The MacDeskBlog

I followed my friend John Engler’s advice, albeit almost a year later, and signed up with DreamHost. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to stick with them. Here’s what I’m weighing …

Pros:
• Designated MySQL server
• One-Click installations of WordPress and phpBB, which I already use, and a couple of other products which I may start to use
• Transparency about downtimes and service impacts
• High disk and bandwidth quotas for a low price
• Pretty quick responses from support

Cons:
• Doesn’t support MySQL database replication
• Doesn’t support DNS slave setup, and some non-configurable entries in DNS management interface are incorrect, so their DNS is unusable for me
• Downtimes and service impacts appear to be fairly common
• Linux
• Pretty inflexible responses from support

Unknowns:
• Performance under load
• Database performance
• Implementation effort required to replicate MySQL via scripting

So, that’s where I am right now. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them here on the blog.

The site was down from about 3am PST to about 10am PST on Monday. A warehouse about two blocks away was destroyed by fire, and the power lines which feed us run right in front of the building. Fortunately, no one was injured nor killed.