Hi, I know how important is to have a reliable web host, especially when you have customers who are ... let's say hard to be pleased. I run SEO services company based in Eastern Europe and work mostly with customers from Spain and UK. Most of them want me to find a web host, web designer for them and to develop their web sites. Sometime from the scratch line, sometimes to work on site with tens thousands of visitors.
I would like to express my appreciation to my web host - HC Servers. I think this is very professional and competitive managed hosting company. I have 1 Core 2 Duo based machine and 2 Xeon based managed servers with them hosted in Amsterdam, all three used by UK property development companies, clients of mine. My clients are very satisfied of the customer support provided by the web host. Me too.
I don't need very special level of customization, besides CentOS Linux, Mail server, PHP, MySQL and some social software on the servers. Anyway... I received proper server managemenr any time I need it.
There is no perfect hosting company, so I can add one thing that HC Servers need to improve. Some times it takes up to 48 hour to have the server online for some configurations. I presume that they don't have anything in stock and probably need to buy some parts. But this is reasonable for me, ezpecially for the price I pay. I know there are many good hosts here at WHT. Well I'll add next on the line - HC Servers.
I figured I'd put up a review for a great company I'm dealing with.
I decided to offload some servers to a management team and found WaveWeb.com Their servers pricing are great for the service they provide.
I requested a WHMCS/CPanel setup, which was completed immediately. I have had issues with clients and specific requests which are performed 24/7 around the clock by a crew of technicians.
They also explain the fixes to me, and warn me of specific issues to prevent vulnerabilities etc.
So far I have found them great and are steadily improving.
I definitely look forward to dealing with them in the future.
My server with them is:
64.191.44.213 or pctechcrew.com for a test domain to show the authenticity of my review as is usually requested. I run a webhosting company however, didn't want to disclose the domain and break forum rules.
This is my first review here on WHT, but this company deserves a review. I started out with TMS (Tailored Servers) sometime in February of 2008. I was testing servers from several different providers looking for just the right one when I spoke to Jose for some pre-sales questions. Jose was very helpful right from the start, answering all my questions via live chat on MSN. After our discussion I decided to give him a shot. The server was set up and ready to go within 2 hours after my payment. Great first impression without a doubt!
Let's talk hardware and support. I have for the most part purchased budget servers from TMS, although his higher end machines are in my future. I had a hard drive that went bad in one box, sent in the support ticket and quickly received a response that they would change the drive out for me immediately.
Not only that, but they upgraded my 80GB hard drive with a 160GB Hard drive.
They had to reinstall my OS as well, all of which was done within an hour after my ticket, and my server was back on line! I had backups of my data and got it all transferred and ready to go shortly after. I think my only other trouble ticket was that I needed a reinstall most likely due to personal error. Again, my server was back on line within just a an hour or so. They have always been quick to respond to tickets and attend to any issues.
I started a Gaming Group on line and used TMS to host my dedicated box for the servers. We never had a single latency issue or any downtime to our servers, well other than when I rebooted I was so happy with TMS that I asked him if we could link our website to him to show him some support. Jose even went so far as to check out our website design and create an image for us that matched our website theme. That's taking the extra step, of course I could have done it myself, but the offer to do so was a bonus.
The network at TMS is also top notch. They have fantastic up link providers and I have yet to have one single network issue. The speeds are always great. They also have MRTG graphs, remote server reboots, and reverse DNS for your IP's in their control panel for easy access.
To sum it up, Tailored Servers is a fantastic dedicated server provider that goes above my standards. With a reliable network, quick support, and good hardware, they are a very capable of handling your server needs. I have had up to 4 servers with them, and just those 2 tickets in almost 6 months is pretty impressive. I'd give TMS two thumbs up and recommend them to anyone needing dedicated hosting in Dallas.
Thanks to Jose and the team at TMS for their great service and support!
I am going to tell you about my experience with netrack servers
Well about a year ago I had a managed vps from netrack servers. Setup time was about 4 hours which was good. They called me to verify the order first and i said ok and then later it got setup. When i first logged in it it was slow and the download speeds were about 30 kb/sec. it was about 12AM so i was thinking there was some work going on. Later i then submit a ticking asking how to setup dns. They said you need to redirect not point your domain to your ip. Well if i need to do this then why did they say in the welcome email point your domain to these nameservers. The speed did not get better it got worse. So then i asked why it was so slow and they said oh you need more ram. It was a hassle to try to get a refund they they kept saying no. I did end up getting it eventually. so whatever you do do not use them. You get what you pay for. What was interesting is the second i canceled they removed my account in the support place. Hum they running low on diskspace? I did get a refund like i said but don't use them. Are they even listed in the BBB? Use a more reputable host.
I have been with Dimension Servers for I don't even know how long, definitely over a year by now. And why? Because I have never, ever had a single problem with this amazing host. Anything i need help with, the support is almost instantaneous and all problems cease to exist.
This host has pretty much taken me through the best online voyage possible. From a blackmailing incident the host protected me in, to major site transfers, I felt safe, secure, and comfortable at all times.
