2.5 Months Review Of WiredTree.com

After having a dedicated server for more than 70 days from WiredTree.com, I thought that it would be a good time for a review.

I came across them through good reviews in this forum and took the opportunity to get one of their special offers (Core i7). As a short summary in advance: I can fully recommend them to anyone seeking a managed dedicated box.

Sales:
I just had contact to Sales twice - Once as I tried to bargain for an even cheaper offer than the special one they already had (without success, by the way) and a second time when it came to an eventual server upgrade. Response time was quick, the answers were professional and friendly and there is nothing I could complain about.

Server Setup:
I was in a totally different time-zone than WiredTree while ordering the server. As they have the practice to call their new customers for identity verification, the call reached me at night time and I could not pick it up. So I called them in the morning and they called me back again. It must have been deepest night time in Chicago at this moment. From this telephone call on, it took less than 2-3 hours (as far as I remember) until the server was ready and online.
Another thing is their "ServerShield Server Hardening" that they perform before you get the box. I never received a dedicated server before with so many tweaking measures taken in advance. MySQL performance was improved, the firewall was well configured, security checks were already made, everything felt fine-tuned in advance. So, again, very good job done by WiredTree.

Hardware Quality:
You might say: "You've only been with them 70+ days. Of course, there was no hardware problem during that short time". Well, I read here at WHT about customers of other hosts who had the first failures already at the moment they received the new box. So - No hardware problems at all until now.

Support:
I am not very experienced in server management and tend to get nervous if something doesn't work and support takes more than 30min. to answer questions. I know that this makes me annoying sometimes, but at least I always try to be friendly. Fortunately, WiredTree seems very good prepared for nerve-wrackers like me... Support never took more than 15min. to answer my requests and in at least 2 cases, they even bent backwards to help me with problems that had nothing to do with them. Every single request got solved in a very short time. I contacted support at the most unusable hours of the day because I often travel between different time zones - They were always there, like an own IT-Crowd in your pocket. Two thumbs up for their support staff.

Network:
100% Uptime during the whole time. No hickups at all, no problem that I would be aware of. Fine speed all the time. There is really nothing negative that I could say.

Billing:
No billing issues at all. Everything worked correctly.

Their customer portal "Grove":
Well. Hmmm. Okay, one thing first: I saw several customer portals during the last 10 years. And none of them blew me away. I haven't seen SoftLayer's yet and was told that theirs should be even nicer than grandmas cheese cake, but the grass is always greener on the other side as long as you have never been there. Let's say that "Grove" is surely one of the better and nicer looking customer portals around. It bundles a lot of information and offers a good way of communication. The rest is a question of taste...

The bad news:
I cancelled the server today. The company I work for has rent several servers at another host and paid them 1 year in advance. One is totally unused (great planning, MnMgt!) and I was offered by my boss to use it cost-free for that period of time. Well, this is an opportunity I have to take... Saving $300 a month is quite a lot of money. But I am determined to go back to WiredTree as soon as my "free time" is over.