[alphadeity]

When you pay for shared hosting the risk of the host overselling the server's resources is probable. I have 3 dedicated servers from three different hosts. They all run great, but at a slightly higher price than average. I would stay away from VPS as most are oversold. Also some control panels take up a good amount of resources. I like direct admin. There are not as many features compared to some other control panels, but direct admin is simple, secure, and fast. I try to keep my servers below 50% load on both memory and cpu. Memory is also very important. All my servers have at least 2GB. The more the better. To top it off, I make sure all clients on the servers are not running scripts that are not allowed or clients that are abusing the server. Although I don't host with either of the hosts mentioned on this thread, 1and1 is a great choice based on past experience.