There was no downtime as far as i could tell, and even if there was it was back up in no time, so fast that it didnt even draw my attention.
The value is great. The guy doesnt oversell, and when I had a recent incident in which i overused bandwidth by quite a bit, he did not shut down my account like most hosts would. He contacted me and we figured something out.
I feel as though the internet is becoming filled more and more rapidly with Walmart type hosts; the companies grow so big that they don't care about a single client. They have thousands more, what will one ignored complaint do? This is not the case with Dimension Servers. It reminds me of a friendly local market in which everything is attainable with superior quality, and at the same time everybody knows each other and is willing to help out.
It is this friendly host environment/attitude coupled with superior service and quality that puts Dimension servers on the top of my list, and that is where the host will remain. I am very happy with my hosting and i strongly recommend this host to anybody from a internet beginner to an experience web enthusiast.
I am now with Rackspace's new cloud servers. I understand that they are still under a "beta testing" but I decided to give it a go.
Over all I like it. There are however some annoying parts which I will list first.
1. DNS manager issues... I have many DNS records for my domain and it seems that the DNS manager isn't so forgiving. It gives you the ability (or you think so) to delete an individual record however I have never been able to do that. It would always return with an error which is quite annoying. So I moved my DNS servers to another location and have been happy since.
2. Chat support is too much like dell tech support. The first person you get doesn't really know what he is talking about (I have been talking with them a few times about the above mentioned DNS issues and they confirmed multiple bugs within the system but this was at level 2 support and it was quite annoying having to explain the problem to everyone that I spoke too) What I ended up doing is going with Slicehosts chat room where I always found a very helpful hand (they are the same company so it's not stealing). They helped me with many of my issues.
3. The documents/wiki is very hard to find. If I didn't get a link to it from a tech support guy then I wouldn't of known it was there. All it is, is a wiki formatted silcehosts article repo. But it is quite helpful. My tip is to make it more visible.
Overall I am happy with the speed and stability of the server. So thanks Slicehost/Rackspace for your service.
I've had a Ubiquity dedicated server for 3 months now. I wasn't going to post a review for a couple more months but felt compelled to do so after reading another thread entitled "Ubiquity Servers Stay Away".
I experienced a similar situation to what the member (who posted the Stay Away thread) experienced with my initial server configuration. My server config was supposed to consist of an E6600, 2 GB RAM, and 250 GB HD. The server I was provisioned with had 1 GB RAM and a 160 GB HD. And like the member I had already invested quite a few hours configuring my server before noticing the problem. But this is where our similarities end. Because Ubiquity's support staff did almost everything possible to fix these problems and accommodate me. I was able to contact their support staff immediately via their Live Chat. When I told them that I had already spent valuable time configuring my server, they installed a 250 GB HD in addition to my existing 160 GB drive so that my configurations on the server would be preserved. When I found out that they did not have any compatible RAM in stock to add to my server, I insisted that I needed it within 2 days (I had a deadline to get the server configured for Xen and the RAM was crucial). Not only did they order the RAM with next day shipping, one of their support staff members (who lives 4 hours from Chicago) guaranteed me that if the RAM did not arrive in time, he would purchase it himself, drive to the DC, and install it. Luckily for him, the RAM came in time, because I was ready to hold him to his word. Lastly, they adjusted my billing cycle so that I was not charged for any of the days in which my server specs were incorrect.
I want to add that I actually expect all these things from someone I do business with. If they make a mistake, they should correct it and make it up to their customers. What really stood out about this experience was Ubiquity's honesty, willingness to admit their mistakes, and accommodate my requests.
The other thing I noticed throughout this experience is that Ubiquity's core staff is not located in Chicago (I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure). The only times I experienced support delays was when Ubiquity's support staff had to page/contact their hardware person at the DC and wait for that person to do the work. Yes, I said "person", as in " uno", "one". At one point, there was a 2 hour delay because that person wasn't reachable. To be fair, this was after hours on a weekend, so they may have more people available during business hours. More importantly, to me at least, is that they were again honest about the situation, and they were able to deliver what they promised in the end.
I haven't needed to contact Ubiquity for anything else since that time. My server is running as it should be, and their network has never been down.
I read a lot of bad reviews about that companys, but all of that reviews are of shared hosting and vps. I want see a review of someone who buy a dedicated server from they.
Over the last 5ish years we have had servers with ServerBeach, The Planet, Layeredtech, and now VolumeDrive. Over the years each has had its share of ups and downs but now almost all of our servers are with VD. First before I start let me say this, Josh and Jeff are two of the best guys that I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. Each of them know when they get out here I owe them a beer and steak dinner on the strip.
Ordering. 7/10
This is one area that sometimes is a little out there, there website does not work at all for ordering or at least not when I tried last. However ordering is simple, send an email to info and say order this. Get back an email saying OK. Pretty simple. The only problem is pricing, sometimes it takes Josh a few days to get a price for the server, or a bill just shows up and I am like, ok well cool.
