, Python, Ruby and pretty much whatever else you might need to build your app and host your site. As a refresher, the (dv) is Media Temple’s mid-range to high-end server offering. One step lower gets you the (gs) for $20/month and one step higher gets you their uber server, the Nitro, for $750/month. The (dv) fits between the two with plans starting at $50-150/month.
More importantly (to me at least) MediaTemple made a slew of optimizations with the (dv) 3.5. Specifically, the new (dv) uses around 30% less memory than the previous configuration in the (dv) 3.0. That should come in very handy for me. In the past month, I have been dealing with spammers hitting my server very hard – hard enough to spike load up to 9 for quite some time and use crazy amounts of RAM, eventually crashing the server. I think this will become more of a non-issue after I migrate to the (dv) 3.5 and have more system resources available.
For those that have been curious as to what server I am on, it’s a (dv) Rage with upgraded RAM. In the last 30 days, I pulled in close to 400,000 pageviews and I haven’t even come close to maxing out the (dv). Out of the 1.5TB of available bandwidth on the (dv) Rage, I only consume about 100 gigs a month. My normal load average is around 0.4 on the dual-core Xeon. The new (dv) 3.5 comes with a quad-core Xeon 2.33GHz processor in an HP Proliant DL-Series server with SAS hard drives in a RAID-5 array (the 3.0 had SCSI disks). To clarify, these are definitely not low-end servers built with SATA drives from Best Buy – things you might see at a “regular” VPS host. (burn!)
System Specs
I’ll be migrating over to 3.5 either this evening or a bit later in the week depending on what school work lies ahead for me. Let me know if you have any questions about the new box. Speaking of which, if you have your own site, who’s your host?
Disclosure: I was not paid for this post and do not receive any sort of referral credits. I have been a friend of (mt) for a very long time and they cover my hosting needs as well as call me from time to time to talk about the latest gossip on the block.
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My blog is hosted on Mediatemple as well, however, on their (gs) plan which is a great deal. For $20 a month you get 100gb of storage and 1TB of bandwidth.
Thanks for going into some detail on this, Paul. I’ve been thinking about mt, but wondered if 1.5TB would be acceptable … I don’t even come close to it, now, and may never, but my host, BlueHost, has a 3TB limit for a lot less, and I did not want to feel like I “was losing something” in making a transition.
I have a shared server plan with BlueHost, and get frustrated that someone else’s traffic can take my site down at times. Generally, though, they have been satisfactory and are good at keeping the latest software. Disappointed that they won’t let me have my own httpd.conf settings, but, with a shared server, I understand why. Do you get to have your own httpd.conf?
Anyway, good to know that someone with 20 times my traffic does not even come close to 1.5TB … that makes me think a move to mt could be in my future.
Well obviously I’m also with (mt) on the (gs) it powers up more than 6 websites I manage and it’s a breeze….
I’m using (mt)’s (gs), and aside from that one (extra-long) maintenance-gone-wrong, I’ve been very happy with them.
I’m still using Media Temple’s (ss) hosting. :p
I’ve been with LunarPages for about a year now, and I’ve had nothing but good experiences. I use one of their shared hosting plans, and it’s been surprisingly good. Any time anything happens (problems, outages, hardware changes, software upgrades), they let me know immediately. Basically, they’ve provided an exceptional experience when you consider that it’s just a cheap shared hosting plan!
Now that I’ve started up a blog there’s the (hopeful) possibility that I’ll get more traffic, which may mean a change in hosts. If it works out this way, I’ll probably looking into MediaTemple.
I couldn’t tell you how many different hosts I’ve been with. Just off the top of my head I can think of iPower, BlueHost, VPSLink, and I even hosted out of my house for about a year. Before I left for california this summer, I tried out (mt) for a month, but didn’t keep it because of the high costs compared to what I needed. When I found out about the hosting card promo they do at Christmas, I jumped on it, and yet again I’m loving (mt).
I host with MT’s Grid Service. I chose Media Temple based largely on what I read here at paulstamatiou.com. Excellent suggestion Stammy! :)
34sp.com for me
I was with A2, dedicated server – they were excellent, but due to procrastination, overkill. So I went to (mt) (gs) :) and am now considering (dv) – How much RAM do you use, Paul? I was thinking the entry level package with 256mb more ram (effectively the Rage, but less diskspace, for $10 less), then again, maybe just go for the Rage up front… Hrm.
friend hosts mine- hooray!
