Cari.net Review? Softlayer Comparison?
Mar 10, 2008
I'm looking for a recent review of Cari.net. I have a ton of servers at softlayer (which has been great), but I've found similar servers offered at cari.net for 1/2 (!) the price. With the economy as it is, I certainly need to cut costs, but I don't want to jump into a disaster.
What I like about Cari.net:
-low monthly price ~1/2 price of SL (kentsfield server)
What I don't like:
- LARGE setup fee
- $50 additional for CentOS (why would they do that?)
- $50 reinstalls
- 15 minute reboots?
- No version #'s or model numbers on servers or software.
Do they treat their customers like idiots like their site does?
Do they try to nickle and dime you for everything?
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Apr 26, 2009
I have been with SoftLayer a month now, and this is my review of their company. I will start with my pre-sales experience, going into hardware, their network, server, portal, accounting/sales, and support .
[[[[[[[ PRE SALES ]]]]]]]
I started out looking for a new server by looking at some good dedicated hosts. I saw SoftLayer offered the new Nehalem series, so I went for it. Their sales team is excellent beyond all reasons -- the staff are personal and do NOT try to take your money; instead, they find the best-fit solution for you and work with you by calling you, showing you their specials, and talking to managers.
[[[[[[ HARDWARE ]]]]]]]
The Hardware at SL is top-notch. There's no problem with it, it's clearly stated in the portal what type of motherboard, HDs, RAM, etc are in the server and it's top-notch Supermicro hardware. I've never seen a problem with it, and I have seen the certificate of passing benchmarks as that is done on all SL servers by default.
Their provisioning system is excellent, I got my server in 2-3 hours at MAX. WOW! It is all inside the portal too; you can view the status (PE_BOOT, OS_RELOAD); it's clearly there and excellent. We finally got VIRTUOZZO (thanks natecarlson ) working with it too.
[[[[ SERVER ]]]]]
What can I say? This is the new Nehalem series. I think the deal I got was quite good, I brought several SL servers before I switched to this one, and it did take a while to get it down to this price (especially for SL quality, damn!) :
-Intel Dual Quad Core (2x) X5570 Nehalem 2.93GHZ w/ HT
-12 x 300GB SAS 15K Seagate Cheetah HD's in RAID 10
-12GB DDR3 RAM (to start)
-4000GB Monthly Bandwith
-1GigE Port Speed
-64 IP Addresses
-Monitoring & Automated Reboot
$1,100 a month -- which I think is good for this type of server.
It's blazing fast and 0 problems.
[[[[ NETWORK ]]]]
I started in their Dallas, TX datacenter with a Dual 5450, but decided to get a 2U server with SAS HD's. Sadly, they said they were out of stock in Dallas. They said they can get me an EXTRA DISCOUNT if I went to Washington DC. I live an hour or two from DC, so it was good for me. I debated, and talked to them, they said it was a great place and I went with their Washington D.C datacenter .
It's fast. Blazing fast. They have like 100GBPS connectivity -- with many backbone providers. I've never seen so many . I'm liking the nework speeds and it really is nice.
[[[[ PORTAL ]]]]
The best part. They have their 'manage.softlayer.com' and their mobile 'manage.softlayer.mobi' portals. They are excellent. I don't even need support, and when I do, it's there. I mean, I'm STILL exploring their portal system. It has so much stuff; "Instant cPanel Licenseing, Instant Firewall, Upgrades, IP's, OS reloads, Installs, Backups" -- I love it. It makes my life a lot easier and quiker. I've had a server with ThePlanet, HiVelocity, and more and SL portal blows them all away
[[[ SUPPORT ]]]
The support is great. In the times I need it, it's there. Within 15 minutes I get a response and usually in under an hour, a resolution. It's excellent in what they provide at an unmanaged rate, and the $3 tickets are great in my opinion for those quick issues that you just can't figure out. They even helped me with a bit of PHP help!
[[[ ACCOUNTING AND SALES ]]]
It's there any time I needed it. I got servers upgraded, downgraded, reclaimed, removed, created, OS reloaded, invoices adjusted, and it's there. They respond within 1 hour usually and it's great for a sales team. Personally it's awesome how they have excellent teams for support and sales! The reps are VERY nice and friendly too, and they offer some nice discounts .
[[[ OVERALL ]]]
I give SoftLayer a 10/10+. They are everything I expect from a provider (heck, they are better than most managed providers I've been with) and more. I urge you to try them out, they will try to fit your budget as good as you can do it.
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Mar 15, 2008
I'd first like to follow up with my end at GNAX. I ended up going down to them on the 31st to pick up my colo server and get my refund. All went generally well, except for the "I'll be back in 5 mins" that took more than 30 mins for some sales/billing guy to get me my stuff. Signed some papers, and my money was refunded in full. In the end, a happy ending with GNAX.
Now, while all that was ongoing, I moved over to a dedicated server at Softlayer quick as I could because I knew with 100% certainty that Jeff would have my service terminated when I posted the chat log of him threatening me - a controversial decision I still stand by for what it's worth.
First, lets talk about sales with Softlayer. My God - I have never seen anything like this. With GNAX, sales would consist of me sending a ticket and waiting days, or it getting closed randomly, then having to wait more and more. A 48-hour max setup time with GNAX ended up being 5+ days and still no setup. Softlayer. I was doing Live Chat with an agent who was extremely helpful. Too move the process along quicker, I asked if I could call and speak with him, and sure enough, he game me a toll free number and I spoke with him through the entire ordering process. Not only was he extremely knowlegeable and helpful, but he also pointed me to a special I was unaware of where I got double the RAM and a second hard drive for free. I ended up ordering a dual core Xeon setup, but I actually got setup with a quad Core Xeon X3220. No mistake they said, they were just out of what I ordered so they gave me a quad core for the price of a dual core. And all of this happened in less than 4 hours. Yep, that's right. I went from on the phone with sales to having my brand new quad core for the price of a dual core with twice the RAM and HDD for free in under four hours. I was actually shocked. After being with GNAX so long, I had no idea that anything even under a 24 hour wait was possible (which it wasn't with GNAX btw), and they didn't hold my order because of being short on inventory like GNAX did - they just gave me a free upgrade with no delay!
With GNAX, I have never been able to be in such control of my server as I am now with Softlayer. With GNAX, lets say, I wanted to change or add reverse DNS for an IP, I would have to send a ticket and wait hours and hours and hours for them to do it. With Softlayer, I login to the portal, and click click type, click and it's done and live. All by myself! Their portal is the most powerful thing I have ever seen and it allows me to do and see everything.
Their support, I'm convinced, is second to none. I once had three days of downtime with GNAX because of a hardware problem (their hardware) they just couldn't fix. The motherboard has gone bad and I had to wait three days for them to find another identical motherboard to replace mine with. Apparently, they don't like to keep hardware on hand in case of emergency. In the mean time, I was faced with a lot of pissed off people who couldn't access the server for three days while all GNAX did was "we're looking, we're trying". Three days downtime is unacceptable, GNAX's support is just horrible. Phone support is essentially non-existent. When, on occasion, people pick up the phone, I'm simply told to submit a ticket and they'll get to it - when it's convenient for them. Support with Softlayer is drastically different, I can call support and pick their brains on technical problems for as long as I need. Recently, something went wrong when I was moving IP addresses around with my servers, and I was able to submit a ticket, call them, and they resolved it while on the phone with me. Some other small issues cropped up, and I replied to the ticket as it was non-urgent, and they had it fixed it about 20 mins. THAT people, is how support. Again, after being with GNAX for so long and having to wait hours, and sometimes days for support, having things fixed on the phone with me or via ticket in under 15 mins really caught me off guard.
Sales - part two.
Incredibly impressed with the sales and support I have seen so far, I recently ordered a second server. Again, I did this over the phone and was given an amazing deal - one not even on their site! In the end, it'll save me about $60/month on my second server. Pretty decent I say.
Other stuff.
They have a forum! That's not what's cool in itself, but it's cool that its integrated into my portal account. Now, GNAX has a forum too, but you first have to email GNAX and ask for their blessing to sign up there.
Another nifty thing about Softlayer is their developer API. Their API enables tons of cool things, like I can see my uptime and bandwidth usage from within WHMCS. With GNAX, I would have to go find which one of my logins for their seemingly hundreds of disintegrated services. Having everything being in one place and under one login with Softlayer.
Basically, if you need a dedicated server provider, choose Softlayer. Leaving GNAX (well, being forced out) and moving to Softlayer is the best thing that has ever happened to me an my company.
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Oct 9, 2009
Alright, Ive been with them for a little over two months and I have been with them before. Their support is excellent, their servers' are excellent, their network is excellent, their portal is excellent, and not having to deal with Cogent directly is a joy.
I first singed on with them 11/9/08 till 12/29/08 everything went well I closed my account simply because I didn't need the server again.
My current server with them as of this post is $199.00/mth and I get the following
CPU : Xenon X3230 Quad Core @ 2.66 Ghz
Ram : 4GB
OS : Server Standard 2008 64 bit
1000 mbps 2 TB of bandwidth
Washington, DC Data Center
2x 250GB SATA II
174.37.243.170
Having a server with them has been nothing short of amazing zero downtime caused by them and most anything a managed host will do they will do for you free. I was having issues with routes and simply asked them and within ten minutes they had changed it according to what I would prefer. I have had a DoS attack before that was pushing 800 mbps of traffic and they sent me an email and I opened a ticket and they blocked the attackers' addresses at my switch. Very quickly and not much damage was done. Overall I'm very pleased and I would recommend them to anyone.
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Sep 24, 2008
About a month ago I purchased my first dedicated server from Softlayer. I was originally with BurstNET, but due to some network issues at their datacenter I decided that it was in my best interest to move to a more premium network. Keep in mind that this is a review of Softlayer. It has absolutely nothing to do with my opinions on BurstNET (I actually love BurstNET).
My Review
Before I purchased my dedicated server I spoke with a live chat representative. We went over many things, and I believe we chatted for close to thirty minutes. After making my decision, I ordered the dedicated server. After I ordered the server, the person on the live chat session told me that she would be calling my phone for an order verification. This went very smoothly, it was completed within minutes of ordering.
I believe I waited a few hours for my server to be deployed. I thought it was quite nice that I didn't have to wait a day for it to be ready. That is definitely a plus in my book. After the server was deployed, I explored the Softlayer control panel, which is incredibly useful. I'm glad that I don't have to save my server login details anymore.
Unfortunately, after having my server for nearly a week, I experienced about six hours of downtime. This downtime happened between the hours of 12:00AM and 6:00AM EST. I wasn't really bothered by it (yes, it's downtime, but I know it's not something that happens a lot with Softlayer). I contacted Softlayer about it, and later received 10-15% off my next payment (I'm not sure whether it was 10% or 15%, but it was one of those numbers). I'm honestly not sure what caused the downtime. I think it had something to do with a power failure, but don't quote me on that -- I didn't read up on the outage. Apparently it only affected the servers in the Dallas datacenter, Server Room 4.
Once my server went online I experienced another problem (this time it was my fault). I called the Softlayer support line, and luckily talked to a guy who fixed the problem. I know that Softlayer isn't managed, so this was definitely helpful.
Overall, I'll say that Softlayer has been truly amazing. I love their pricing, their support, and their network. They've got a long-term client.
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Aug 30, 2008
We have buy a dedicated server 6 month ago from Softlayer. Today they have disconnected our server without any warning.
Their reason:
This IP 75.126.165.*** appears to be hosting many fake bank and other fake websites. Due to the amount of abuse reports tied to this server and the overwhelming amount of fraudulent domains being hosted on this server, we have disconnected and will be reclaiming this server.
We don't know that this sites about fake bank & don't check this sites. We said to the softlayer that plz reconnect server till we terminate this fake sites. But they respond to us after 2 hours:
Quote:
Due to multiple AUP/TOS violations we are not able to reconnect this server. The decision is final and non-negotiable. This server will be reclaimed shortly.
& again we have update the ticket ( 4 hours ago ):
Quote:
I didn't know about those websites and you didn't warn us.
Will you provide us a backup please?
But they don't answer yet ( after 4 hours )!
First i want say that their support is very very bad. & second they don't allow disconnect our server without any warning. I want complaint from SL.
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Oct 29, 2008
Just wondered where a dual core P4 3.4 ghz would rank/compare with todays range of intel cpu's?
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Nov 25, 2008
I am setting up a new server and would like to find an alternative to Apache. I would like to find something that uses less RAM, as Apache can run up to 15 MB on my machine.
The three options I have selected include:
Lighhtpd
Nginx
LiteSpeed
I couldn't tell if Lighhtpd was RAM intensive but it was proprietary, so I don't think I'll use it.
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Jun 10, 2007
New VPS Performance Comparison mis now available in DomainTools. This report compares the performance of the top VPS Hosting providers by systematically testing actual accounts established with each provider.
web-hosting.domaintools.com/a/vps-hosting
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Apr 30, 2008
For APPROXIMATELY the same price range downtown host offers 5 GB Disk Space and 100 GB Bandwidth and unlimited domains, while medialayer offers only 500 MB space, 10GB Bandwidth and only 3 domains.
Question: Is downtownhost OVERSELLING(maybe it is doable) or is Medialayer providing much less VALUE for MONEY.
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Jul 5, 2008
What is the best software to use to make a page to compare hosting packages?
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Mar 10, 2009
I just finished selecting a shared PHP/mySQL host for our client sites (moving off of goDaddy - praise Jesus!)
As part of my due diligence, I decided to make an excel spreadsheet comparing different aspects of a few of the "top" candidates, including top 10 ratings, awards, specs, support, and price (as of 3/9/2009). Also, all hosts listed are Joomla and Magento compatible.
I spent 2 days making this matrix. It's the result of many google searches, many forum searches, many phone calls to tech support, many chat sessions with tech support and pre-sales support, and many searches here at WHT.
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Jul 18, 2008
I currently have active accounts with both VPSLand and KickAssVPS and I am trying to decide with account to keep and which to cancel.
I will provide a side by side comparison of both services.
I had planned on canceling VPSLand due to all the poor reviews, which is why I signed up an account with KickAssVPS but now I am not sure.
THE PLANS
----------------
VPSLand
Plan: Value
Price: $29/m
RAM: 768MB
HDD: 8GB
Xfer: 300GB
---------------
KickAssVPS
Plan: Entry
Price: $35/m
RAM: 960MB
HDD 10GB
Xfer: 100GB
---------------
Setup Time - From placing order to e-mail containing server details.
VPSLand: 34 minutes
KickAssVPS: 5 hours 26 minutes
Technical Details to follow
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Apr 4, 2008
Just wanted to post my experience with Cari.Net.
I was chatting with Drew online, he was very professional and helpful. We discussed my needs, the price and their network. Then I decided to give it a try. My server was delivered within half an hour. It was very fast in my estimation. A+ on the sales and delivery.
I will post my review later on down the road about the performance. But even now I get incredible speeds from my server.
A+ Cari.Net, keep up the good work.
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Jun 1, 2009
Kindly provide the Webhosting comparison between EasyCGI Hosting and WebFaction Hosting.
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May 2, 2009
which company in terms of reliability, support, and mostly network (as I see it, SL and FDC have similar networks) is the best? Price isn't a real issue here .
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Nov 5, 2008
ThePlanet / Softlayer
Does anyone know of any hosters that are reselling servers from The Planet or Softlayer (or anyone else is Texas that I've missed)
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Oct 25, 2009
If I have to choose between ThePlanet and SoftLayer for a dedicated server which will be used for Shared Hosting, which one should I choose?
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Mar 12, 2008
My clients in LA - those on AT&T and Time Warner in paticular - are having bad download speeds from my server with Softlayer. Anyone else having similar trouble? Clients who normally get 500-700kb/s down are getting < 50 kb/s down, even early in the morning when the total traffic on my 100mbps port is under 1.5mbps.
Basically, east coast is fine, and anyone with a T1 in LA is fine as well - it's just DSL and Cable modems in LA that are screwed up. In fact, one of our are clients is using Apple Remote Desktop to connect to a remote client with a T1; it's faster to through Time Warner, then VPN to Verizon, and then connect Softlayer and back again than to go directly from Time Warner to Softlayer, which is really weird.
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Aug 14, 2008
i want to know if softlayer will fit my needs?
1) i want to use svn
2) i will only host about 3 small-ish sites with images and maybe one cast-control.
has any used them and what is there up-time like.
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Jun 13, 2008
I was thinking of buying a new server from SoftLayer When this company called WebNX.com happened to catch my attention.
I did a search of WHT but could not find much about WebNX. I also went to their site (but not much info is published there like SLAs, support fee etc etc...
However, the custom quite they sent me sounds quite reasonable compared to softlayer.
Anyone who can share experience of hosting with webnx? or has more info webnx.com and can share their views will be nice.
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Apr 5, 2009
We push out a lot of data from our customers a month. So i was wondering which one is better? ThePlanet or Softlayer?
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Dec 7, 2008
HiVelocity VS. SoftLayer
Which one is better overall?
Uptime, support, pricing, etc.
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Sep 9, 2008
A Xeon Quad Core 2.4 Ghz, 4 GB Ram and 2x250 GB HDD, cpanel/Fantastico and 10 MBPS shared Port,
With softlayer current promotion, I get it for 224$
With Burst.net reseller - I get it for $180
So is paying $44 more and going with softlayer worth? or is Burst network as good as softlayer?
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Nov 13, 2008
For those who are still under the softlayer hacker abuse please note you will need to re-load your server. We got hit a 2nd time after thinking everything was clean. Anyhow, for those who got hit again, my team and another from WHT - forgot who made the original clean.php script...
anyhow, here is a tool to clean all the data for all of your users:Copy fixit.pl and clean4.php to a directory. IE: /home/yourusername
Change username "changeme" in fixit.pl to the username where clean4.php is located
execute fixit.pl: IE: perl fixit.pl. If you want to test this on one user uncomment the die statement. When you are ready to do the entire server comment the die statement.
fixit.pl (perl script) Author: Robert Saylor
#!/usr/bin/perl$config{'basepath'} .....
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Mar 13, 2008
In general, which of those is the best in hardware and bandiwdth, and in support?
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Mar 24, 2009
We have being Softlayer for few month now since around 09/04/2008.
We got the server at first for high bandwith client until he could get is server upgrade completed as he colo's is server elsewhere need a temp solution we no longer host is site but still kept server for other clients after all SL did for us we would never think of leaving.
We deployed site and then we ran into problems server seemed become unresponsive after a few hours.
We explained this to SL and did chasis swap and got us back online but problem remained and did not charge for os reload or chasis and even upgrade connection to make sure we not bottlenecks stoping from serving content.
After they started looking apache and using information for original server config had at other datacenter and found solutions that solved issues.
Billing dept and support dept as being of great assistance when needed them.
Overall we very pleased with SL and would not look elsewhere for quality provider and pricing for what we are getting is very reasonable.
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Apr 26, 2009
What are your overall comparisons -- HiVelocity vs. Softlayer.
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Oct 7, 2009
I thinking to buy new servers and now I checking offers on softlayer and dedicatedNow and look like prices on softlayer are higher and also dedicatedNow offer is for managed servers...
In this moment I have few servers with softlayer and all working fine but price...I don`t know nothing about DedicatedNow...what you think SL vs DN?
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May 30, 2009
if someone who has used both the providers could help me decide between the two.
I need an unmanaged server and location for both is fine for me.
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Jul 13, 2008
As those who read my previous thread (or helped me on it -- thank you!) know, I've been looking at upgrading to a new server at the Planet. I've been very happy with the service at the Planet. I ended up with a quote on a Xeon 3040/2 GB of RAM/2x 250 GB hard disks/RHEL 5/10 usable IPs/cPanel+Fantastico and the Planet's standard "built in support" monitoring, escalation procedure, automated OS updates, etc. for $174/month and no setup.
That sounds decent enough, but I keep reading this forum and seeing good things about SoftLayer over and above the Planet. Should I consider moving? Anyone care to say what is better about SoftLayer? Anyone know of any cons to moving? I was inclined not to really shop around since the Planet has been good, but I don't want to be foolish and I by the sounds of some of those reviewing them, it sounds like SoftLayer's support is worth switching for.
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