Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire IT guys: plz recommend a personal web site host

I'm piecing together a plan for moving to a new ISP. The old ISP is hosting my personal web site, which also has my E-mail addresses linked to it. ISPs come and go but I'd prefer not to be screwing with my web site with any regularity, or with the E-mail addresses associated with it, so I want to separate out the web hosting from my Internet service and move them to a hosting specialist.

At the moment, all I really keep the web site for is to maintain "ownership" of my domain name. Functionally, all I use it for is a sort of an Internet closet for exchange of files and photos with friends and family. I also use my domain name as the domain part for my E-mail addresses, so E-mail is part of the deal.

So I'd like to hear from any of you guys who have recent experience with personal web hosting who you'd recommend, and why (the pros and the cons).

My criteria:
Stable company is PARAMOUNT
Cheap is good (<$20/month)
Needs at least 2 GB of online storage
Transfer limit of no less than 2 GB/month
DropBox capability is good
More E-mail addresses is better
E-mail attachment size limit <5 MB is BAD
More/more sophisticated E-mail management tools is better
Disposable anonymous E-mail addresses is a BIG plus
No requirement for SQL or other integral DB services

I'm tech-savvy, don't need hand-holding, rarely require tech support and don't mind if it's only available via E-mail so long as they're (1) competent and (2) quick to respond.

I've looked at PolurNET and DreamHost in some detail, and glanced casually at GoDaddy and HostGator. Of those, PolurNET seems the most attractive, but I figured some of you guys might know some better options.

TIA!
XL5

Google.

I've got one on bluehost, overall I'm perfectly content with them. Don't route many emails through it, but don't think I've ever had any problems with it.

I'm running 3 sites off of GoDaddy, and I've been happy with their service.

My favorite is Linode. They give you a virtual host to do whatever you want with and let you go. Most customers install some version of Linux on it (hence the name), and they've got Linux VM appliances for you to start with if that's what you want to do. But I imagine you could also install Windows, if you wanted--but who would want to, right?

You have root access to the machine, you can reboot it or reinstall the OS whenever you want; it's significantly more low-level than most hosting services, but it's perfect for me. I think they have three widely separated physical locations, so you can pick a hosting center close to you if you like, or several distant ones for disaster-recovery purposes, or whatever.

I just wish they had a server farm in Panama.

But anyway, if you want more control over your stuff than most hosting services will give you, try Linode.

How do you segregate a email address from the host's control?

If you want an SMTP server on a Linode, you just set one up and put it in the .initrc or whatever so that it runs whenever you boot it up.

With Linode, you have to do everything yourself. On the other hand, you get to do everything yourself. It's like picking a manual transmission over an automatic transmission.