Exabytes Merdeka Promotion - EBiz Gold Unlimited hosting plan

Think twice before subscribe the Exabytes EBiz Gold Unlimited hosting plan

Wow, Exabytes’ EBiz Plus Unlimited hosting account at promotion price RM5XX (normal price RM798), sound good!

Well, do you really need unlimited features and are you able to commit RM798 for the subsequence years? (as you know promotion price is a one-time discount, next hosting renewal price will be the original price before discount).

I like unlimited plan too. By the way, what can I do to an unlimited hosting account where it has very strict T&C? Honestly, with my current Exabytes’ hosting account (EBiz Plus Linux normal price RM269) limits-

• 10000MB/10GB Disk Space Usage
• 50000MB/50GB Monthly Bandwidth Transfer
• 10 Addon Domains

I can’t even used up to 50% resources of disk space and bandwidth transfer on 8 hosted domain names websites.

So is it necessary need an unlimited hosting account? It depends on your website’s need. Please ensure your new website plan will not against Exabytes’ legal policies. Exabytes is not stupid, they offering such unlimited hosting accounts of cause they are prepared and ready.

Consider other hosting packages offered by Exabytes

If you really like them, yes the Exabytes. Please try out their cheapest package first (EBiz Plus Web Hosting), you will find it actually sufficient for your requirement. Anyway you can upgrade to unlimited plan anytime.

Other unlimited hosting plan providers

I have an unlimited hosting account (‘Baby’ package) with Hostgater.com and I paid USD214.80/RM800 for 2 years in advanced. Yes, it is the same as what Exabytes offering, but it has more tolerance legal policies and at cheaper price (Exabytes RM798 for 1 year vs Hostgater RM800 for 2 years). With its ‘not-so-tied’ legal policies or at least not bond to Malaysia laws such as Islamic and politic related materials, it give me more flexibility and ‘globalised’ not ‘localised’ on hosting conditions.

I would not said Hostgator.com is the best, but so far I can’t find any cheaper and better review on unlimited hosting accounts from the Internet; Godaddy.com is good but its unlimited plan is more expensive (USD323.76/RM1,200 for 2 years) than Hostgator.com even though it is my favourite.

If you know some, kindly share with me.

Bottom line

Unlimited hosting plan sounds attractive but remember you will have heavier commitment and tons of work to do when transferring/downgrading the account.

Outlook Send/Receive Progress Error Message

One of my personal website hosted on Shinjiru server recently has send / receive email problem (connected via TMnet-Streamyx / Celcom-Wireless Broadband).

Understand that Shinjiru provides cheap hosting package (Linux Shared Hosting – Personal Package @ RM90/year) but with its often email problem, I have changed my recommendation on local web hosting service provider from Shinjiru to Exabytes.

The blog (kenny.my) you are viewing now is currently hosted on Exabytes server, I personally satisfied with their services and so far have no complaints from my clients (yet). Although Exabyates’ EBiz Plus Web Hosting plan (RM269.00/year) is not consider cheap compare to others in Malaysia, but I would rather to pay extra to ensure website / email’s stability. For business, an unreliable email service may caused communication inconvenience, I do not recommend my clients to take this risk.

Exabytes having a “.MY” Country Level Domain Names promotion from 1st April 2009 until 30th April 2009. It is just RM75 for a domain name “yourname.my” registration. (Normal price is RM120)

Exabytes RM75 ".my" domain name promotion from 1st April to 30th April 2009

If you still haven’t secure your own domain name or your prefer domain name is not available, would “.my” extension domain name ie. yourname.my be your choice? Understand you would prefer a domain name end with “.com” extension like yourname.com. However, the availability of it is very low as there are millions of people out there have the same idea as you. Face the true, chances you can own a simple and common phase/word domain name end with .com is nearly impossible, unless you are very rich and willing to buy over. For instance, I have enquired domain name “kenny.com” and it can cost few hundred thousands US dollar in domain auctions.

Malaysia Domain Registry has open “.my” country code top level domain name for public registration since Jan 2008, there’s one more opportunity for us to secure the shortest domain name ever has (even shorter than “.com”). Think about we can register a pronounceable domain name extension “.my” while other countries don’t have this advantage such as Singapore “.sg”, Thailand “.th”, China “.cn”, Hong Kong “.hk” and United Kingdom “.uk”. Imagine your English name is Ross and had registered a domain name “ross.my”, you can proudly tell people your personal website is “Ross-Dot-My” or print it on your name card, I believe most people would surprise that you have such a short, simple and memorable online identity. This is your personal branding.

10 years ago, I believe no one will buy the domain name “kennywong.com” when it’s still available. Today, all TLD extensions (.com, .net, .org, .info, .us, .biz) with domain name “kennywong.com” are no longer available. It is a good lesson for me to learn the important of online identity and its potential opportunity.

What is the requirement for “.my” extension Country Level Domain Names registration?

For Malaysian citizen, you just need to submit (fax/email) a copy of Malaysian I.C. to the domain name register.