Server Pricing. 10/10
This has to be one area where VolumeDrive shines. The prices they offer are almost unbelievable but hey it is there business model not mine. I can vouch anytime anyplace that these servers are 10Mbit unmetered servers. I have had 5 download servers, currently 3 that almost run 10Mbit 24/7. Each servers avg monthly bandwidth usage is around 2500 GB’s +-300ish GB’s and I have never once gotten a bill or even a letter of “dude your sucking down all the bandwidth” nothing; and even better yet I get these download boxes for all of $50/month. I won’t even hint at the great prices I have for Dual processors Quad Core Xeons with 8GB’s RAID1 10k Drives with cPanel.
Old Network. 8/10
First off we all know about the XO/BurstNet turn on that well didn’t so I am not going to beat that horse anymore. The old network was to me “ok” nothing special, and nothing really bad either. I will say that there is less of a “snappiness” in server responses it always seemed to take an extra second for the pages to load or more so the server to respond to a request. At one time I had all 5 download servers on the old network and they all were pulling the bandwidth like it was water, and are shared servers were humming along. I was always able to pull 10Mbit when needed.
New Network. 8/10
The new network to me I have not seen that much difference in performance. I have 2 download servers on the new network and oddly enough the bandwidth usage has decreased and instead a solid green graph via mrtg, I have spikes and dips all over the place. The shared servers on the new network do see to answer faster, and feel much more zippy or snappy. Still able to get all the bandwidth and speeds they offer so no complaint there.
Support. 9/10
I personally don’t think Josh or Jeff sleep, have wives/girlfriends/kids/lives. J They must live and breathe at their DC’s as no matter when I send an support email in, it gets answered in like 5 – 15 minutes even at 11 my time PST and there in EST. I feel that for an unmanaged server provider these guys are amazing, I have asked them to do things that I even offer to pay them, and they do for free. I have had to have 2 servers reloaded, and both times the servers were offline in 15 minutes, the current hard drives, slaved and a new drive placed in the box. Allowing me to move anything and everything from the old hard drive. Now I have to put out a few negative items as well. Sometimes they just don’t know and we kick ideas back and forth, which is not a problem at all but it does show that they are humans and we can’t expect perfection. J I also have an open support ticket with then about inbound speeds for a week that is unresolved, but continued updates, so can’t yell about it at all. Reboots I almost forgot take anywhere between 2 – 15 minutes and the boxes are back online.
Server Delivery. 4/10
This is the one area of VolumeDrive that really needs worked on, and worked on badly. Of the 13 servers I have had 10 currently; I don’t think any of them have been online in less than 72 hours. My servers have been online from 4 – 14 days. If you need a server now, I am sorry Josh and Jeff, VolumeDrive is not the company you need. However email them first as I do know that they get shipments in all the time. Now another problem that I have had is they don’t always get the servers right. Twice now I have ordered boxes that have been delivered without cPanel installed. Minor oversight that I did not freak out and scream, but annoying nonetheless, my last box was well just off by a lot, enough that I did send a not so polite note demanding it is fixed. To which I will admit Jeff had it corrected/upgrade/formatted in about 20 minutes. Now to their defense I have 2 Dual Processor Quad Core Xeons with 8GB and RAID 1, which were online in about a week and setup perfectly. So my two most complex setups were perfect, but some of my basic boxes borked... Go figure.
Server Upgrades. 7/10
I have had a few servers upgrade with new parts, this process is pretty painless I send off an email saying I need such and such for server so and so, and its ordered no questions. That is where the lack of pain stops; from then on it is for us a bit of pain, as several times now I have had to check after a week of no upgrade if the parts were ordered. Then reschedule upgrade times with our customers, this is to say the least an embarrassment a few times as we are left with cake on our faces. Now a huge plus there upgrades are very inexpensive and I have yet to be charged for the upgrade itself.
Billing. 8/10
This two is an area that I personally think needs worked on as they only except PayPal which is not bad, but most of us have our credit/debt cards for a reason. Now a huge plus for at least us, is that every server that has been order is just that; ordered, setup, and online, then a bill is sent. I have never had to prepay for a server, ever. Same with all the upgrades. Now I know that Josh strives for customer service and support first, but sometimes are bills are behind, at least before the PayPal subscripts get setup. Last week I paid out about $600 in past bills because things were behind. Which is not a problem, but from a books point of view in two weeks the bills are coming out again. Again another point where VolumeDrive shines is during this billing mix up which some of it was our fault I am sure, I asked that someone call me because at $50 for some of these servers $600 is a few odd bills, to discuss this. No less than 3 minutes after that email was sent my phone rang, and it was Josh ready with details to go over everything, and after the phone call I received a detailed email of the conversation.
Overall. 7.6/10
Overall I am very happy with VolumeDrive, yes there has been some extended times on delivery that has made us look stupid but once online the services are strong and they just work. I can and will continue to use VolumeDrive for some time to come, the only reason we have another provider is for our higher bandwidth needs and dedicated 20 – 100 Mbit ports. Their prices are simply amazing, and once everything is online and working their service is awesome. Again I am a very happy customer and will continue to be a happy customer for the foreseeable future.
Well, this isn't so much of a review as me saying what's happened in the last week since I ordered a server from them.
November 29th- Ordered a server, expected 2-3 days till my server was up. It turned out to be 2-3 business days (M-F). This, I admit is my fault for not reading carefully. A few more days, I did not mind.
I also submitted a ticket requesting more information on delivery dates and they said that my server would be up in 1-2 days.
December 2nd- I submit a ticket (Tuesday) just checking that they still remember by server. It's fine, they give me information on how their process works and why it may take up to three days.
December 3rd- It's now been 3 days, so I submit a ticket. I get a reply saying that it will be up tomorrow.
December 4th- Still no server.
December 5th- Still no server.
So basically, now I'm just hoping that I will get this server within the next little while before all of my players (I'm using this to run a web based game) disappear from the 2 day downtime so far.
I figured id share in my experiences as a host and a client. For the last several months we have had a dedicated server with apthost as well as a VPS, I must say even as a host myself they are very good on their word and what they say they will do. I am not one to post about any host they are in the top of my list as far as Customer Service, Performance, Price as well..
Now i have heard good an bad about them but you know what only my experience can tell me what is tru and what my experience tells me about them is they got there stuff together.
And just like they said FFmpeg came on the dedicated box all setup with cPanel and ready to go eve Red5 as well.
It's a bit early for a meaninful review given I've only been with them just over a month so far, but I'll keep this updated at time goes by.
Network: 10/10 - Still early days obviously but so far zero downtime. All boxes are on a 100Mb port too which is a major plus, other providers tend to charge extra for that.
Support: ??/10 - I can't comment on their support as it's something I never used.
Ultimately though, given they are an unmanaged provider, support really should be limited to tracking down hardware issues etc.
Hardware: 10/10 - Spot on thus far, and very well priced too.
Sales: 10/10 - Ordered Saturday, box online Sunday (with an odd drive combo so some work must have gone into it too).
Other:-
Initially I was going to go with Softlayer, in fact I even filled in the order form a couple of times but got cold feet. Then browsing through WHT's offers section, I came across one of TMS's specials, quite frankly it was too hard to turn down. After a few searchs on WHT to confirm their reputation I ordered straight away. Don't be put off by the frankly awful looking website.
Once you are a customer, their client area has everything you need, including access to rDNS, you do not need to create a ticket & wait for a tech to do it, their system allows you do set it up.
and initially I never thought a 10Mbit port was a bottleneck for me, however I've since seen my peak bandwidth usage at 24Mbit. The free 100Mbit port is deffo a good thing.
i know i put up a review a few months back about Volumedrive but i thought id put up antoher since ive now been with them longer and got more servers with them.
firstly i have 3 servers with volumedrive at the moment (may be 2 shortly undecided yet if i need the third.)
one is a celeron with 1gb ram and 120gb hd running windows 2003 basicly all its doing is streaming media.
second ones a very special deal i managed to get for a amd athlon x2 4200+ with 120gb disk, 2gb ram and ffew other bits and peices, using that for my main website and couple of vpses
third is a new one ive only had about a month, its a amd athlon 64 3400+ 1gb ram runing plesk using it for hosting some of my clients sites (moved from managemyservices whoes support is totally useless and very very cocky/offensive in my opinion - i highly do not recommend them)
all in all baring a few minor netowrk hiccups (burst provide VDs network loop so their is soem small downtimes) ive had no major isues at all and josh and team have gone above and beyond multiple times to help out - my newest server they managed to get turned around and setup in under 48hours as i needed it urgently.
i highly recommend VD and also feel free to email them as they are always willing to try and cut a deal
I thought I would write a quick review of Corenetworks.net!
I've had a server at Core networks for about a year now, and have worked with support as well as billing.
Support Lets start off with the most important thing, support. I am not one to need hand-holding from support, but every once and a while I need things like IP-KVM access, hardware upgrades, hardware replacements, etc. I've put in four requests for IP-KVM access via their ticketing system since I started hosting there, and each request was fulfilled within 30 minutes. I have to admit that 30 minutes is impressive for a dedicated hosting company. It must be remembered that they are unmanaged hosting, and managed hosting services cost extra. I find this scenario fits most technical people well because more resources are put into *real* requests such as hardware, kvm, etc instead of resources being used for hand-holding (i lost my root password, my apache process is not starting, etc)
Hardware The price compared to the hardware you get is exceptional. A lot of hosting company's out there will push overused hardware on you. (some larger companies reuse hard drives over and over, check the smart drive lifetime with smartctl) The hard drive I was provided had a usage time of 3 months. That is VERY good compared to the average active drive life time at other hosting providers of 2-4 years. The hardware has been reliable and fault free (i have 2 machines now with no problems)
Uptime This is the greatest part, every other budge dedicated hosting provider i've been with has had horrible power (sometimes reboots every few days, and the occasional downtime of a few hours) I have not had a single power outage or reboot since I first started at core networks! One of my severs has an uptime of 355 Days.
Network The network is not blazing fast... with the package I got. I decided on the metered 3Mb connection (no extra cost) There is also an unmetered connection with a bandwidth limit, if anyone can chime in on this it would be great . I do know that I have always had a 3Mb full pipe on this plan (up and down) which is more then enough for my hosting purposes.
Features Core networks has all of the features of the big-boys: Remote power management, bandwidth mrtg graphs, network status page, Free IP-KVM, etc.
Cost The company does utilize it's cheaper servers as a bargaining tool for sales. It seems they unleash their $24/mo servers for a week or two to drive sales and then mark them as sold out. Currently I have the $49/mo servers (with a bit extra oomph) and I am ecstatic with the price. If you can catch the $24/mo servers, get them when you see'em!
Overall Overall I would recommend corenetworks.net to anyone who is seeking a quality server for personal use or small business use. I am not sure how the service would meet enterprise level businesses, but they do have more expensive plans and I see no reason those would suck.
I posted a review about Tailor Made Servers (TMS) back in December of 2008 however it was wiped out during the infamous "WHT Incident" but I see that it has returned, although in a very incomplete state. Here is a repost of the original review along with a few minor changes to celebrate our 2 year anniversary! (Changes made to original review will have a red font color.)
Technical Support [10/10]:
First things first, TMS are an un-managed provider so don't expect any hand holding if you run into some obscure software or operating system problems. That's not to say TMS wouldn't help you, I'm sure they would to some extent, but it should never be expected from an un-managed provider.
We have a total of 74 tickets recorded with TMS since April of 2007. Twelve of those tickets were high priority requests to either manually reboot a server or check the console. Three of those high priority tickets were false alarms, but the other seven tickets were all answered within a few minutes at the very most.
When I say the tickets were answered, I don't mean a canned reply of "We're looking into it!" then an hour later someone decides to start working on it and then another hour later it's finally resolved. If you submit a high priority ticket, it's given immediate attention and resolved as fast as humanly possible.
Manual reboots take on average 10 minutes, some have been performed in a couple of minutes while the longest we ever had to wait was about 15 minutes which is what they advertise. There have only been a couple of hardware issues, a failing NIC was recently replaced in under 15 minutes, a server died last month and a chassis swap was done in under 3 hours. Hard to find any faults here - the technical support & response times are very reassuring and above average when compared to a lot of other un-managed providers.
Network & Uptime [10/10]:
TMS are located in the prestigious Colo4Dallas facility and using an impressive blend of InterNAP, Level3, Time Warner and XO Communications for bandwidth providers. There are also InterNAP FCP devices in use to attempt to provide the most efficient routing possible and also work around any problems thanks to its intelligent routing capabilities. This differs from BGP in the sense that BGP will always provide the shortest path possible - not necessarily the best path.
The latency and throughput are what you would expect from a reasonably multi-homed provider in Texas. Typical response times to my location in Ontario, Canada are about 60ms while response times to the United Kingdom are around 110ms. Average response times to other parts of the US are nothing short of impressive, 25ms to Chicago, 35ms to Los Angeles, 20ms to Atlanta and 50ms to Seattle.
There was a network blip on March 31, 2009 that caused some instability due to an apparent network upgrade that went wrong. These things do happen, however I feel that communication could have been a bit better in terms of notifying clients in advance. Outside of that one issue the last significant outage was in May of 2007 when a faulty router module had to be replaced and the downtime was a little under 1 hour. TMS clearly has a solid network and should satisfy everyone from web hosting providers looking for maximum uptime to die hard gamers looking for the lowest latency possible.
Hardware Quality & Deployment [10/10]:
All of the newer servers are Dell so you know you're getting quality hardware. The hard drives are a mix of new and old, but they all work perfectly fine with no S.M.A.R.T errors detected using multiple short & long tests. Some people would prefer to always have brand new hard drives, but that's not very economical for a lot of providers and I'm totally OK with that.
Servers are deployed extremely fast during business hours. In most cases if you order a server in the morning, it'll be setup later that afternoon. I've never had to wait more than 6 hours for a server, but I tend to order in the morning so I can't comment on how fast deployments are later in the day or on weekends.
The best deals for TMS are listed under the Dedicated Hosting Offers forum and not on their website, so be sure to check them out. Ordering a server from TMS is completely hassle free and straight forward. You pick the server configuration, pay via PayPal or Credit Card and wait for deployment. There's no faxing or scanning of documents and what not for verification of orders - but I'm sure JoseQ does his own fraud screening.
Overall [9/10]
I can't say enough good things about Tailor Made Servers! The staff is very knowledgeable and genuinely shows that they care, the response times are nothing short of incredible and I can honestly say I sleep better at night knowing our servers are in good hands if something goes wrong.
It truly is a great feeling not always having to worry about network problems, or how long it's going to take to get a manual reboot done, or replace failing hardware if need be. TMS are on top of their game, definitely one of the most underrated and under mentioned providers on WHT!
Why did I rate TMS 9 out of 10 after this glowing review? Well, there's always room for improvement and I don't think it's realistic to rate any provider a 10 out of 10. So what can be improved? When I first posted this review last year, I mentioned that KVM access would be nice and I believe they have since been added - perhaps JoseQ can clarify on that. You know, I honestly can't think of anything major I would like to see improved at this point.
That's pretty much it; if you're looking for an unrivaled dedicated server provider definitely take a look at Tailor Made Servers! Their best deals are always under the Dedicated Hosting Offers forum so be sure to check that out or send TMS - JoseQ a message to see what they can do for you. You have my word, you will not be disappointed and the only regret you'll ever have with TMS is not signing up earlier.
Tailor Made Servers - TMS - 1 Year and 8 Month Review - Highly Recommended!
Here's my long overdue review for Tailor Made Servers [url] and I'd like to urge everyone looking for a high quality unmanaged provider to take a few minutes to read this. I'm terrible at writing long posts, so I apologize if this review is a bit all over the place - it's just so hard to contain my excitement!
Technical Support [10/10]: First things first, TMS are an unmanaged provider so don't expect any hand holding if you run into some obscure software or operating system problems. That's not to say TMS wouldn't help you, I'm sure they would to some extent, but it should never be expected from an unmanaged provider.
We have a total of 57 tickets recorded with TMS since April of 2007. Ten of those tickets were high priority requests to either manually reboot a server or check the console. Three of those high priority tickets were false alarms, but the other seven tickets were all answered within a few minutes at the very most.
When I say the tickets were answered, I don't mean a canned reply of "We're looking into it!" then an hour later someone decides to start working on it and then another hour later it's finally resolved. If you submit a high priority ticket, it's given immediate attention and resolved as fast as humanly possible.
Manual reboots take on average 10 minutes, some have been performed in a couple of minutes while the longest we ever had to wait was about 15 minutes which is what they advertise. There have only been a couple of hardware issues, a failing NIC was recently replaced in under 15 minutes, a server died last month and a chassis swap was done in under 3 hours. Hard to find any faults here - the technical support
I have a lot of questions here so if you can't answer them all I understand. even pointing me somewhere where I could get the answers would be appreciated; hardware sites focusing on server hardware, forums focusing on such, etc.
we plan to have three different types of servers:
- db server (self explanatory. mysql. for forums, mysql driven sites.)
- file server (lots of files around ~2-10MB, consistant 70mbps right now, but we want more room for upgrades. needs a LOT of storage room.)
- web server (lots of php files, but also static things like plain html, images, etc. also includes all misc services for the setup-- dns, etc.)
could I be given a rundown for which hardware each of the three should have? I don't need specifics, even just knowing that more ram is important here while cpu doesn't matter as much, or that the fastest disks available are a must, etc would all be valuable info for me. despite that, I certainly wouldn't mind specific hypothetical hardware configs.
for the database server I'm assuming the more ram the better. not entirely sure about the cpu? also not positive on disks...
for the fileserver, how much ram would be practical or useful? disk io will be an issue I'm because plenty of people will be pulling files at once so the disk needs to read from multiple places. scsi (and even raptors) are not an option as we need 750GB+ of space on a reasonable budget. more ram will take some load of of the disks, but how much is neccessary / reasonable?
for the web server I'm assuming cpu first, then ram, but it'll likely need less ram than the db server?
I'm more lost on the disks than anything. scsi on the fileserver is not an option under any circumstances due to $/GB. for the db & web server I'm willing to pay for scsi if the performance increase really does warrant the extra money, but I'd like to be convinced before shelling it out. if you have benchmarks geared at server hardware when it comes to disks I'd really appreciate it.
also, what's the best way to network these together when colocated? each one with a dual gigabit ethernet port and then the communications go to and from the router?
I was wondering if it is possible to cluster 2 web servers and 2 mysql servers with only one server working as load balancer.
I am planning to use LVS (ldirectord and heartbeat).
Let's say I have 3 IPs allocated to the load balancing server.
111.222.111.222 (Main IP) 111.222.111.223 (Web Load Balancing IP) 111.222.111.224 (MySQL Load Balancing IP) If a connection is made to .223 it would pass the request to one of the web nodes. If a connection is made to .224 it would pass the request to one of the MySQL nodes.
Is it possible to do this?
If not, can I run, for example, nginx on 223 IP address to provide forward proxy? (Then it would not be able to HA but the main point is to load balance so)
Also, what would be the best way to keep the data same on both web servers? This is a web cluster for a very high traffic forum with a lot of uploads every hour so it has to do real time synchronization. I heard that DRDB is only one way and not two way so I'm not going to be able to use this.
I am just colocating servers and managing them myself, and renting services off of them. In the future I would like to start offering dedicated servers as well. I am wondering if many companies do this, or if its more of a general practice to just setup as a reseller? The worst part that comes to mind is thinking of how to do billing for the bandwidth per month. With my setup I would only be offering flat bandwidth packages (like 2TB a month) but even so, I cant think of anyway to automate it so WHMCS knows if they went over, if so, how much, etc.
I've been hosting my personal sites with MonkeyWrench Hosting for around three years now (coming up in January I believe), and I figured I'd share my experiences with them!
I've gone through a few hosts in my time, and some of them have been pretty rough. After using paid hosts, a niche free host started up that I stayed with for around a year before they eventually closed down.
I switched to MonkeyWrench Hosting at that point as a place to host my sites and store my files, and I have to say that I've been impressed throughout the time I've been with them.
Uptime/speed: Fantastic! The sites have been perfectly reliable and speedy whenever I've gone to access them, and I haven't had any complaints from users. I did come across MySQL going down on one of the servers (I have two accounts for different purposes that are on seperate servers) in the past, but it was resolved quickly before I even needed to get help.
Support: I've used the support a few times, but not for anything critical since there's not been the need. However, everything that I have asked was answered promptly in a professional manner.
Pricing: Again, no complaints here. The pricing is pretty cheap, especially for the quality of service receieved. They aren't the cheapest on the Internet by any means, but you generally get what you pay for. I'm aware of what my realistic space/bandwidth needs are anyway, and I'd rather pick a host that clearly advertises what you'll receive over an 'unlimited' host.
All in all, MWH have been a fantastic choice and I couldn't have hoped for anything better.
So, thumbs up to Jonathan, and keep up the good work!
I'll report my domains for the moderators to check them out. =)
I've been very happy with Virpus since I joined. There was 1 issue that has plagued me since the beginning and that was that I was not receiving e-mails on my ISP e-mail, my main e-mail. Not to big of an issue except that I didn't get any news updates or know when my tickets were replied to, or even when I was past due on my bill. 3 tickets later and their solution was for me to use another e-mail address, which was kind of a pain for me since each of my e-mail addresses has a specific reason which only specific e-mail get sent there for organizational reasons.
First off I have to say the VPS I was using was top notch. It easily outperformed my LiquidWeb VPSs and quickly became my primary VPS instead of my backup like was intended. I took advantage of one of their specials a while back which was a 512MB RAM cPanel VPS for $19.50/month which is a steal since the cPanel license alone is $15/month!
So now to why this is probably my final review of this company. Communication is lacking greatly. It was good at first, but now it's non-existant.
Over the weekend all my sites went down and I had no idea why... because I never got the e-mail saying they were moving data centers (if it weren't for a small thread on WHT I would never have known). I also did not receive any updates on extending their ETA so yet again I had nothing to tell my clients. The only good thing was that I run a free hosting company (Host2x.com for reference) and I offer no uptime guarantee since it's a non-paid service.
Ok, so the sites are back online and everything is working nicely... well I recently hit the 70% mark on my disk space usage so time to start looking for an upgrade. I created a ticket on April 23rd asking if they would allow me to upgrade my plan to their biggest VPS plan and to my surprise I never got a reply. I would think that a billing ticket asking to upgrade to a plan that costs more without the transfer of the discount I'm receiving would be a welcome ticket for them to reply to, but I was incorrect in thinking this. So I ended up purchasing a dedicated server last night because I cannot wait to see if they will assist me with upgrading my account or not.
What seemed to be a good company quickly turned to nightmares. I purchased a couple domains. All went well. Then paypal emailed me saying they are high risk and wanted me to confirm I made the payment and service was given. So until I did the payment was held. They blame the held on me and threatened me to release it or they will cancel my account.
So they finally gave them the money and all was well. Well I did a stupid thing and decided to get a VPS from them, they have good deals so I thought, whats the worse that can happen. Well shortly after, I get a email saying because your payments are unreliable, we are waiting a week to setup your vps which is complete udder crap.
So I just said screw it and said give me a refund then and about 2 hours ago I try logging into my client center and my account is gone.
I am hoping one of them see this so we can get this worked out. In the mean time I opened disputes on all of the payments.
I just want to take the time and review Hivelocity. Boy oh boy, where to start. I am just so pleased with the customer support they offer and I don't even own a single product with them.
I currently own a server with another comapny and I am always looking at other options for cheaper prices, better services and etc.
I found Hivelocity through WHT and I took the time to start up a live chat which was answered quickly from Kevin. Kevin was very nice and welcoming. I was asking about discounts they could provide and etc. Kevin showed me their reseller program which seemed to be something I may be interested in. After a 15-20 minute chat with Kevin, he offered to add me on MSN if I ever wanted to chat which I thought was pretty nice.
After I got off live chat with Kevin, I decided to keep researching Hivelocity. I immediately signed up on Twitter (I never had a Twitter Account). I saw they had some awesome deals. They were offering an awesome deal today it looks like this:
"The next person to go to our site, open a live chat and say "I just got your TWEET" gets a Core2Duo 3.0Ghz e8400 for $5 the first month."
