Here is one classic piece: Lunarpages: 60 reasons why web hosts suck! Some are just out right hilarious, classified as “funny, but unrealistic” (but I could be wrong :) Some are just simple fact of life, and there is really nothing the web host can do about it. However, there are also those that give you that “deja vu” feeling. “Hey, the guy with his website going down all the time — that was me!”

If you are a user on a shared server, be that shared hosting or VPS hosting, have you ever wondered, what is my host’s strategy in storage and backup? Is it as robust as it claims?

The disk array error fiasco at VPSLink, has revealed some dark side of shared servers — or when the server hardware setup is out of your control. How would you know that your hosting company is using RAID 0 with SATA drives that is probably having double the failure rate as the drives are stripped?

Tough luck.

Robert Cichon of CrystalTech wrote on theWHIR blog about getting ready to start up a VPS solution for his hosting company. He asked “Are we making the best choice for what the customers will want?”, and tried to explain what VPS is for.

I mean it’s pretty obvious why some would want to buy VPS; for the value of course compared to true dedicated server offerings. It’s just a perfect next step from shared without having to incur all the expense of a dedicated. (Emphasis mine)

Is virtual private server the “perfect next step from shared hosting”? Is VPS the logical step-stone between $10/month shared hostings and $100+/month dedicated servers? Is it something you buy when your hosting company kicks you out for resource overage, and are too poor to buy your own “real” server? What do you think?