Overview

When it comes to searching for a web host company for a business, a few key things that should come into play include performance, reliability, scalability, and good customer support. Without any of these, you’re bound to suffer some frustrations at some point whether in form of persistent website downtimes, slow responses to your queries, or a lack of necessary resource during rapid business growth.

If you’re looking for a web host that scores above average on all these areas, then you might want to look at Crucial Hosting, an Arizona-based company that has been in operation since 2006.

Crucial prides itself as among the few hosting providers that design and build their servers and hardware in-house. The company has also invested heavily in its customer support whereby each of their staff is always available to help in case of any customer query or complaint.

Regarding their offerings, Crucial Hosting has three major categories for its hosting plans namely Split-Shared, Split-Dedicated (which is the equivalent of VPS hosting), and Custom Dedicated Hosting. Also, if you’re want to host a Magento-run webstore, you can use this company’s Magento hosting packages which we’ll describe later in this article.

For now, let’s dive straight into Crucial Hosting review where we take a closer look at its hosting plans, features, strengths and weaknesses and finally frequently asked questions about this company.

Crucial Hosting Plans

Split-Shared Hosting

Crucial Hosting offers three packages for its Split-Shared Hosting Plans namely Personal, Professional, and Business.

Personal Plan which is the lowest in the pecking order comes with up to 10GB SSD drives which is enough to accommodate a majority of new websites and small existing ones. Crucial Hosting also allocates a RAM of only 256MB which is just enough for few operations and processes at a time. However, users enjoy unlimited bandwidth, cloud storage, commendable uptime, and scalability in the event you outgrow your current plan. The last feature introduces us to the next package.

If the Personal Plan is now insufficient for you and you need a more powerful plan for your growing business, then the Professional Plan might be worth checking out. With this package, you get double the memory provided by Crucial Hosting for its lowest plan (512MB), 30GB SSD disks (this can be expanded to 75GB upon request), and unmetered bandwidth among other features. This package goes for $25/mo.

Ultimately, you can purchase Crucial Hosting’s most stocked Shared Plan known as Business. And just like its name suggests, this package is ideal for already established businesses with high demand for web hosting resources but trying to keep their fees a bit low. With it, you get 1024MB RAM which can be scaled to 2048MB, 75GB disk space (scalable to 100GB), and all other resources offered in the lower plans. Business Plan costs $50/mo.

All Split-Shared come with a cPanel, 24/7 customer support, automatic daily backups, super-fast SSD drives, and a 30-day money back guarantee. As if that’s not enough, you get the latest version of PHP, HTTP/2, free Let’s Encrypt SSL, and Percona MySQL server. Crucial Hosting only supports Cloud Linux OS which users that prefer Windows OS will need to look elsewhere for their hosting needs.

Split-Dedicated Hosting

Are you experiencing huge surges of traffic to your website and resources offered by your hosting provider are quickly getting depleted fast? How about transferring to one of the Crucial Hosting’s Split-Dedicated Plans.

This web host offers these powerful servers to users looking for resource-intensive hosting plans capable of handling highly demanding proprietary applications and thousands or even millions of unique visitors within a short span. The best part about these plans is that they’re scalable meaning you can request that Crucial Hosting adds to your account more selected resources when need arises.

You can choose from the four plans offered here including Personal, Professional, Corporate, and Enterprise.

Personal Plan which despite being the lowest in this category comes packed with significant resources that are enough to run most medium-sized websites and applications. With it, you get 4 CPU Cores, 3.6GB RAM, 48GB SSD and another 96GB HDD drives, 2TB bandwidth, and clock speeds of up to 3.5 GHz. In addition, the fully managed dedicated server comes with unlimited cPanels which means you can host as many websites as possible and possibly make some money reselling hosting services. This plan is available for $150/mo.

The second plan in line is known as Professional and costs $250/mo. With it, you get 8 CPUs, 6.1GB RAM, 83GB SSD and 160GB HDD drives, and a max of 4TB bandwidth. And like all other packages in this plan category, Professonal is fully managed and comes with unlimited cPanels and clocks at 3.5 GHz.

