Host Depot In 2018: How Would Host Depot Clients Review Them?

Host Depot

Host Depot is a Florida-based web hosting company founded in 1997. They were especially strong during the late 2000s, when they won almost a dozen web hosting awards from various web hosting reviewers. Today they remain a viable, though relatively small, high quality hosting company.

Services and Specialties

Host Depot provides a range of shared and virtual hosting plans, as well as colocation services. They are primarily a provider of Windows-based hosting, and offer several specialty plans geared for business and enterprise use.

Their basic shared plans are available in several tiers based on limits to disk space, user accounts, and a few other specific usage items. All of them offer unlimited bandwidth, though. Both Windows and Linux plans are available.

Host depot specializes in business hosting, and offers several tiers of managed hosting for Microsoft Exchange Server.

Virtual Private Server and Dedicated Server plans are both available in multiple tiers.

They also provide HIPAA compliant dedicated servers. Because of specific privacy requirements related to healthcare information, as provided for by HIPAA, companies that collect, store, or process personal health information about their clients have to take particular security precautions. Host Depot’s HIPAA compliant servers are designed to meet or exceed those requirements.

With the exception of Exchange servers, which are only available with Windows, all of Host Depot’s plans are available with Windows or Linux operating systems. Linux plans use the CentOS distro.

Host Depot also provides merchant accounts, SEO consulting, and web design.

Datacenters and Technology

Host Depot’s data center is located near the East Coast of Florida, in Broward County.

Facility Features

• Constructed to withstand beyond category 5 hurricane force winds
• N+1 FPL Utility power feeds
• N+1 UPS redundancy (1.5 Megawatts)
• N+1 Generators (3.75 Megawatts)
• 2 underground fuel tanks
• Supports data center at maximum load for 14 days without refueling
• N+1 Redundant chillers for A/C

Network Features

• Fully redundant infrastructure
• Force10 E600 core devices
• Cisco GSR 12000 edge devices
• Diverse fiber entry points – OC-12 up to OC-192
• Redundant Internet with multiple tier-1 providers – NTT/Verio, Level(3), Qwest

Security Features

• Biometric fingerprint readers
• Card/PIN access
• 24/7/365 armed on-site security
• 24/7/365 video surveillance

Environmental Features

• Multiple Liebert CRAC Units
• Controlled Temperature and Humidity via HVAC Units
• Clean agent fire suppression system

Servers

Host Depot uses Dell Poweredge servers. Dedicated plans have several options for processors and disk drives. Shared and VPS hosting is run from machines using Intel Xeon quad-core processors and SAS hard drives.

Support and Customer Service

Host Depot offers multiple support venues. Email and a ticketing system are both available, as is a live online chat and a 24/7 toll-free phone line.

They also provide an extensive knowledge base and FAQ area.

Aside from technical support for hosting-related issues, Host Depot also employs a Development Team which provides design and development support on an a la carte basis.

Security and Backups

Host Depot’s data center is very secure. The physical plant requires biometric identification and is protected by armed guards. The server network is protected with an advanced firewall system, antivirus, and regular (daily) system-wide disk backups.

Some individual plans provide additional layers of security and include automated backups.

Uptime Guarantees

All of Host Depot plans carry a 99.99% uptime guarantee. This is subject to the usual exclusions:

• HD is not responsible for downtime caused by customer activity or negligence
• HD is not responsible for downtime caused by third-party providers
• scheduled maintenance does not count against downtime

Costs and Payment Policies

Host Depot’s costs are well within industry averages for the services they provide, and even a bit on the low side compared with other Windows-specific plans.

All plans are priced and purchasable by the month. Most plans come with discounts for buying a year or more at a time.

Host Depot takes all major credit cards.

Summary / conclusions

Host Depot is a high-quality business-oriented hosting company.

While their pricing is competitive with major-market providers of low-end shared hosting, they likely aren’t a good fit for entry-level bloggers. Their data center’s location makes them somewhat inconvenient for high-traffic, public-facing sites.

Where they really fit well is for internal-facing business sites located in Florida or the Southeast United States — situations where the majority of the users will be in relative proximity to the datacenter. Their MS Exchange server plan is perfect for many small and medium sized offices, and their HIPAA-compliant plans are a great fit for health care offices, insurance companies, and anyone else that needs to store sensitive personal health data.