Drupal Hosting : What questions to ask a hosting company before hosting there?

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This is a drupal question asked by ms1 on 07 November 2007

I am new to the hosting activity with drupal (actually to any site). I have talked to a few hosting company supports about the possibility of hosting a site with them, but I do not know that am I asking the correct questions.

So I want to know what should I mention in my requirements from the hosting provider.

What I have been asking is:

1. Do you support Drupal sites. If yes then what version. (Generally they are having Fantastico, and the latest release has Drupal 5.1)

2. What version of PHP, Apache and Mysql are they using? (I believe PHP5 is essential, someone please mention the minimum requirements for Apache and Mysql)

3. Specifically I ask for “Crontab Management”.

4. What administrative panels do they provide (like CPanel, Plesk etc.). If yes then what is the extra cost (if any).

5. Do they host the site as well as the databases on the same server? (Because I believe it is better on the same server)

6. Specifics that I require like FFMPEG etc. And if they do have the same, then what is the cost of installation or maintainance?

7. What happens in case I exceed their bandwidth limitation? Do they stop my site altogether or charge me extra ?

8. In case of VPS or Dedicated servers, are they ‘managed’ or ‘unmanaged’.

9. Are there any limitations on the number of files I can upload? (because I have read cases where space allocated is 300GB but file limitation is just 50000)

10. Do they have daily backups and means to protect data in case of power outages ?

11. Do they want payments in advance , a long-term contract or on monthly basis? How easy is it for me to upgrade to any of their other plans?

Since I am new to this, I am not able to touch the technical details like SSI, htaccess protection etc. It would be really nice if more people can chip in with the questions (technical or non-technical) that we need to ask and what affirmative answers we should look for?
(I shall also update if I get anything more)

I would hope this would not only help me but other newcomers as well.

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