Corporate Plan offers you 8 CPUs, 11GB RAM, 150 GB SSD and 288GB HDD space, 3.5 GHz clock speed, and up to 7 TB bandwidth. The fully managed plan which costs $450/mo is ideal for large ecommerce stores and other high resource intensive websites such as those hosting photography and related media.

Finally, the Enterprise Plan is the most expensive and resource-packed package among all Split-Dedicated plans offered by Crucial Hosting. Costing $650/mo, this plan can support businesses of almost any magnitude including those that record millions of unique visitors every day. The vast amount of resources provided by this company for its highest plan helps to justify its steep pricing. Notable features that you’ll get here include 8 CPUs, 15.8GB RAM, 220GB SSD and 416GB HDD drives, 10TB bandwidth, and 3.5 GHz clock speed.

Dedicated Server Hosting

Dedicated servers are the most powerful hosting services you can find anywhere today: they entail having an entire server being provided to you so that you have all the resources available to your business alone. Besides, you have a near autonomous control over your environment and the technical aspects of your hosting services.

Crucial Hosting offers these servers as its ultimate plan meaning they are also the most expensive you’ll find here. The company gives you a choice of four packages namely Standard Business, Rapid Response, Premium Business, and Enterprise.

With the Standard Business plan, you get 32GB RAM, 200GB RAID-1 Enterprise SSD disk, 1TB bandwidth, and clock speeds of up to 3.5GHz. The package which costs $1200/mo is fully managed and comes with genuine Intel hardware.

The second plan is known as the Rapid Response: just as the name suggests, you get extremely fast clock speeds with this package with its overclocked 4.5GHz i7-5960x processor. Just like its smaller counterpart, it’s powered by a humongous 32GB RAM and served with 200GB SSD drives. However, you get a higher bandwidth of up to 5TB per month as well as genuine Intel hardware. This plan goes for $1399/mo.

Premium Business goes a notch higher to include a duo processor that clocks speeds of between 2.5-3.3 GHz. The powerful system is then powered by a big 64GB RAM and allocated premium SSD storage of up to 200GB. With this fully managed plan also, you get a maximum of 5TB bandwidth and genuine Intel hardware. Premium Business will cost you $1550/mo.

Finally, Crucial Hosting’s most expensive hosting plan is known as Enterprise and goes for $1750/mo. This package can be used by businesses of whatever size or traffic if the resources provided here are to go by. For starters, you get a powerful duo processor that can clock up to 3.6GHz and which is backed by 64GB RAM. As if that’s not enough, you get 400GB RAID-1 Enterprise grade SSD disks and up to 10TB bandwidth every month.

Additional information about Crucial Hosting’s Dedicated Server Plans

-          The company uses Hot Swappable Disk Drives which means they can hot-swap your hardware at any time you suffer performance issues such as persistent downtimes. All this is done in a matter of minutes without your business going down or losing any data.

-          Crucial Hosting also supports redundant power and network to ensure you do not experience any significant downtimes caused by these two crucial elements.

-          The enterprise SSD disks are extremely fast compared to the traditional hard disks and this is seen in the quicker performances on aspects such as load speeds.

-          If you need a custom dedicated server, Crucial Hosting can build one for you from scratch to enable you enjoy the necessary levels of resources you might need for your business.

-          You can also pay for professional server management services in case you don’t want to handle the technical aspect of running a server. Crucial Hosting will offer you the necessary support which is nearly similar to what you get with its Split-Dedicated Plans. In this case, you’ll not have root access but in return, the company installs for you valuable tools like cPanel, KernelCare, and Litespeed which makes it easy for you to operate your server from the backend. What’s more, you get free priority access to the support team 24/7.

Magento Hosting

Crucial Hosting also offers hosting products for Magento although it doesn’t have a specific plan for the same. As such, users looking for this service will need to contact the support team at the company where they will be directed to choose from the existing Split-Shared or Split-Dedicated plans.

Generally, the company recommends that you choose your Magento hosting package based on the number of products you wish to host for your business. For example, for small portfolios comprising 0-10,000 SKUs, a Split-Shared plan with 2-10GB disk space and 20-200GB bandwidth is recommended. On other hand, if you have a larger store with over 10,000 products, then a Split-Dedicated Plan with at least 15-25GB disk space and 150-250GB bandwidth will be sufficient.

