This blog has moved!

After seemingly coming full circle over the last year, we’ve decided to move our small projects and sites (including this blog) back over to MediaTemple’s GridService.  We’ve used two other solutions since originally using MediaTemple’s GridService, so I’m going to talk briefly about each one. 

We originally left MediaTemple for Racespace’s Mosso and had an absolutely terrible experience there — as far as hosting goes.  When it came down to it, Mosso simply wasn’t ready for primetime.  Site creations took hours, sometimes required Live chat.  FTP never worked.  Their admin was dreadfully slow.  Their techs seemed helpless and always had to escalate the issues. Hosting experience there aside, their customer service was terrific.  They credited out account on numerous occasions due to not living up to the promises on their website.  Ultimately, while the service looked good on paper, we couldn’t wait for the issues to be ironed out, so we made the jump to  LayeredTech’s GridLayer. 

Ahh, GridLayer.  GridLayer made Mosso look like heaven. The entire time we spent with GridLayer, it was as if we were guinea pigs.  They routinely had no idea why stuff was broken, and then when they identified the problem — sometimes days later — had no idea how to fix it.  We got “the run around” from them quite frequently.  As much as Mosso’s service wasn’t ready for prime time, GridLayer’s should have never been shipped out the door.  What’s worse is their customer service acted as if “refund” wasn’t in the dictionary. We still have a Mosso account, and their service has made great improvements.  I actually prefer Mosso’s admin to MediaTemple’s due to the fact that it’s much more setup to handle multiple sites and clients versus MediaTemple’s is setup more for 1 site with multiple sites underneath that site. 

When it came to our decision to switch back to MediaTemple instead of using Mosso (we were using a regular dedicated server setup in between LayeredTech and  MediaTemple) it came down to cost and speed. You really can’t beat the cost of MediaTemple.  
 
Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Bandwidth: 1TB (MT) vs. 2TB (Mosso)
• Disk Space:  100GB (MT) vs. 80GB (Mosso)
• Cost: $20/mo (MT) vs.  $100/mo (Mosso)

MediaTemple is lower on Bandwidth than Mosso, but a 5th of the price.  If you purchase 5 MediaTemple accounts and merge them (which MediaTemple will let you do) you can get 5TB of bandwidth and 500GB for the same price as you get 2TB and 80GB at Mosso.
 
On a speed level, MediaTemple’s connection times were slightly slower then Mosso’s, but once the initial connection is made, the servers themselves are faster.
 
So after coming full circle, we plan to stay on MediaTemple’s GridService for the foreseeable future.  As with any server moves, you guys may encounter problems so just give us a heads up.
 
Has anyone else had experiences with any of the three companies mentioned above? Feel free to add your comments below, we’re interested in seeing how other people feel about Mosso and GridLayer. 
 
Links:
MediaTemple: www.mediatemple.com
TheGridLayer: www.thegridlayer.com
Mosso: www.mosso.com