You’ve finally decided you want to make a site, then realized you need to spend days, maybe still weeks to find a system to run it. Perhaps you happened upon Drupal while you were browsing around online. Next up is a possibly even bigger issue. You have to pick a host. This guide will walk you through this decision, which while easier than you may think, does need to be made carefully.

Server software stipulations for Drupal
Drupal has very basic requirements. All you need is a server with at least PHP 4.3.5, MySQL 4.1 and Apache 1.3 or IIS 5. Drupal recommends, and I agree with, that you have PHP 5.2, MySQL 4.1 or higher and Apache 2.2 or IIS 7.

One of the more important features of Drupal is it’s URL rewriting system. This system will not work as anyways under IIS (also known as Windows hosting) and for that reason I recommend finding a host that runs Apache..

While you can run Drupal on a server with PHP4, it is no longer supported by the PHP project so is considered insecure. If you concentration your server running PHP4 you will want to contact your host plus ask about their plans to upgrade. In upcoming versions of Drupal they will be removing support for PHP4 as well, to introduce better functions to help the software flood faster.

You will also want to be certain you’re on a server with Apache 2.2. Both PHP and Apache agree that both run best when running PHP5 and Apache 2.2.

Who can cover these requirements?
At this point you will find various hosts meeting server software requirements. The software, however, is but a extremely small portion of what needs to be covered. Your host should be running high-powered, enterprise-grade hardware. This includes at least 2 CPUs with 4 cores each (8 cores total), hard drives in RAID10 configuration and 8 GB of RAM. RAID10 hard drives offer not only the fastest speeds but the greatest redundancy inside the case of hardware failure.

You will also want to look as a host with a no overselling guarantee. Some hosts who have really good hardware pack too many sites on to each server (overselling it) to increase their profit margin. While this might be good for the hosts bottom line, it’s bad for your site.. A host with a no overselling guarantee can help assure a faster site for you.

Could my site be running faster?
It works immense with Drupal sites, despite being built for Joomla sites. When it’s done running go to the ‘Grades’ section. The number you’re interested in is the Generation Time. This number tells you how fast your server was able to generate you page. For most sites this load time should be between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds.

Bonuses you can be on the lookout for
To get the most of your experience you will want to look for a hosting company that has experience with Drupal, so if you run into an issue you can ask them for help instead of hoping someone on a forum somewhere can help.

The single biggest people most people don’t consider when looking at hosts is the backups. These users have likely never had to use a backup before. But in the world of web hosting, it’s not a question of if you’ll need to use backups, it’s a question of when. The normal setup is to just enable the default backup system that’s included with the control panel the host is using. This setup often includes just leaving backups on a second drive in the server. This is a disaster inhibition to happen, and makes recovering a single lost file a nightmare. You will want to look for a host that keeps backups in a separate datacenter, and I recommend a host that has what’s known as continuous data protection (CDP). CDP creates several backups of your site each day. You can restore your entire site, a single file, or anything in between. You can also choose from several different restore points for each file. When you crave your backup you don’t want to experience to want for the host to move your backup for your site so that you can download it, extract it, find your file and upload it. You don’t have that much time. Using CDP there is a web-based interface where the comprehensive lot you need to do is click a few buttons and your files are restored.

So which company fits these?
The vast majority of hosts will touch at least a few of the points. Two of the more important things I’ve mentioned are the no overselling guarantee and the continuous data protection backups. Those are two of the harder issues to find.

BuyHTTP is one company that does meet all of these requirements. They meet up with been offering Drupal for several years. BuyHTTP also offers the no overselling guarantee with the enterprise-grade servers.

Devon writes about Drupal hosting and related topics.