Written by Jerry . Published on 19 Jan, 2010 . 
PacificHost is a new player in hosting industry. While the company is still relative small, I’ve read quite some good things about them. For instances here’s one of the customer reviews I read on a third party platform (http://www.ratepoint.com/profile/16559):
These guys (PacificHost) are the BEST! I had been through MANY MANY MANY hosting companies including Cirtex, Anhosting, Hostgator and a few other local hosting services etc but these guys were always causing me some problem of the other.
When i signed up with Pacifichost my life became a pathway to heaven, i’ve had almost no problems with my hosting since, i used to have a few issued with the email service but since i put up complaints they worked hard on making sure the problem would get corrected.
When i needed help of advice i could go to their online chat and just ask the support person directly and get a lightening fast response. But if the problem required more assistance then the person would get me a support ticket and with a few hours my problem would be solved. At most i have had to wait for 24 Hours.They really take care of their customers. Pricing wise they may not be the best but they do certainly have great service, worth the extra i pay.
– Feedbacks by James Prado, Nov 27th, 2009.
In this article, we are going to have some Q&A with the man behind PacificHost – Thomas Perry.
Q & A with Thomas Perry, Owner of PacificHost
Hello Thomas, thanks for being with us here today. Let’s get things started with some introduction. What can you tell us about yourself and your company – PacificHost?
As a kid, I was always interested in hosting and I built my first hosting company when I was only a teenager. Since then I’ve graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Arts and Sciences. I continued to follow my passion in the hosting industry and since then I’ve created 2 more hosting companies. I recently sold off my last company and plan to focus all my efforts on building PacificHost.
Last year I bought PacificHost from it’s previous owner and have turned it around with an international focus on providing high quality hosting services. I plan to grow Pacifichost rapidly into the next year while keeping a close eye on the quality of PacificHost from the techs we hire to the servers we run.
What can we know about the web servers? Where does your data center located at?
PacificHost co-locates several servers with the Gigenet datacenter in downtown Chicago, IL. Gigenet has a reputation as a high quality provider catering towards business’s. We use SuperMicro hardware and have somebody on site in case of any issues.
PacificHost’s shared hosting services come in two different packages – the Web Hosting and the Premium Hosting Plans. What are the main differences between them?
The Premium Hosting are more less Semi-Dedicated hosting plans. This means that they are essentially just shared hosting plans, however with much fewer accounts. We’ll only put a handful of accounts on the Premium Hosting servers. Physically the servers have very similar specs to the Shared servers, however with less restructions, fewer accounts and overall more processing power allocated towards each account. Therefore the Premium Hosting caters to websites using more than what Shared Hosting can offer, while maintaining a price that is affordable.
I like the idea of Website Migration Assistance. Can you tell me how things work when I wish to transfer my web host to PacificHost?
The Website Migration Assistance is something we offer to all new clients at no additional cost. When a client signs up, he or she can fill out an Inbound Transfer Request Form which gets sent to our Support Department. Normally within an hour or two we’ll start the transfer process and we will transfer over all aspects of any Plesk, Ensim or cPanel account. From the files, Database, Emails and even the cPanel settings and arrangement will be copied over. This transfer process doesn’t require any further action from the client.
Even if the client isn’t using one of the supported control panels we can still help the client manually transfer over files, databases and emails to his or her account as a courtesy.
Based on your industry experience, what is the most important element in a good web host? Please give some shopping advice to those who are new to the web hosting world.
One thing that almost all visitors tend to overlook is the actual quality, support and uptime of the host itself. Most visitors may simply shop for a host based on how cheap they can get a good hosting plan for, which is far from the best way to shop. If you get unlimited disk space and bandwidth for $5 a month, but your website is down for sporadic periods in the month, the deal isn’t that great. This is where buyers remorse comes into play and some hosting providers make it quite tricky to leave. You should always do your research when looking for providers, not only checking reviews from multiple websites, but searching for company comments on sites like webhostingtalk.com for example.
You should also test a host’s support before signing up, send an email to the support department or give them a call to see if anybody picks up. Having a good support team can make all the difference with having a successful website. So, to get to the point, one shouldn’t base a host simply on price, but should look at the overall appearance of the host.
At PacificHost, we not only offer a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee but offer a 7 Day Free Trial that requires no up-front payment information, so a visitor can test our services virtually risk-free.
Where do you see PacificHost in 3 to 5 years time? Is dedicated hosting part of the plan?
In my experience, PacificHost will grow rapidly in the next few years as we’re tackling a variety of niche markets. In addition the standard we set for quality will be rippled across the hosting industry. I have another hosting company that will be launched later this year. HostGalaxy.com will be offering unmanaged/managed Dedicated Servers and VPS Hosting services. This will be a subsidary of Pacifichost and will be heavily advertised as an affordable and reliable vps and dedicated server provider.