Crucial Hosting has been using Magento for as long as the company has been in existence. Its vast experience using this application can be justified through its partnerships with some of the biggest names in the ecommerce industry, most notably Walmart and Cort Events whom it hosts.

Performance and Speed

Your website’s performance is paramount if you really want to remain competitive. Your host will play a significant role in determining how well you attract and keep visitors and this entails getting a fast hosting service that facilitates quick load times. Of course, high performance goes hand in hand with stability and reliability of your products and services.

Crucial Hosting promises to offer excellent performance and speed in terms of loading time and ping. Their systems have been built from the ground up to ensure that all points of failure are identified and taken care of. The result of this is a redundant network of servers and data centers that will host your site with the best uptimes possible. Here are a few aspects that make Crucial Host’s performance and speed stay on top of the game:

-          Enterprise-Grade SSD Storage

Solid state drives (SSDs) have read and write speeds of up to 550 MBps. This coupled with NVM Express (NVMe) support gives some of the best data transfer speeds on any server array. These speeds will come in handy when visitors try to access your site; the requests will be handled immediately with commendable loading speeds. Another benefit of using SSD storage is that the improved lifetime SSDs usually last longer compared to conventional hard drive. As a result, you should expect far fewer downtime cases resulting from storage failure. SSDs also have low latency so each command is processed in real-time.

-          3.5Gh Intel Server Processors

Crucial Host servers run on Intel Xeon edition processors. These are optimized for demanding data loads and networking. That’s not all; the processors have hardware-enhanced security features to counter any exploits and malware that might try to run malicious code. These processors are more than capable of dealing with hybrid-cloud computing. Therefore, any hosting done on the servers will have more than enough computing power to cope with your workload. It’s important to remember that such hardware currently sells at a premium and therefore getting it at such affordable cost here is a grand bargain.

-          Up-to-date Software Backed by the Latest Hardware

To remain competitive, you need to use the newest hardware and software installations.  Crucial Host has automated its software updates so that you always receive the latest patches and updates on time. These will also fix any bugs that may have been identified. The same goes for third-party software support like database managers and programming languages. The web host strives to provide support and integration for such software whenever updates are required.

Crucial Hosting servers also support hot swapping SSDs. What this means is that replacing faulty drives is done quickly without having to take the entire server offline.

-          Uptime Guarantee

Crucial Hosting guarantees that their network’s uptime will be 100% albeit excluding scheduled maintenance breaks and emergency maintenance cases. The company will offer a 5% compensation rate for every 30 minutes of downtime experienced. Therefore, if you experience 10 hours of downtime you will receive 100% credit or your next monthly fee.

Security

Crucial Hosting puts a great focus on ensuring a high level of security on their platform. Check out the following features that the company has invested in:

-          Magento Malware Scanner

Crucial Hosting uses Magento anomaly scanner that works in the same fashion as an antivirus scanner on your PC. Its work is to compare your site’s code to the way the files should be; any malicious code is quickly identified and displayed. The free scanner comes free of charge for all split-dedicated and dedicated server plans.

The Magento scanner also shows what changes have occurred to the store’s code base and then analyzes them for any malicious code that may have been added. The scans happen within 10 seconds which is faster than most typical virus scanning software. Crucial Hosting states that much of the calculations are done in the web host’s system and not in your account because the analysis can be too intensive on your server.

A major issue with customers is the outdated installations getting exploited. While the scanning software (Magento) is typically secure, customers make a mistake of setting up less secure software alongside it. It’s worth noting that even with a secure Magento installation, it’s possible for attackers to gain access into your account via an outdated software.

Luckily, if something unwanted happens, there’s the Enterprise Backup System that allows website owners to roll back their site to a certain day or week. Crucial hosting keeps log records for at least 30 days, unlike most other companies that keep very limited logs. This is enough for you to backdate your system if anything bad happens to your site.

-          Enterprise Backup Solution

As a rule of thumb, it is recommended that you keep your websites backups at all times as they become necessary for disaster recovery purposes. The harsh reality is that most people hardly back up their systems even when the systems are critical to their business and livelihood. The good thing is that Crucial Hosting ensures that all managed hosting plans are backed up daily.

