The answer to your second question is covered here: http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/08/a_short_rant_about_hosting/ http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/08/a_short_rant_abo

The answer to your second question is covered here: http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/08/a_short_rant_about_hosting/ http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/08/a_short_rant_about_hosting/ ("Why not go with Linode/AWS/[other virtualized hosting]?") tl;dr - I/O performance