DNS hosting - IP pointing - URL forwarding

[bigsexvideos]

I heard about this in other posts (couldn't find them anymore). And it looked like an fast (& easy?) way to redirect surfers from on host to another.
But I don't realy understand this stuff. So I wanted to ask ya'll advice w/ an example.

Suppose you have 2 hosts:
-A= a very cheap or a free host (cheap bandwith, but unreliable sometimes)
and
-B= a more expensive or a paid host. (expensive bandwith but reliable)
Suppose you have exactly the same website hosted on both of them.
When surfers go to your site, they go to the one hosted on A.
BUT one day the server of host A goes down.
If you host your own DNS(?), you can forward you surfers almost instantly to your mirror-site on host B. This is much faster than changing the nameserver.

I'm not quite familiar w/ all this.
1. Is all what I said correct? (What wasn't?)
2. How do I host my own DNS?
3. How much does this cost?
4. What are the (dis)advantages of it?
5. What do you think about this? And what are your experiences w/ this?

[XxxPower.net]

I think that it's possible if you have your own DNS to switch from host A to host B without much downtime, but I'm not sure how much cost to own your own DNS. Anyway it's not good idea to keep paid host for downtimes only.

[bigsexvideos]

Originally posted by XxxPower.net:
<STRONG>Anyway it's not good idea to keep paid host for downtimes only.</STRONG>

Why not?

[XxxPower.net]

I would do that if I have two paid hosts and one of them goes down. Then I would switch. But to switch from free site or cheap slow host to expensive paid host sounds stupid to me. When you are on free host that mean you can't afford paid host.

[bigsexvideos]

Originally posted by XxxPower.net:
<STRONG>When you are on free host that mean you can't afford paid host.</STRONG>

I can afford a paid host, but I can't afford the bandwith though.

[gse]

Yes, you do have a great advantage when you run your own dns. You can switch websites from ip to ip, server to server instantly. There are no downtimes. But dns is a distributed system. So some of the surfers may not notice changes instantly if their dns provider has cached your website info. However, it's minor trouble compared to the advantages. For instance you don't need to wait for anyone ass if you need to set up couple of hundreds subdomains.

You need at least two servers to run your own dns. Plus your tech always should keep it up to date, cause bind is known for security glitches

[bigsexvideos]

Thanks, gse.

I've been looking further on the net & found these DNS-services.
Anyone has any experience w/ them and can recommend them to me?
http://www.easydns.com/ http://www.everydns.net/ http://www.granitecanyon.com/ http://zoneedit.com/

About Zoneedit: they say that they are free if you add less than 5 domain names to their system, and your domains remain below their bandwidth limits. The limit is 200 MB of DNS bandwidth per year.
My question is: How much visitors is 200 MB of DNS bandwidth per year?

[gse]

if you like I can host your dns and make all the required changes fast when/if you need at $1 per dom/mo.
DNS querry hardly uses any bandwith, and we have 2 dedicated dns boxes

14562798

[bigsexvideos]

gse , the point of this topic is exactly that I would be in total control myself.

Anyone knows the answer: How much visitors is 200 MB of DNS bandwidth per year?

What I also would like to ask: Suppose some I have a mirror site at a (free) host that doesn't offer domain hosting. When I host my own DNS, it would be possible to send surfers to this site while my domain is in the url-bar, right?