The host provider offers 30 separate backups for every server. In other words, for every gigabyte of date found on your live site, the web host has 10 times the amount on redundant backup drives. As a result, you can rest assured that all your files and databases are monitored.

The company says that it has never dealt with a disaster requiring the use of backups but maintains that it is focused on building a robust backup system to maintain the integrity of the platform.

Customers can get backups for their website files in an exclusive paid solution known as Enterprise Backup Solution. This exclusive tool that you’ll find in your control panel area allows you to access all website backups, giving you access to copies of files and MYSQL databases. The service costs less than 5 dollars per month for the basic subscription.

The best part is that Crucial will not only help you in capturing the backups but will also help in restoring your site in case you face any difficulties. You can also access the professional backup restoration service which is offered free with the Premium Backup Plan. The host also allocates a space where customers can store compressed archives of their backup so that they do not lose them.

In the event of failure outside of your control, e.g., hardware failure or natural disaster, Crucial Hosting offers to restore your server for free. If you need a backup without this additional service, you can request for a one-time professional restoration which costs $100.

-          SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are considered today to be a symbol of online security. Most online shoppers will want to know if your website can be trusted by looking at the SSL certificates. Crucial Hosting offers SSL certificates to boost your consumer confidence. Among the SSL certificates you’ll find here include GeoTrust Certificates and Symantec Certificates.

Customer support

When looking for a reliable web host, you need one that can answer calls and reply your messages quickly to help you in dealing with various site issues. Crucial Hosting has brought together an excellent team of representatives that comprises highly experienced employees – they are available around the clock every day of the year.

You can call this team via phone or contact them via live chat and have most of your issues resolved in a few minutes after submitting a ticket. However, email is encouraged if you’re dealing with a big or technical issues.

Unlike most web hosts that comprise of tiers of technical support, all employees at Crucial Hosting take part in providing technical support. Occasionally, the owner of this web host is involved in assisting customers to make significant changes. There's also a high chance that the person who built your server has assisted you with a question.

This is a remarkable approach to technical support as it doesn’t waste the customers’ time and ensures that problems are solved rapidly. It is no wonders that this host provider has such a quick response time.

Crucial Hosting cPanel

Crucial Host includes the much-renowned cPanel whose GUI offers secure access to administrative and management controls. Here are some of its features:

-          Account Management

After logging into your cPanel, you can edit existing accounts as well as create new ones. While you cannot delete the primary account, you can change the password as well as the username. Having multiple accounts means that everyone contributing to the site can log in on their own; with the added benefit of controlling their permissions.

-          Security options

The security tab on cPanel offers various security controls such as adding and removing SSL certificates and two-factor authentication. It’s important to mention that cPanel is Linux-based and as a result permissions are based on user-level access. This means you can specify who gets to control which aspect of your website’s security and which accounts cannot make such changes.

-          CloudFlare Integration

CloudFlare caches static content of your websites such as HTML files and images. This cached copy is then provided whenever users visit your site. Caching is key in speeding up your site as it leaves your hosting resources free to handle other aspects of your website such as databases and PHP files. Of course, you will need to configure your DNS options so as to utilize CloudFlare’s services fully.

-          Google Apps for Email

Crucial Hosting offers Google Apps integration with your domain. Through this process, you can set up email routing and enable remote mail exchanger. The company also offers a step by step guide on how to set up all of the above on their knowledgebase. Users can then use the mail tab to create mail accounts, set up autoresponders and forwarders. To further assist in email management, there are account and user-level filtering settings available.

-          Domains Manager

With the domains management tool, identifying your website will be simple as the tool includes a DNS Editor and an Advanced Zone Editor.  Domains management also comprises subdomains setup, paired domains as well as add-on domains to ensure that all redirects point to the right direction.

30-day Money Back Guarantee

In case you’re not satisfied with Crucial Hosting services, you can terminate the contract within 30 days of registration. However, this policy does not cover services such as domain names, add-ons, reseller accounts, setup fees, overages or any fees related to the accounts. Any accounts that have been terminated or suspended for violating the web host’s terms of service also do not qualify for a refund. It’s necessary to go through these terms to get all the details.

eCommerce Features

Crucial Hosting web host supports effectively most PHP based carts such as:

-          Magento

This is a feature-rich ecommerce solution that delivers complete flexibility and control over the content, look and functionality of their online store.