I’ve been having my own server in the GNAX DC since I have my own business running on it, but I’ve been thinking of making a move to (mt)’s (gs) soon.
If only they gave a dedicated IP with (gs)
Either that or a slice from slicehost. I’d love to build it from scratch.
I use Site5.com it’s about $5 a month with a dedicated IP. No real problems to speak of.
I’ve tried Media Temple and their (gs), but since I’m located in Germany (and most of my visitors, too) the average loadtime was to high for me so I had to move to a german hosting company (all-inkl.com).
Since I have only up to 10.000 pageviews per month shared hosting is fine for me and my hoster is doing a good job. The only thing I really miss is shell-access, it’s so much easier to keep all the things up to date via subversion.
(I’ve also tried DreamHost some time back because of the plenty of space they offer, but just take a look at dreamhoststatus.com to see why I’ve been there only for 1 1/2 months)
When I move to the US (and not just a week NY per year) Media Temple will be my number one :-)
We host our site on DV3.0 base with 128mb extra RAM – what kills us is kmemsize usage. We barely ever exhaust our physical memory but crash often due to our kmemsize use. The annoying thing is most Plesk guides recommend tuning kmemsize to 20% of physical memory but MT tunes it to around 12% and refuses to go any higher. They even sent us a link to a FAQ describing our exact problem and one of the fixes was to tune kmemsize to 20% but they still will not do it and insist we move to a higher dv plan to increase our physical RAM and kmemsize.
We are still using MT for the time being and have been fairly satisfied but it is annoying that they will not at least tune it higher to let us see if it resolves our issues or not. We can try 3.5 and see if it anything changes.
I just ditched MT and their (gs). I had been a customer for about a year, and initially, was really impressed with the features and the quality.
Then, in the fall (around October), the (gs) started having issues. It went down a couple times for extended amounts of time. Additionally, they had some major issues with their email services. MT apologized to their customers (and offered a two month credit), and I was willing to let it slide.
Then, the service had more outages (both planned an unplanned).
Then, one of the most important tools for any webhost service, their backup tool, was taken offline with the message that they were working on a new, improved backup tool. Well, that’s great guys, but why remove the one that is there and already working and replace it with nothing?
Finally, the last straw for me was when my account came up for renewal, suddenly the two month credit I was supposed to be issued for their major outage disappeared. I’d had enough and moved to another host (HostingZoom). Their servers are actually here in Atlanta, which is kind of irrelevent, but makes me feel better.
I’m sure MT’s more expensive options are more reliable than their (gs) offering, but for me, if you can’t get your entry level product right, you shouldn’t expect your customer to move up to the next level.
Dreamhost and Total Choice Hosting for the three websites I’m currently using. Both are your basic shared hosting but since I’ve never topped 8K pagesviews for a month on any website it does the job. If any of my websites start to generate enormous traffic then I’m likely to checkout MT.
I’m with media temple and have to say that it’s the best host service I have ever user, even that I’m a (gs) server, and I don’t really need much more right now.
@Kevin, I was using Godaddy for like 2 years, all the time when some of my articles got to digg, my site went off, and it’s sad. So I don’t have this problem anymore with MT, and I’m happy with that!
Don’t use mediatemple for you domain name email hosting. Don’t use any virtual hosting provider. Use Google Apps – even the free version allows you to route your DNS to point mail.paulstamatiou.com to Google’s gmail services. Then you NEVER have to worry about spammers attacking your servers, and you get to use Gmails awesome webmail (or POP or iMAP).
@Joel Mueller – If Paul is anything like me it’s not email spam that’s the problem. It’s comment spam. When a bot tries to spam the comments it comes in fast and hard. I’ve had instances where a bot has tried to post over 500 spam comments in a period of a few minutes. And, that was on a site that didn’t have near the presence this one does.
I just upgraded my (dv) to 3.5 went pretty smooth, digging it so far, thanks for the heads up Paul!
Thanks for the update Paul. I’ve been with Bluehost, Dreamhost and ASO for the last few years. DH is by far the worst with outages and the childish way they handle problems. I’ve had no problems with Bluehost, but I have enough sites to host that I’m ready to move to a dedicated or reseller plan.
I checked out Eleven2 because they are local, but then started reading a lot of bad reviews along with some of my own experience with contacting them.
