To be honest until I read a thread here tonight I thought that VPS could not be over sold. If that is true then that leaves me with the conclusion that the only way you can ever truly get what you pay for is to buy dedicated hosting yes?

Please, tell me that there is no way dedi can be oversold!

Dedi can still be oversold on bandwidth...

As far as VPS is concerned, it depends on the type of virtualization. Xen can't be oversold on memory or disk space. OpenVZ allows overselling on all fronts, this can mean more efficient use of the hardware node (and therefore lower prices) or it can mean horrendous amounts of swapping, it all depends on the host's management of their hardware.

Colo can't be oversold as well I guess.

How can dedi be oversold by bandwidth I wonder? Maybe you meant ghidden fees?

Dedicated cannot be oversold in terms of server boxes, but there are indeed the posibilities that the webhost can overcharge you on bandwidth usage and technical support.

Yes, that's true! Dedicated can be oversold on their bandwidth. Which is called SHARED bandwidth.

The only way to avoid bad management of your server is to pay extra to be at a reputable company with good support and good hardware.

You get what you pay for, but you can pay for a lot more than you'll ever use so be careful with your money

Ah, there goes my views of halfway decent hosting by going dedi. I hadn't thought about bandwidth.

So if you are a company with a huge amount of traffic what can you do other than buying your own T1 connection?!

T1 is really slow, for a web server. It will also translate into a monthly data transfer of 500GB per month (a highly theoretical amount).

Even when you get a connection that isn't shared with other servers, it doesn't necessarily mean that the data center has connectivity standing by, dedicated for your use. They'll make clever use of statistics, so that the bandwidth is there when you need it.

But is it really? I mean if everyone else needs it at the same time then you'll only get a share of what is available and not what you really need, right?

Yes, that's true. The only way you are going to be truly dedicated in everything is to go colocation.

So at least there is a way. I am starting to peel back the blinkers and see that really and honestly all hosting has it's issues and it's small print. You just have to try and get small print that is acceptible as possible.

Just to toss my $0.02 in here, not all dedicated server providers use shared (or pooled) bandwidth. Our agreement with SoftLayer gives us the ability to offer a true 10TB of bandwidth for every dedicated server customer we have. It's not pooled or shared amongst our customers but actually allocated and available in full.

Not all dedicated servers are created equally. :-)

Not having the need for shelling out for dedi I never really paid attention to such things, but I have always had similar beliefs that it couldn't be oversold. Guess it really pays to do your homework and learn about these things before just putting out the cash and being dissappointed.

Which doesn't mean there's no overselling/sharing going on upstream. You can't verify that they provision that amount specifically for your server to use. All that matters is that they provide it when its needed.