That will be all for my questions, thanks again for your time! Is there anything you would like to add?
You’re very welcome! Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We’re more than happy to help.
Interviewer’s sidenote: What I think about PacificHost?
Overselling seems like a norm nowadays and we are seeing unlimited hosting offers everywhere online. PacificHost, however, is not one of them. In fact, PacificHost’s hosting plan is sort of expensive when you compare to others (see table below).
| Basic Hosting Plan | Premium Hosting Plan | |||||
| Disk Space | 15 GB | 25 GB | 40 GB | 50 GB | 75 GB | 100 GB |
| Monthly Bandwidth | 300 GB | 600 GB | 1500 GB | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| CPU Power | - | - | - | 10% | 20% | 30% |
| Addon Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Parked Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Fantastico | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ruby on Rails | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price (12 mo) | $5.95/mo | $9.95/mo | $12.95/mo | $17.95/mo | $28.95/mo | $38.95/mo |
| Price (24 mo) | $4.95/mo | $8.95/mo | $11.95/mo | $15.95/mo | $25.95/mo | $35.95/mo |
But hey, we all know what unlimited hosting is more like a marketing gimmick nowadays and how an unmanaged-overselling can jeopardize a website’s performance. It’s just nice to know there are still hosting company like PacificHost that is not practicing overselling.
Long story short, PacificHost’s honest way of doing business is what I like (and respect) them the most. If you’d like to know more about them, visit PacificHost.com online at: www.PacificHost.com.
Hi, I would like to post a response regarding the first paragraph. I am reading the forums now and realize that I have made a giant mistake. The claims made before I bought are nothing like what I am getting now. I was essentailly told I could not add additional storage on a dedicated server that I purchased because they oh im so frustrated I have to just post what they said it made absolutely no sense and actually offended me. Please post this comment so people know.
Jeff Ha
Posted On: Dec 10 2010 7:31 PM
Getting e new HD is not like getting new server since and hd is for storage and the rest of the equipment that surrounds it does the work. Muy question is why you can’t add another HD to the server since I only see two HD’s listed on the server configuration. Why did you purchase a space saving unit for my server since this would not be conducive to future space requirements. As for the manual transition of the server data I would that you can’t just return the data after the last backup you did for my server. Please let me know.
Rex Boyd
Posted On: Dec 09 2010 7:04 PM
Hello Jeff,
I am going to guess you are referring to your dedicated server? The only way for us to increase the space is for us to replace the hard drive with a bigger hard drive which is kind of like getting a new server, we would have to upgrade the physical drive on the server and manually transfer your entire site to the new drive.
Regards,
Rex Boyd
PacificHost Customer Service
http://www.pacifichost.com/
Jeff Ha
Posted On: Dec 09 2010 11:19 AM
I believe my plan is set at 250 GB Storage, is there a monthly add-on for unlimited? or can do I need to buy in increments? Just want more than 250 GB, I used it all in a month. I will be cleaning out my file system today to free up disc space, but I do want more storage resources, let me know if I have options. Thanks,
jeff
I am an existing customer of Pacific Host and only after 2 months I know they suck!
My previous experiance with hosting companies has been really good currently still having a website at http://www.hypermart.net (very solid uptime and has good support for small businesses and personal website hosting). The other experience was with http://www.rackspace.com for a major DB driven website and they were awesome and handled mostly everything i needed to do to get the site running!
As far as http://www.pacifichost.com hosting it is severely lacking in:
telephone response – the phone was bussy 14 out of 15 calls that i made to the company and when i did get support i got very stupidly scripted answers and the person obviously had no idea what they were saying! (suggestion: if you know your phone is busy 99% of the time get another phone number that will actually conect your customers to someone)
Email Response – I would get responses to my customer tickets on average 1-3 days later! (that is not email support!) These responses were very shot and stupidly scripted responses or so it seamed!
Sever uptime – the webserver that my site was on had horrible response time! I would load the site in 2 different cities on 2 different computers and the response was bad at the first loaction taking 30-50 second to load the home page – HORRIBLE!
I made numorious complaints because my site was just down! after the 5th time in 2 weeks, I asked them to move me to a new server.
3 days later they responded to my request and said it would be done when they had time.
The next day it was done! At this point i was expecting to have a normal servers response and it was a touch better when it was accessible but still not a normal servers response!
Yet again my site was down on the new server (yes i renamed the nameservers to point to the right server and yes it was pointing to the new server).
After this I contacted them for a refund to see how what package i had and decided to re evaluate my hosting package!
I started with the basic plan with the advanced option – this was probly to low of a package to meet my expectations of server response time. So I upgraded to the premium business hosting plan.
So they contacted me and told me they would have to move my site yet again to an even newer server – UG!
So the next day they contacted me and siad it was moved so I changed the name dervers and checked the site – it was up this time!