I’m looking into MT – mixed reviews around the web for them as well…decisions decisions…
Slicehost all the way for me, awesome value.
@Brian et. al.: (mt) can be a mixed bag, I totally agree. I use the (gs) with a mySQL container with good results. I have about a dozen sites with all different kinds of software and can manage them from one place. I use about 750Gb each month, and not a peep from (mt). Most hosts can get stern with you when you even start to get close to their limits. I’m sticking around for now, but do your due diligence when it comes to hosting, there are just too many fly by night companies out there.
Good comments on the dv. Been searching around for a VPS solution and so far, the only ones that give me any feeling of competency are MT, geekstorage.com, and slicehost.com.
Geekstorage doesn’t say exactly what hardware they run their VPS’s on and I’m waiting to hear back from them on this matter.
I have only been hosting with MT for a couple of months now. I started out on their (gs) servers and then got a (dv) 3.0 base for a WPMU install I host. It was actually having kmemsize issues as well, so I upgraded to the (dv) rage. It was more than I have ever needed. Just upgraded to the (dv) rage 3.5 today and for whatever reason, the migration tool toasted all “auto-increments” out of all my databases. Not impressed, but after an hour I sorted that out. I am really happy with MT in general. After hosting on a bluehost and dreamhost for some of my sites, a dedicated virtual is a nice refreshing change. Nice site!
1and1 for me.
You’re really fortunate with your load averages. Even after performance tuning my (dv) extreme, I’m still getting load averages of 2-3+. :(
@Terry – Is that always your load average? If so that is bad and you’ve probably outgrown your server or have some malicious/bad processes hogging up cycles, a spammer on your tail or something. What is your traffic like?
I am seeing load averages of 2-3 on my shared BlueHost server. Is that my contribution to the server load, or is that the server load of the box (when using CPanel)? In other words, is there anything I can do about it, or is this just a consequence of a shared server?
My traffic does not yet justify a going to MT’s dv, although it is headed in that direction, but I am wondering if I need to jump ship with Bluehost sooner than later.
Good post. I am running an older version of DV 3 but I will be migrating over to a 3.5 soon… I too was annoyed by the fact that they had older versions of the on most of the software.
I noticed you had an old post on RoundCube and was curious if you have installed the newest version of Roundcube on your 3.5? If so, have you been able to get RoundCube to play nicely with Plesk as a replacement to Horde (I hate Horde)? I would be very interested in an article on RoundCube and Mediatemple’s DV 3.5 service and Plesk configuration.
Thanks,
Wes
@Wesley – No, I don’t use RC anymore.. I’m a Google Apper now.
I’m lucky to get even 1500 page loads in a month, so I’m on a cheap shared hosting plan. I buy from a reseller of Steadfast: http://hostaffect.com/ . I get the $30/year plan, which is more than sufficient for me. I think I’ve only once gone over 1GB of traffic; usually, I use around 400MB or so.
Been with Media Temple on a (dv) 3.0 Base since August 2007 and loving every minute of its Plesk-iness. Will make the upgrade to (dv) 3.5 once Australia allows me back onto the Internet.
I’m with DreamHost and I’m getting fed up. Tempted to try Media Temple’s (gs) or (dv), or get a dedicated server with aplus.net.
The DV plan may be a good way to go as issues with Media Temple’s grid server are still very much ongoing:
http://www.jimgoings.com/2008/04/media-temple-kills-my-inner-child/
I’ve been using MT for nearly two years. I have the bottom of the barrel grid service and have had increasingly more problems with it. I’m running a couple of Word Press installs and one xcart install. MT support keeps saying it’s my fault but I didn’t buy that. So, I set up another account and installed WP to only encounter the same issues. Basically, the page load times are incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes it’s super snappy and other times it’s so slow you think the server is down. Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I upgrade to the DV?
@stammy you have any links/guides you’d suggest I read? I’m a server noob and want to shift my sites over to media temple. Not sure what all I need to know before making the move and managing/supporting my own server. Thanks.
Nervously considering the (gs) offering — so many bad experiences from the crowd here. Seems like (dv) is the way to go.
Hi guys,
I’ve got the Media Temple (dv) Base 3.5 and I would say I’m 90% happy with it. The one thing I can’t seem to figure out is why I’m constantly getting warnings for the following:
-privvmpages
-kmemsize
I plan to bump it up to the Rage version anyway, for reasons unrelated to this, but I still have this uneasy feeling that something’s not quite right on the Base.
