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How to choose the Drupal host for you

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So you’ve spent countless hours trying to find the best system to use for your new site. Or maybe you were one of the blessed ones who had a buddy that turned them on to Drupal. Next up is picking a host, which can be even more difficult than picking the system. While you need to be careful in making your decision, I hope this guide makes it easier for you.

Drupal server requirements
Drupal has very basic requirements. All you need is a server with at least PHP 4.3.5, MySQL 4.1 and Apache 1.3 or IIS 5. Drupal recommends, and I agree with, that you have PHP 5.2, MySQL 4.1 or higher and Apache 2.2 or IIS 7.

I’ve always found that support for the Apache web server is better. For that reason I recommend avoiding IIS as a web server. This is more commonly known as Windows hosting. URL rewriting will not work nearly as well on Windows hosting.

PHP4 development has been stopped, so at this point it is considered insecure. While Drupal runs under PHP4 it is very strongly recommended to only use hosts that run PHP5. A host running PHP4 likely does not take the security of thier servers very seriously, so you will want to ask them about their plans to upgrade or find a new host. In upcoming versions of Drupal they will be removing support for PHP4 as well, to introduce better functions to help the software run faster.

You will also want to be sure you’re on a server with Apache 2.2. Both PHP and Apache agree that both run best when running PHP5 and Apache 2.2.

What hosts meet these requirements?
At this point you will find most hosts meeting server software requirements. But the software is only one small part of what you need to look for. You will want to find a host that is running high powered server hardware. This includes at least 2 CPUs with 4 cores each (8 cores total), hard drives in RAID10 configuration and 8 GB of RAM. RAID10 hard drives offer not only the fastest speeds but the greatest redundancy in the case of hardware failure.

Many hosts who run this type of hardware still do a disservice to your site but overselling their servers. This causes your site to be slower than it should be. You can get around this by finding a host with a no overselling guarantee. A host with a no overselling guarantee can help assure a faster site for you.

Is my site as fast as it should be?
It works great with Drupal sites, despite being built for Joomla sites. When it’s done running go to the ‘Grades’ section. The number you’re interested in is the Generation Time. This explains how long it took to generate the HTML on your site. For most sites this load time should be between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds.

Things you might not even realize exist
Some hosting companies have a lot of experience with Drupal and can offer extended support for it as a part of your hosting plan. If you are not a highly experienced user you want want to find a host like this.

The feature that most people forget about, until they need it, is a real backup system. And in hosting it’s a matter of when you’ll need it, not if.. The majority of hosts just setup the default backup system that comes with the control panel. From there most just leave the backup on the server. Doing backups this way is a ticking timebomb and is asking for trouble. That, and restoring a single file on your site is a huge headache you don’t need. You will want to look for a host that keeps backups in a separate datacenter, and I recommend a host that has what’s known as continuous data protection (CDP). CDP creates several backups of your site each day. You can restore your entire site, a single file, or anything in between. You can also choose from several different restore points for each file. If you need to restore a single file, you don’t want to bother with asking your host to move your backup to your home directory, download the backup, extract the file, find the file you need and upload the file with FTP. With CDP you use the web interface to select the file you want and the time you want to restore it from, click a couple of buttons, and the file has been restored for you.

So which company fits these?
The vast majority of hosts will touch at least a few of the points. Two of the more important things I’ve mentioned are the no overselling guarantee and the continuous data protection backups. Those are two of the harder things to find.

One company covering all of these requirements is BuyHTTP Internet Services. They have been offering Drupal for several years. BuyHTTP also offers the no overselling guarantee with the enterprise-grade servers.