Downsides of shared web hosting

Value in price is one of the benefits of shared web hosting. However, there are downsides come along with it too. My blogs are hosted on HostMonster. And I face several DB server down issues lately. I don’t have problem if were down for few minutes but this took like 2 to 3 hours. And was happening 4 to 5 times in a month recently. Nothing is perfect, but this seem like a bit more to me. By the way, 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee from hosting company does not mean that your website will be up for at least 99.9%. That’s their network connection to outside guarantee only.

We don’t have control on other website that hosts with us in the same server. In my case, host233.hostmonster.com is server that hosts my blogs. Not sure the exact name for the DB server. But whenever other people screw up their DB, and HostMonster Support need to do something to fix it. My blogs will be down.

Few questions that I have been thinking for a while ~ should I change to a better hosting company? Should I use virtual private server (VPS)?

Prefer to host it at US (due to Google IP address optimization). Let me know if you have any suggestion. Thanks. 😉