And maybe we’ll have 2010 peachy-powered sites by the next new year .

Recently got some action up on our twitter page, which is kind of cool. Not really sure what those replies are about, but better than feeling like we’re in a void!

Happy New Year!

In a conversation with some friends, I was going off on my web-hosting business soap-box and they were asking for specific examples. I told them that they could look up literally any webhosting plan that claimed to be “unlimited” and if they could find their terms and conditions, they would find the small print. What they found on the first random site was this:

“7b.) INODES
The use of more than 50,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension. Accounts found to be exceeding the 50,000 inode limit will automatically be removed from our backup system to avoid overusage. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode.

Sites that slightly exceed our inode limits are unlikely to be suspended; however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, have hundreds of thousands of files, or cause file system damage may be flagged for review and/or suspension.

The primary cause of excessive inodes seems to be due to users leaving their catchall address enabled, but never checking their primary account mailbox. Over time, tens of thousands of messages (or more) build up, eventually pushing the account past our inode limit. To disable your default mailbox, login to cPanel and choose “Mail”, then “Default Address”, “Set Default Address”, and then type in: :fail: No such user here

8.) Bandwidth Usage
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, terminate the account and/or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month.”

First – with regards to the INODES – not a very friendly term for laymen. I’m pretty techy myself, and that terms means little to me. What is more important is their definition of what uses one of these INODE allocations: Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode. Seriously? An EMAIL?! Now, maybe you can find a better place to look, but one source wrote that the average size of an email was around 7-11kb. Let’s round that up to their high end and use 11kb. Supposing you use all your nodes on emails, even if you had 50,000, you would only be using 550,000kb, or 550MB. Roughly 1/2 of a gig. So it’s possible that, even with their unlimited plan, you could be shut down for using half a gig of space! Absurd.

With respect to the second caveat that I mentioned, you have to read no further than the first sentence: You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. Really? But… I thought the plan was unlimited?! (Keep in mind, that both of these stipulations were small print for their quote-unquote unlimited plans…

Just saying.

This is the kind of BS you won’t get with PeachyHost. We’re not out to trick anyone which is why we push our “PeachyPlan” first and foremost… this plan doesn’t promise miracles, but we will give our word to work with each customer to make sure that your bandwidth needs are not just met, but exceeded.

So, I made a quick mention of this on our plans page, but we have finally added an option for an unlimited plan – not because our normal peachy plan wasn’t the same thing as what other companies are calling an unlimited plan, but because we were just tired of feeling like we were defending ourselves just so that we could be more honest with people. The main idea being this: we don’t want to use seductive words and huge (but, in the end, either poorly defined, or flat-out misleading) words to trick people into signing up. That’s neither nice, nor do we find it to be very easy on our consciences.

In talking to a lot of other people who are in the webhosting industry, it is not a secret that the majority of businesses are able to capitalize on over-promising: selling plans under the guise that people won’t know any better and just sign up for whatever SEEMS to be the best VALUE, even if their NEEDS never use any of that potential.

Here was my rant:

“By popular demand, PeachyHost is now offering its own “unlimited” plan. But please read on because unlimited plans, the kind that most hosting companies currently offer, with little asterisks by them denoting significant terms-and-conditions, are something that, both as a concept and as a principal, PeachyHost would rather not support because they are neither transparent nor ethically honest (in our opinion), even if they are technically honest (their terms-and-conditions are available). However, we found ourselves having to write long diatribes explaining why most people’s idea of an unlimited plan was actually a misconception.

The bottom line is that now, if you want it, you can have have one with us. Like every other unlimited plan, the physical limits of the universe in general, and the capability of a non-magical server in particular, make an unlimited plan impossible. We will, however, offer you theoretical limitlessness so that, as your needs increase, we can simply increase the space/bandwidth capacities associated with your account – capacities that are really less of a limit on you, and more of a safety net so that your neighbor can’t unwittingly (or, heaven forbid, intentionally) overload the server and make other sites run less efficiently.

At PeachyHost.com, we want every site that signs up with us to have all the space and bandwidth that they need – and that we’ve promised. No site should be beholden to unknown quantities and limitations. If it makes you sleep better to pay more for the name of the plan… be our guest.”