-          CS-Cart

A comprehensive and modern ecommerce software solution that fits into any business size. It is popular for its easy-to-use interface and allows you to begin selling online immediately.

-          FatFreeCart

A free shopping cart that works on websites, blogs and MySpace page. It integrates well with Google Checkout and PayPal.

Other carts you can use on this platform are LemonStand, OpenCart, X-cart, PrestaShop, VirtueMart and osCommerce.

Crucial Hosting Extras

-          Automatic Backups

Crucial utilizes R1Soft Backup Software to automate site backup. The company offers complimentary backups and recovery for up to 7 days each with a daily recovery point as well as SQL protection. Restorations are available although at a premium $100 per backup.

-          Multiple Content management systems (CMS) support

Crucial Hosting servers support various content management systems that are used in creating powerful websites and online applications. These will come in handy when you want to add custom functionality to your existing sites. Some of the supported content management systems include Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and PyroCMS.

-          Magento Integration

Crucial Hosting offers Magento security platform for intrusion protection. Magento has garnered quite a name due to its diversity and filtering processes. The service is also free and will therefore save you a couple of bucks.

Pros and Cons of Crucial Hosting

Pros

-          Solid customer support

This is easily the biggest advantage you’ll experience with Crucial Hosting over many other hosting providers today. The company has invested heavily in its customer support even boasting that its founder occasionally responds to customers. All its representatives have over five years’ experience and are all based in the US. They will answer any of your questions in a timely and informed manner 24/7.

-          Faster SSD Disks

Crucial Hosting uses SSD Drives for all its hosting plans including the lowest shared packages. These disks have been proven to be faster in processing information compared to the conventional HDD and this translates to better hosting performances especially in load times.

-          Scalability

Crucial Hosting offers a variety of hosting plans and allows users to transfer to different packages depending on the changing needs of their businesses. For example, you can easily request to be moved to a higher plan or ask for additional resources in case your existing plan falls short in meeting the growing demands of your website or application.

-          30-day money back guarantee

If you’re not impressed with the services offered by this company, you’re free to demand a full refund of your money within a 30-day window of purchasing your plan. No questions asked.

-          Compatible with most popular CMS

Crucial Hosting supports nearly all the major CMS including WordPress, Joomla, Weebly, and Drupal among many others. The best part? You can install all of them using the one-click install feature provided by this company.

Cons

-          Expensive plans

It’s a no brainer that Crucial Hosting is comparatively more expensive than a majority of web hosts today with its lowest plan costing $10/mo and its highest going for over $1750/mo. While the features provided in the respective plans help to justify this steep price tag, we believe that there are cheaper alternatives offering similar services in the market.

-          Limited plans to choose from

This company doesn’t offer some of the most common hosting plans found in other web hosts including WordPress, VPS, and Reseller hosting. This limits the number of plans to choose from in case you need to transfer your website to a more advanced plan or want to make money selling hosting services (for resellers).

-          Domain transfers not supported

Crucial Hosting no longer supports domain transfers which means you’ll have to stick with your old registrar if you already have an existing domain name with them.

Crucial Host Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

-          Where are Crucial Hosting servers located?

Crucial Hosting is based in Arizona, and its central servers are at the Phoenix NAP data center facility. This provides a secure environment for the entire network and server system.

-          Does Crucial Hosting offer automatic site backups?

Yes, Crucial Hosting has an enterprise backup system that maintains daily site backups on a subscription. The restoration process is also relatively easy as it involves selecting the restoration point and that’s it: your backup will automatically restore your site’s previous configuration. In the event you didn’t subscribe for this service, Crucial Hosting will still be able to provide you with complimentary backups but this service will cost you a onetime professional restoration fee of $100.

-          Why do I need the Magento Malware Scanner?

The Magento Malware Scanner plays similar roles as an anti-virus only this time it protects your hosting storage and site access. Crucial Hosting offers the malware scanner absolutely free as a complement to their customers. However, it’s only available with the dedicated server and split-dedicated plans currently.

-          Will my site be faster on Crucial Hosting?