It did load somewhat normally with a somewhat normal response time! I was totally excited and hoped it continued – so about an hour later I showed a friend the site and that it was up and – BAMMO
THE SITE WAS DOWN AND NON RESPONSIVE FOR OVER AN HOUR!
Lets just say that was the last straw – although i still have about 20 days till my 1st month of hosting will expire on the new business class server, I already have a new host picked out and I am very excited to move to http://www.hostgator.com after reading all the many many great review from major eccommerce business owners on the web!
Do yourself a favor and save yourself allllllllllllll the frustration I went through and choose another host.
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
I made a video of me typing this blog post and soon it will go viral so the whole world will know PACIFIC HOST SUCKS!
I can’t get these guys to issue me a refund. They don’t respond to my emails. They owe me for 9 months of hosting. After three months and many, many problems, I changed hosts. I filed a complaint today with the BBB. I will never recommend this web host to anyone.
Nice… glad to know about the policy of PacificHost. They provide really good service, considering no Oversell plan. Thanks Thomas. =D
I am using PacificHost for past 2 months, I opted only because they are so legimate in there site, they have 30-day money back guarantee, software installation, personal video tutorials, which I never found out in other sites, also this is a very old hosting company. It is good 2 months hosting with them and I will continue.
RUN as fast as you can from Pacific Host and then catch your breathe and RUN EVEN FASTER!!!!
We contracted them for our streaming site hosting, and not only did they NOT have our site up in 2 days like they said they would before we choose them….once they migrated our website to their servers, HALF of our features STOPPED working.
We submitted dozens of tickets, and even submitted a complaint to the Better Business Bureau. Tech support should be staffed by technicians who know how to support the services they offer…and Pacific Host was an enormous let down and WASTE OF TIME.
Our credibility took a hit because we relied on them and they continued to fail us…..obviously, we switched. So it doesnt matter anymore that they started deleting our trouble tickets.
By the way, the money back gaurantee has a ton of “clauses” so when you go to request your money back – you dont get it.
We have been “working” with PacificHost for over 3 months…..which has been at our expense. Every month I “work” with them, is another month that they STILL dont fix the damage they’ve done to our website, but yet bill us for…and again, the money back guarantee is not truthful. If so, where is my money for “working” with you?
PacificHost has the fast servers, reliable, I use many scripts to host, softaculous hosting is just great with PacificHost.
Pacific Host has literally the worst customer service I have ever experienced.
Their techs seem poorly trained, over burdened, and indifferent to the concerns of their clients. In fact, the company is largely unresponsive when faced with problem that can’t be solved by pushing a button.
Stay away from PacificHost. They are terrible.
Pacific Hosts is one of the worst hosting companies i have dealt with. there customer service sucks. they oversell their plans. I ran a small script and it crashed there server so they kicked me out of my plan.
Pacifichost is the worst web hosting company I’ve ever experienced. Their tech support is terrible, slow and won’t talk to you on the phone. Their tech support ticket system is horrible. Their customer support is moronic. I wasted three months trying to get what I needed from them before switching to Rackspace.
But here’s the real problem. 6 months after I canceled my account, they’re still trying to bill my credit card! I’ve called them three times and they keep telling me they’ve canceled my account, but I keep getting invoiced.
They are worse than incompetent, they’re thieves.
PAYING A ULTRA PLAN – problems from day 1 mysql/fpt/http/emails etc, fake support centre, there are guys that dont know what to do like Adam.Y. the only thing is able to say is our billing/support dept will contact you soon. Soon for them is at least 72 hours. Great features but not usable. Dont even think about making business with them.
Bad Bad Bad
This company is the worst and most irresponsible…
WireFuseMedia LLC (known as Pacifichost) has repeatedly changed Terms of Service of http://www.pacifichost.com, leading to a reduction of consumer rights and responsibilities of WireFuseMedia LLC in the presence of “glitch” problems, which deprived me of the opportunity to obtain redress in the absence of agreed services and damage of stored information.
In my case, after braking there server Polaris in the summer, many customers, including me, loses their information. There technical staffs tell me – we will not do this anymore and offer me 2 more months. I do a mistake – believe in one fake provider.
But it happen again – server go down and my information is lost again. What you think that they do – after I open the ticket DQS-565-60418, there have a response – they send me information on “glitch” problem with closing the open ticket and blocking access to pacifichost.com system with blocking my IP address – 93.152.152.184 (no longer used by me).
Pacifichost must know:
I do not agree with the changes of Terms of Service of http://www.pacifichost.com, made unilaterally by WireFuseMedia LLC, I disagree with the presence of continuous “glitch” problems and I do not agree WireFuseMedia LLC to blame its backup system for the destruction of my information .
If you do the same tell this on:
http://www.bbb.org/northeast-california/business-reviews/internet-services/pacifichost-in-elk-grove-ca-47025509
https://econsumer.ftccomplaintassistant.gov