Hi,
I used to deal direct with hosts myself until…I found a team in India that offers cheap 24×7, 365 day a year dedicated server administration
Downside: have to pay upfront for servers 1 month in advance, you have to pay maintenance fee per server to them ($200-$250)
Upside: 24×7 tech support and coverage, no hassle, patches, upgrades, second hard disk drives installs, 100% back ups, 100% uptime. no trouble tickets!
I now host 6 servers through them and they deal direct with the data centres
Anyone interested PM me and i will pass on their details.
Cheers
Devendra