My (mt) MediaTemple experience so far
April 9th, 2007
As some of you might know I’m hosting at MediaTemple for about a week now. I went for a GridServer which normally costs about US$200 a year. I got 50% off using the coupon code surfstation.
Ordering
Signing up was pretty straight forward. It looked like they didn’t support Paypal but after an email to MT support I got an email with explanations how to pay using Paypal nevertheless.
The Control Panel
The GridServer doesn’t come with a Plesk controlpanel but with a custom one. Overall it’s pretty self-explanatory and with the help of the MT KnowledgeBase I didn’t encounter many problems.
One thing I should notice however, is the fact the control panel is originally meant for one website. It’s possible to add several domains (I’m using about 25 at the moment) but you get only one controlpanel. Some options can be changed for every domain, some options are system-wide. If you’re hosting several big websites I wouldn’t go for the GridServer.
Support
I encountered several problems which were mostly my own fault for not paying attention to the notices I got when adding domains. I have filed a couple of tickets and the average response time was about 18 hour which I think is pretty long. They do have a knowledgebase however which covers a lot of problems.
Downtime
I haven’t experienced any downtime yet.
Conclusion
A couple of friends told me MediaTemple gives free hosting to design companies and the like, that’s why you find their logo at every design site. Also, these websites get better support so they let their visitors know how great MediaTemple is, although it’s just a normal webhost like any other.
I still have a couple of weeks to go before my 30-day money-back guarantee expires and I’m not quite sure what to do. I will post here again when I have made my decision.
April 9th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Interesting insight.
It kinda baffles me to hear that (gs) CP wasn’t made to support multiple domains. After all, most people who would go for a grid server most certainly have more than one domain.
The support thing is a given really, every company does it like that.
Other than that, it’s good to get some more insight into the workings of MediaTemple.
P.S.: Why is that, as soon as people become MT customers, they can’t write the full company name (MediaTemple) anymore but all feel obliged to write it like:
(mt) MediaTemple
It’s amazing, everywhere you read about (mt) it’s written like that.
Are they brainwashing their clients?
April 9th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
MediaTemple uses clever marketing, at their website, in their productnames, everywhere. Just like everybody says iPod and not Ipod, (mt) customers say (mt) MediaTemple and not just MediaTemple. I’m not sure how they do it but they have this coolness factor (IMO) which makes you want to use their name correct.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
brainwashing indeed.