Pre-Sales Questions For Choosing Dedicated Web Hosting Providers

I prepared a list of questions to ask potential unmanaged dedicated web hosting providers for my sites.

Note: I have collected some questions from the web (forgot the url) and added my own. Feel free to add more in comments. Also below are some tips to get better pricing.

• Can I remotely (cold) reboot my dedicated server?
• How long have you been in business?
• What datacenter(s) do you use?
• Do you have uptime statistics?
• Do you have an uptime guarantee and if so is it server uptime or network uptime?
• Do you have a file I can download to test system speed?
• Is my account easily upgradeable? Is there an upgrade fee?
• How long it takes to replace bad hardware like failed hard-disk etc.? Do you charge for that?
• How many people are on your support staff?
• Do you provide support on weekends and holidays?
• Do you provide online support - email / chat?
• Do you provide phone support? per-incidence cost?
• Do you run DNS service? Can I run on my own DNS servers for my websites if I so wish?
• Do you have a money back guarantee?
• Do you perform regular backups or am I responsible for my own backups?
• Do you have any restrictions for connecting to any type of networks like IRC or P2P from the server?
• Do you have resource monitoring for the server?

You can also ask for special / custom quotation mentioning your required configuration. Ask for discounts offered on pre-payment.

I have made my decision based on the responses received and the promptness of response. Let me know if you find these useful.