Based in Auckland, New Zealand, HD is proud of its origins and makes this the cornerstone of its identity. It has a privately owned data center in Auckland, and it provides support entirely from New Zealand.
Acting as a hosting server provider, an ISP, and an IT services provider, HD offers services and products right across the information technology spectrum.
Features and Ease of Use
HD caters to those who care about high-performance, scalable server solutions that feature:
- Customizable backup storage with up to 6-hour intervals and 30-day retention
- Multiple 1 TB SSD drives, depending on your hosting
- Unlimited monthly traffic with all plans
HD’s top feature is the extent to which you can customize and configure your hosting solution’s hardware and software. From a hardware perspective, you can set up a server with up to two 1 TB SSDs, 12 CPU cores, and 192 GB RAM. In terms of software, you can choose from a range of control panels and cloud hosting applications.
HD boasts an impressive network that allows you to specify local and international bandwidth speeds of up to 100 Mbps over the 10 Gbps network. HD is also committed to helping you achieve real-time scalability, with no traffic or bandwidth limits, so that you can push for as much traffic as possible.
Pricing and Support
Since HD only offers cloud and dedicated server hosting, you shouldn’t expect any entry-level hosting prices. In fact, HD is quite expensive by international hosting standards, but not significantly more costly than other New Zealand hosts.
One positive aspect of the pricing is that you have the flexibility to customize your solution according to your specific requirements. This means you only pay for the features you actually need. The cloud and dedicated server packages offer extensive configuration options, allowing you to upgrade your port speeds (for an additional fee) and access a variety of managed hosting services.
Unfortunately, there are no money-back guarantees, but you can buy “downtime insurance” as an add-on. I was disappointed to discover that you don’t get backups or a control panel for free.
HD’s support is pretty standard, with 24/7/365 support by email, ticket, and telephone. You can buy server management and monitoring services which will help you take a hands-off approach to your hosting, and there is a pretty decent (but quite technical) knowledge base for self-support. Although the support staff can take up to a day to answer emails, the helpful responses should be worth waiting for. I tested this myself:
