CoreNetworks

As it can be a shot in the dark and leap of faith when it comes to hosting, though WHT does make it easier, I thought I'd post a comment on initial perceptions with CoreNetworks having taken a new server there.

First off, the prices on their servers are clearly very competitive, and even on their lowest priced discount range, the machines offer decent specs.

A disappointment is that they don't accept PayPal other than with a debit card that's not available in the UK, so exchange rates come into play that otherwise wouldn't need to if one could pay from a USD PayPal balance. But servers are cheap, so not really an issue overall.

The server was up within about 24 hours, but hard drive performance was really bad at < 30 MB/sec read, and < 3 MB/sec write! Clearly a fault of some kind, so a ticket was opened.

Within an hour there was an apologetic response with options to resolve. They checked the drive, swapped SATA cables, checked the BIOS, and at my request, switched Unix version too. There were a few ticket updates back and forth and the issue was finally resolved quickly.

There's a simple but adequate support panel with account details, and where a power cycle can be quickly and easily executed. A stated option not explored yet to trigger this remotely is very nice.

So overall a good deal so far, and a good support attitude that really helps when you've an issue that needs resolving.