Yes, Crucial Hosting provides various performance optimization tools. PHP Zend OpCache being one of them, this option allows users to enable Zend Opcache for PHP binaries. As a result, PHP processing will be much faster and this results in faster web performance as well as third-party application performance.

-          Is it possible to upgrade or downgrade from one plan to another?

Yes, Crucial Hosting offers account migration services to customers that are interested in either upgrading or downgrading their accounts.

-          Can I get root access?

Unfortunately, managed hosting plans do not come with root access. In case you must have root access, you can always order a custom unmanaged server.

-          Which operating systems are supported?

Currently, Crucial Hosting split dedicated servers run CentOS 6.7 (Linux based). The customer is free to choose other distributions when it comes to custom dedicated servers.

-          When will I be billed?

This company offers monthly and annual billing plans and you’re free to choose either while subscribing to a plan.

-          How many dedicated IP addresses can I get?

Crucial Hosting split-shared plans offer one dedicated IP address. Due to cPanel limitations, it’s impossible to add extra dedicated IP addresses.

-          Does Crucial Hosting offer a money back guarantee?

Yes, the host offers a 30-day money back guarantee. However, it’s recommended that you go through the fine print before settling on applying for a refund. This is because the policy covers the initial contract alone and not any other additional services costs such as domain names.

-          Which forms of payment are accepted here?

Crucial Hosting accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and PayPal.

-          Can I enable MySQL remote access?

Yes, Crucial Hosting supports custom filters for both split-dedicated and dedicated server firewalls. Also, the company has invested in an in-house tool which is accessible through cPanel. This tool can be used to permit MySQL remote access as well as other advanced features.

-          Can I resell my server?

Yes, you can create as many cPanel instances as you like and resell them to your clients. However, Crucial Hosting will not provide end-user support to any third party users.

-          Can I use custom software?

Yes, you can install custom software on your host server. However, it’s important to note that some legacy programs may no longer be supported by the ever-changing server-side hardware and software upgrades.

-          Does Crucial Hosting offer an uptime guarantee?

Yes, Crucial Hosting has a 99.5% uptime guarantee. If a customer experiences downtime for more than 0.5%, they are liable for compensation and are even encouraged to request for it.

-          Does this web host offer unlimited storage plans?

No, Crucial Hosting relies on SSD storage which is rather pricey compared to HDD storage solutions. It would, therefore, be unreasonable to offer an unlimited storage solution only to increase the charges that the customer as to bear with.

-          Does Crucial Hosting have a content delivery network (CDN)?

Yes, Crucial Hosting offers CloudFlare integration through cPanel thus providing users with access to CloudFlare’s CDN. The CDN is well known for its optimization and caching services which ensure that your site loads up fast without any lags whenever visitors request for your website.

-          Does Crucial offer cPanel?

Yes, Crucial Hosting bundles cPanel with every hosting account created. cPanel is quite standard, and therefore a lot of documentation and guides exist on how to use its various functions. If you are interested in reseller services, you can create as many cPanels as you like.

-          Does Crucial Hosting automatically renew domain names?

No, while Crucial Hosting can register domain names, the responsibility of renewing them falls solely in the hands of the user who has to keep track of all their registered domain names and take appropriate actions whenever needed.

-          Does Crucial Hosting accept domain transfers?

No, as of May 2008, Crucial Hosting no longer accepts domain transfers. Therefore, your domains will have to remain with your original registrar.

-          How can I view my Crucial Hosting nameservers?

Your nameservers are included in the welcome email. It’s recommended that you change them on your domain registrar upon login.

-          How do I terminate existing cPanel accounts?

After logging in to your primary cPanel account, you can then toggle the account management option in the main screen. This can then be used to terminate existing accounts. To do so, toggle the delete option which then presents a submission button. Once the request is submitted, the account selected is deleted automatically.

-          Does Crucial Hosting offer an integrated payment gateway?

Yes, Crucial Hosting recommends using Authorize.Net as your shop’s payment gateway.  Autorize.Net is popular for its ability to provide a secure channel between your e-commerce system and the card processing system. If you also decide to add a ‘card not present’ payment option, then you should use the Server Integration Method (SIM) API.

-          When can I terminate my contract?

Crucial Hosting terms and conditions state that the customer can terminate the agreement prior to the expiration of the first term or any renewal term without any liability.