I took David Shea’s suggestions on reducing memory usage (http://davidseah.com/blog/comments/other-optimizations-for-the-media-temple-dv-base/) and that helped a lot. Big time.
But I still get those warnings on Plesk.
God forbid the site ever gets any StumbleUpon/Digg/Reddit traffic. It would melt.
So let me get this straight…(gs) offerings can support some temporary Digg style traffic, but (dv) chokes on fairly modest traffic?
Something’s not right.
Cheers…
Michael.
Hi Michael, i’m having the same issue here, i have a (dv) 3.5 Base and a (gs) and the (gs) es way more faster than the (dv) 3.5 Base.
I’m thinking on Downgrading to the (gs) service, because it been much more faster than the (dv). This is odd dont you think.
Everybody would think that the dedicated will be far more powerfull and faster that the shared, but it´s not the case with (mt).
Hi Alex,
I got more aggressive with tuning Apache and all those pesky warning messages went away. The secret? Unload as many of the modules as possible in httpd.conf. Get *really* aggressive. :-)
I’m even thinking of taking another pass at it this weekend and dropping a few more.
And I guess I should point out that I did it in stages. I’d yank a bunch. I’d wait for a week or two and see how it performs, mostly focusing on stability and then I’d repeat this process if I felt things were still normal.
You will be surprised how bloated the default httpd.conf is. Granted, it’s nice of MT to give you as much functionality “out of the box” so to speak with Apache. But many of us don’t need or will not use all those extra modules. I won’t blame MT on this one. You gotta take stock of what’s turned on and decide if you need it and if not, turn it off.
That said, I’m keeping an eye on clouds, specifically Amazon’s EC2. Unless MT ups their memory offered in the future, I might bail. It’s not a threat, just an observation that clouds are starting to offer value that makes dedicated hosting a questionable proposition.
Good luck on that Apache tuning.
On a default MT DV server, the httpd conf loads these modules:
LoadModule auth_basic_module modules/mod_auth_basic.so
LoadModule auth_digest_module modules/mod_auth_digest.so
LoadModule authn_file_module modules/mod_authn_file.so
LoadModule authn_alias_module modules/mod_authn_alias.so
LoadModule authn_anon_module modules/mod_authn_anon.so
LoadModule authn_dbm_module modules/mod_authn_dbm.so
LoadModule authn_default_module modules/mod_authn_default.so
LoadModule authz_host_module modules/mod_authz_host.so
LoadModule authz_user_module modules/mod_authz_user.so
LoadModule authz_owner_module modules/mod_authz_owner.so
LoadModule authz_groupfile_module modules/mod_authz_groupfile.so
LoadModule authz_dbm_module modules/mod_authz_dbm.so
LoadModule authz_default_module modules/mod_authz_default.so
LoadModule ldap_module modules/mod_ldap.so
LoadModule authnz_ldap_module modules/mod_authnz_ldap.so
LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so
LoadModule log_config_module modules/mod_log_config.so
LoadModule logio_module modules/mod_logio.so
LoadModule env_module modules/mod_env.so
LoadModule ext_filter_module modules/mod_ext_filter.so
LoadModule mime_magic_module modules/mod_mime_magic.so
LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule usertrack_module modules/mod_usertrack.so
LoadModule setenvif_module modules/mod_setenvif.so
LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so
LoadModule dav_module modules/mod_dav.so
LoadModule status_module modules/mod_status.so
LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so
LoadModule info_module modules/mod_info.so
LoadModule dav_fs_module modules/mod_dav_fs.so
LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so
LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so
LoadModule dir_module modules/mod_dir.so
LoadModule actions_module modules/mod_actions.so
LoadModule speling_module modules/mod_speling.so
LoadModule userdir_module modules/mod_userdir.so
LoadModule alias_module modules/mod_alias.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_balancer_module modules/mod_proxy_balancer.so
LoadModule proxy_ftp_module modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so
LoadModule suexec_module modules/mod_suexec.so
LoadModule disk_cache_module modules/mod_disk_cache.so
LoadModule file_cache_module modules/mod_file_cache.so
LoadModule mem_cache_module modules/mod_mem_cache.so
LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so
LoadModule version_module modules/mod_version.so
What’s really needed for a standard MySQL/PHP driven website?