I used to host some of my sites on my home server, however due to power outages and not reliable Internet service provider, moved them all to 1and1.
I've been 1and1 customer for about a year now and however they generally provide an OK service, I believe I can find something better than that.
My biggest problem with 1and1 is related to their database speed. "MySQL server has gone away" problem happens from time to time which does not make me happy, and in addition the their databases are just slow.
It's extremely difficult to find a good service due to all fake reviews from all these web hosting rating sites, so I'm looking in the forums to see what people recommend these days.
So far based on reviews from http://blamcast.net/articles/drupal-hosting and some others I like the most AN Hosting and Media Temple plans. However I'm still researching...
November 2007 Update: Finally after long process of research and migration all sites have been migrated to VPSLink (division of Spry). VPSLink offers the best price/performance VPS hosting I was able to find and so far I'm happy with them.
No problems were noted during the process of canceling 1and1 business package (I've read some bad reviews about 1and1 cancel process) - it went smoothly and they deposited unused amount back to my credit card.
January 2008 Update: We had a few issues with VPSLink which all were resolved in the acceptable timeframe. VPSLink is for those who want to build and manage their virtual machines by your own.
These were the issues:
- backup is only available for last 24 hours
- a couple of issues with very slow access speed of storage devices (they have scsi disks, but you still share them with others)
- our server went out of network ports due to some hacking activity on other virtual machine
With all above said VPSLink provides the best ratio (performance for $$) and so far I'm glad we went with VPSLink.
In the meantime you could sponsor our website hosting via PayPal if you want...