Many people think that “.my” registration required ROB or Business entity in Malaysia, it is not true. There are two domain extension allowed personal registration- “.my” and “.name.my”.

Exabytes vs Shinjiru

RM75 for a “.my” domain name is a good deal (Exabytes declared this is the cheapest price in Malaysia). For the moment, there are only 2 web hosting service providers- Exabytes and Shinjiru can offer “.my” extension domain name at this price.

Exabytes: RM75 for first year registration and RM120 for subsequent years renewal (more info: http://www.exabytes.com.my/services/domain/)
Shinjiru: RM77 for first year registration and subsequent years renewal (more info: http://www.shinjiru.com.my/webHosting/domainPriceGuide.html)

Tips

RM75 is a promotion price, the subsequent years domain name renewal fee is still remain unchange RM120. You can first register with Exabytes (at RM75) and transfer to Shinjiru for subsequent years renewal (RM77), so you still can enjoin the cheapest price in town.

I have conducted a few tests between Exabytes (exabytes.com) and Shinjiru (shinjiru.com) Web hosting. Results turned out Exabytes’ web hosting speed is slightly faster than Shinjiru by about 20% to 25%.

Method of test:

1. I subscribed 2 shared hosting accounts- one with Exabytes and another one with Shinjiru.
2. Both website with the same content running on PHP connect to MySQL.
3. Tests conducted from 1st to 31st October 2008, each day have 2 tests at anytime from 11am to 6pm (working hours) and 9pm to 12am (non-working hours), Malaysia time.
4. I used a computer with Intel Processor 1.20 GHz and 1024MB RAM and connected to Internet using leased line by TMnet, 3G Mobile Connect by Celcom, Dial-up by Jaring and Streamyx by TMnet.
5. Run 2 website – to test out the script execution and response time.
6. Upload files to website by FTP – to test out the uploading speed.
7. Download files from website – to test out the downloading speed.

However, the tests above were conducted in KL Malaysia, it can’t justified the speed performance from overseas access.

More to considered beside the loading speed

Selecting a web hosting service can’t just based on loading speed evaluation, I believe most of us want a good service and lowest price hosting plan too. I can’t say Exabytes and Shinjiru are the best in Malaysia but so far with my experience with a few of web hosting companies like Emerge, Exabytes, Shinjiru, Webserver (ACME), e-Globalhosting and HileyTech, Exabytes and Shinjiru’s web hosting packages are considered the most competitive among all. Beside that, IPserverone is catching up as well.

Why Shinjiru?

In fact, I personally preferred Shinjiru. They offer the cheapest domain names registration either TLD or ccTLD (country code top-level domain ie. .com.my) and very affordable web hosting plans in Malaysia.  Furthermore, their web hosting overall rating is compatible with Exabytes or Emerge and this company is well established since 1998. However, 2 things I believe they should improve- customer service response time (email enquiries) and technical issues solving duration time.

If you have only one domain name want to be hosted and especially if you are new to web hosting, I advice you go to Shinjiru’s Mini Pack (RM99/year as on 2008-11-11) while Exabytes’ cheapest package is far ahead from this price (RM269/year as on 2008-11-11).

Why Exabytes?

To me, the attractive point of Exabytes is their web hosting speed and customer service response time. As for their Web hosting plan, it is not as attractive as Shinjiru’s Disk Space and Monthly Data Transfer rate (Exabytes is serious in server and data transfer utility, in order to provide best server performance to all hosted accounts, they offer strict and low usage hosting condition.)

If you are looking for an optimised server environment and ‘slightly’ faster web hosting, Exabytes might be your choice. However, it depends on your luck too, as you know shared hosting accounts is hosted on a sharing server, so hope that you do not have busy neighbours (You can checkout who is your domain name neighbours at www.myipneighbors.com, entered your domain name at the search field)

I am currently hosted this website (kenny.my) with Exabytes’ Linux EBiz Plus hosting plan. The reason is simple, I have 8 add-on domains (website) want to be hosted; I need faster speed; and my total website data transfer rate still below the allocated 50GB.

Tips

1. Switching the web hosting service is troublesome when you have already configured and running website, tasks like backup/restore database, web applications re-configuration and testing will give you a tons of work to do when you switching the web hosting service. Hence, selecting a right web hosting service can avoid all these.
   I am in considering of Shinjiru’s Shared Hosting Business Plan, because I need a larger disk space and data transfer rate. But there’s more to do- I have to transfer all 8 website of mine and re-configure all the applications.
2. You can register the domain name with Shinjiru and hosted the website with Exabytes. Take the best deal from two side (Exabytes’ domain name registration fee is more expensive than Shinjiru.)
3. If you are looking for a package that covered the domain name and web hosting, you may consider Shinjiru. Their Shared hosting Standard Plan is come with a free domain registration. (RM190/year as on 2008-11-11)

Both Exabytes and Shinjiru are good at different area, selecting anyone of them is depend on your budget and need.