MDD Hosting Review

MDDHosting was formed in 2007 with the purpose of providing affordable web hosting services for businesses and individuals throughout the world.

The company follows a comprehensive 24/7/365 support service structure based on an internal trouble ticket system. Through this system, it is able to analyze actual error messages and other relevant data that can be lost in the translation during a phone conversation. Customers are encouraged to copy and paste or screen capture errors and share them with MDD support. Support is available via web portal as well as email.

MDD’s datacenter facility in Denver receives power feeds from a number of substations. Humidity and cooling are controlled by 7 air-handling units, each featuring N+1 redundancy. These HVAC units maintain an optimal and steady 70-degree operating environment throughout the center and an average 45 percent humidity. Variation of temperature and humidity can fluctuate by approximately 4 degrees, but no more. The center’s fire detection is handled by early detection alarm system equipment and pre-action dry pipe fire suppression system.

Connectivity within the center includes Level3, tw telecom, Comcast, Internap, XO, Hurricane Electric, Savvis, Global Crossing, RMIX, and UUNET.

Updates July 2015 – Host rating upgraded to 5 stars due to its impressive uptime record (see uptime review section below). 

MDD Hosting Plans – What’s in the box?

Shared Hosting Plans

MDD Shared Hosting plans are designed for maximum uptime and include SSD Accelerated storage for speed and reliability.

Premium Hosting Plans

Premium servers host just 1 percent to 3 percent of the total number of accounts the hardware supports as well as Pure SSD storage for maximum speed all the time. Every Premium account has access to two full CPU Cores as opposed to the single core available in the standard shared hosting accounts.

Reseller Hosting Plans

Reseller plans are designed for those looking to start their own web hosting companies or who have flourishing design companies. MDD provides all the necessary tools to get the company up and running quickly. From there, resellers can set up their own plans, pricing structure, and branding.

VPS Hosting Plans

MDD’s VPS plans provide higher levels of security, reliability, and speed without the added expense of a dedicated server.

Dedicated Hosting Plans

Dedicated servers are designed to meet the needs of sites that have outgrown shared and reseller hosting.

MDD’s Dedicated Server Plans offer the following services using single Quad-Core processors clocked at 3220 or 5430 or dual Quad-Core processors clocked at 5430 or 5520 (rates upon request):

• Xeon 3220 CPU
• 2 GB Total RAM
• 250 GB Sata HD
• 2000 GB Per Month Bandwidth
• 5 IP Addresses
• 100 Megabit Port

MDD Hosting vs other Similar Web Host

What MDD Hosting offers in its hosting plans are very similar to RoseHosting, InMotion, and Altus Host. All four are premium hosting services that promise great server reliability and top-notch after sales service. Here’s how MDD Hosting’s Basic stacks out with other similar hosting plans.

“* Note: InMotion Hosting price based on WHSR’s exclusive discounts, normal price $9.99/mo.

MDD Hosting User Experience

Well enough introductions and hosting plan reviews, you can get those information on MDD Hosting site anyway.

What’s important: Is MDD Hosting any good?

To answer the question, we work with MDD Hosting current users, Dave Dean of What’s Dave Doing, to provide you a clearer picture. The following sections (on pros and cons, and bottom line, etc) are written by Dave Dean. We first met Dave via a popular blogger job board and believe he has no direct relationship with the company MDD Hosting. We did, however, pay Dave a reasonable fee for his time in answering our questions and writing this email. 

Here goes Dave. 

Quick background

I migrated to MDD Hosting a little over a year ago, after becoming highly dissatisfied with the service I was receiving from my existing large hosting company. Despite only receiving moderate amounts of traffic, my WordPress site (What’s Dave Doing?) was displaying errors and going down multiple times per week. Despite spending hours going backwards and forwards with the support staff, I only got excuses and indifference. After a few months without improvement, I decided it was time to move.

What I like about MDD Hosting?

There are several things I like about MDD Hosting, including:

• Reliable: Despite being on the lowest, shared hosting plan, it’s rare for my site to go down. I monitor it with Pingdom, and have had well under an hour of downtime per month since I joined, including scheduled maintenance. I’ve also never had any performance problems, either during my own use or reported to me by site users.
• Speed: The site is noticeably faster than with my previous host, from anywhere in the world. I ran various benchmarks after migration, both external and internal, and they all reported significant improvements.
• Support: I was initially concerned that MDD didn’t offer a live chat support option, but it hasn’t mattered. My previous host often took half an hour for an operator to become available, which meant a lot of sitting and waiting. On the few occasions I’ve needed to log a support ticket, it hasn’t taken more than three minutes to get a response – much faster than I’d expect!
• Dedication: MDD is a small company, and it only offers hosting. I like that it’s focused on doing one thing well, rather than trying to be everything to everyone. The About page says “We do not see our clients as a number or a dollar sign.”, and it genuinely feels that way – you don’t get palmed off with generic responses or excuses.

What I dislike: MDD Hosting drawbacks

The only real complaint I have about MDD is that the pricing feels slightly on the high side for the amount of included disk space and bandwidth*. On the ‘Basic’ plan, you’ll pay $7.50/month (before any annual or promotional discounts) for 5GB of storage and 250GB of data transfer. The company does run regular promotions, however, which typically offer around 25% off the standard price – and you do get what you pay for, in terms of speed and reliability.

*Note from Jerry: Truth is – when compared, MDD Hosting’s price is actually reasonable to me. Readers can compare latest VPS hosting deals in this page (right sidebar)

MDD Hosting Uptime Review

Note – To give you an overview on how MDD Hosting performs, we track Dave’s website uptime and publish the results here. As we do not control the test site, it’s important to bear in mind that a site down time may be caused by various factors that might or might not be the web host’s responsibility. 

MDD Hosting Uptime – June, 2016: 100%

MDD Hosting Uptime – March, 2016: 99.69%

MDD Hosting Uptime – February, 2016: 99.62%

MDD Hosting Uptime – September, 2015: 99.68%

MDD Hosting Uptime – June / July, 2015: 100%

MDD Hosting Uptime – April / May, 2015: 100%

Bottom line: Who Should Host With MDD?

In my opinion, MDD Hosting is ideally suited for the owners of small to medium-sized web sites, with some degree of technical ability. While the knowledge base and support system is good, and the company does offer a migration service from other hosts, it’s not really set up for a high level of hand-holding. If you’re reasonably comfortable running your own site, and are looking for a fast, reliable hosting company that’s quick to respond to support queries, you could do a lot worse than MDD.

Hence – my overall rating for MDD Hosting – 4 stars (or 4.5 if that’s an option!) out of 5.

For more information, visit MDD Hosting Online.