By time I even got onto Twitter, I noticed that this was already taken. I kept browsing their Twitter and hey what do you know, another great deal it followed like this: "The 1st $5 Core2Duo sold in about 20 seconds so lets do it again. The next person to open a live chat saying "Give me a $5 Server" gets it."
I decided I was going to be late as the last one sold in 20 seconds. Well, it turned out it did get sold but, I got into a Live Chat with David from Hivelocity.
David informed me that the server was sold and I was a bit too late. What do you know, more great discounts! He offered me the same server for $5 on the first month. I decided not to take advantage of the offer as I wouldn't be able to put much use to the offer. I will be moving to Hivelocity within the next 1-3 months.
Overall I am very pleased with the great offers they provide and the support is just amazing!
Based on the sales support and the deals they provide, I did a bit of a rating on Hivelocity.
Sales Support:5/5 Deals:5/5 Overall:5/5
Also, if you decide your interested in Hivelocity's awesome offers, I would follow them on Twitter! They are constantly updating their Twitter and offering great deals. Their Twitter deals are 100% and it's pretty awesome a company like Hivelocity offers products and support so great!
I joined Limestonenetworks back in 2008 when it was a small company. At the time they offered the best price on the server I was looking for, so I took the plunge. The first 2 months were great, I enjoyed the stable network, and responses from the support team were fairly quick (1-2 hours response time). From there on it was all downhill, my servers were constantly down, and the support team took longer to answer my tickets. I didn't think this was a big problem, so I stayed with Limestonenetworks even though it was having problems with their network. Near December an incident occurred that really pushed me over the edge. My servers had been down for hours, so I opened a support ticket, and one of the agents replied and told me that the downtime was due to an upgrade in their network.
Again, I came to conclude that it could be far worst, so I stayed, one of the reasons was that I didn't want to switch my game servers over. It's important to keep in mind when you are running game servers, IPs play an important part because that's where you get your traffic. Near January the network upgrade at Limestonenetworks was still taking place which caused my bandwidth meter to stop working. This really scared me because I didn't want to get charged for overages due to the fact that my servers were receiving DDOS attacks, and I wouldn't know when to close the ports.
This incident actually turned out to be positive for me because even though I went over my bandwidth quota they didn't charge me for overages. I was very happy because this was like a late Christmas present, so now I was even more happy to give my money to Limestonenetworks. Now you might ask the question, how is this going downhill? Even though they didn't charge me for the overages, I still lost many clients who were angry at the fact that their game server were down.
In the end this network upgrade actually cost me 3 clients who were paying ~$60 per month. I let this slide because at this point I already had two servers with Limestonenetworks and I really didn't want to switch over due to the fact I would lose my IPs. The next month, February, was no different, I had more issues with Limestonenetworks. Starting of this month I was getting large DDOS attacks, which kept pushing my bandwidth over the quota, and I ended up paying close to $200 dollars just for bandwidth overages.
At this point they started to nickel and dime me for every single penny they could get of me. I don't know if they were having financial problems, or if it was due to another reason. Again in March I went over the quota, but at this time they told me that I had to pay per gigabyte which would result in a $500+ charge in bandwidth, and after talking with multiple agents, I was finally able to reach an agreement. They had changed a policy all of the sudden due to the fact that they knew I was a good customer and would keep paying for the overages.
The problem I had here was that I didn't mind upgrading to plan after I knew how much bandwidth was going to be used, since they don't offer any sort of DDOS protection, and game servers result in large DDOS attacks occasionally. I understand that Limestonenetworks was not at fault, but by making me pay per gigabyte was a bit harsh, since I had never been late on a payment, and had multiple servers. Try to remember that I stayed with this company even though I lost multiple clients because of their network outages, but they didn't care about this, all the care about is nickling and diming customers.
From that point on I have been living on the edge because I don't want to pay for an upgrade before hand due to the fact I don't know how much bandwidth my server will be using. Even if I upgrade to a different package it does not offer an insurance due to the fact that if I receieve a large DDOS than I orignally predicted, I would still end up paying per gigabyte.
This company has turned from having potential to just making their customers run away. Now the other problems I had with Limestonenetwork is the support they offer, which has been declining since I joined. The associates are very rude and don't really care about the customer's experience. I didn't include every problem I had with Limestonenetwork because it would make it a very long read.
Network - 10/10 Downtime - 5/10 Customer Service - 2/10 Overall Experience - 4/10 Would I recommend this company? NO, I urge everyone to stay away, unless they like to deal with problems on a daily basis.
Also from reading other topics on this forum, I personally believe that Limestonenetwork is overselling and their network can not handle the load.
I've got high end server from WholeSaleinternet.I've been with Wholesaleinternet for 4 months now and I am extremely happy with them.Got an awesome server for a cheap price, a Quad-Core Xeon 8 Processor (3.0GHZ), 32GB RAM, 100mbit port link. Support:
Sales support is slow but tech support is fast!
That you very much Aaron/Wholesaleinternet!, keep up the good work!
