Dreamhost has actually been pretty decent over the past year, but this month there have already been a number of unplanned issues that have brought down the entire site and email server.

Previously I'd been thinking about changing hosts, but no matter who I looked at, I also found plenty of horror stories. Including with Media Temple. So now instead of "moving" the site I'd like to copy and mirror it.

But I have no idea how to do this nor what's involved. The idea would be to create a fault tolerant setup such that if one server goes down the other one can pick up the slack.

Is this even possible using two different shared hosts? Possible with two virtual private servers? Some kind of gateway/balancing system in the middle? What if that fails?

Any recommendations and advice greatly appreciated. It's already important now because it accounts for lost sales. It will become much more important as I try to expand the business.