I'm here to tell you my experience with steadcom.com shared hosting service. I have been them since 29 April 08 so thats not really 1 year but will be like in 2 weeks.
Speed - First I tell you the speed of my website, it's open fast (really fast for me actually)
Downtime - there is a couple of downtime and hardware/cpanel/diskspace error that make me can't use my website but not like every month and sometimes downtime is like 2-3 hours I can't open my website :/ and sometimes only when I open ticket they will check it and resolve my problem. Thats is not good enuf for me :/
Support - support is decent thats mean sometimes good (maybe when they online?) and sometimes is not. Sometimes support will answer my ticket after 2 -5 hours. :/ this guy Andrew neill is really a good support tech (very good I must say). I think he has work there since last year and other staff I know is Dimitri (CEO) and Grotman (sales?)
Price - This is the best part. They can be flexible If I use all my bandwidth they allow me to upgrade and when I don't need extra bandwidth they allow me to downgrade. Sometimes I pay $11 or $20 a/month depends on my bandwidth
So overall I rate them:
Speed: 10/10
Downtime/Other error: 2/10
Support: 7/10
Price: 10/10
The sad part is starting next month I need to find a new host because this host don't work for me anymore because third party problem, otherwise this host is superb and I will still be with them.
I've been with SteadCom hosting for over a year and have several VPS's with them. Their service/support as well as the intangibles have been nothing short of outstanding.
Here are a few highlights:
1) I had a dying server from another host. I contacted SteadCom late afternoon, and they had a VPS with my specs (not a canned plan) up a short time later. Then they proceeded to troubleshoot the dying server & kept it up long enough for them to move my accounts. They did not charge me for moving my accounts, or for assisting on keeping a dying server up to keep my current clients satisfied. OUTSTANDING.
2) Support is never far. I email, and typically I get a response in a few minutes. Their tech support is knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. I always feel like a valued client.
3) As I've shifted my business plan & needs, they have always been there to provide assistance and advice. Most recently I had a need for a small, fully managed server for just a few specific accounts. Again, they were equal to the task, outlining what they would provide, providing a quick setup, and again exceeding my expecations.
4) They have never been anything short of honest. If there is an issue, they will tell you exactly what the issue is, repair the issue, and get you up and running quickly. I've never had 'Gee, that is not our issue' from them. They just take ownership of the situation and do what is needed. As with any server, downtime cannot be avoided, only the length of the downtime can be controlled. My server has never been down for long, and when it has, they have absolutely been stellar about getting it back up, running normally, and letting me know exactly what the issue was.
With Steadcom, I really feel like I have a partner. With several VPS companies I've been with, I might as well have been on their payroll as much as I had work on the servers. Steadcom knows what FULLY MANAGED means, and typically exceeds my expectations.
3 months after my previous review, and I still have nothing but good things to say about SteadCom. Eclouds has been nothing less than helpful, even taking the time to help me with things that were not SteadCom's fault.
About a month ago I have upgraded from my VPS to a full dedicated server with SteadCom, so I will post a review about the dedicated server in a few months, however the experience so far with the new server has been great.
SteadCom is very kind, professional, and fast to respond. If you are looking for a great host with reasonable prices, look no further than Steadcom.
GENERAL: SteadCom was my first VPS host, so I really have no other company to compare them to.
However, the company so-far, seems decent.
RELIABILITY: Not going to lie, SteadCom has gone down a few times, for only having them one month.
Usually the outages were resolved within an hour's time, and it hasn't been that big of a deal. I understand that it can be hard to maintain a few hundred VPS's at a time, so I try to accept it.. But that's my only complaint so far.
STAFF/Response: This is the best factor. Response times have been amazing. I can submit a ticket, and usually get a response within 5 minutes. That is amazing. They keep me posted with the status of the ticket, etc. They even have a sense of humor
SETUP: SteadCom had me off the ground within 2 hours of creating the account.. That would have been shorter but I messed up twice, so I can't hold this against them.
ENDING: All-in-all, I am satisfied with SteadCom, and hopefully the few downtimes will decrease and not happen again... I would recommend them to anyone looking for a starter-VPS. The speed, both up and down, has been wonderful
This being my very first VPS server I'm very pleased with the service that Steadcom has provided me. I highly recommend this VPS provider to anyone that is looking for a VPS.
+Pros+ + Very completive prices and doesn't require long term contract to save 30% on their plans. + Have used several support tickets on an unmanaged account and have always received very quick responses averaging about 4 mins after submitting. + Very fast servers, at first I was looking for a VPS on the East Coast do to my location but after comparing Steadcom to other providers on the East Coast their plans being the most economical and the very fast even to NEW YORK/PA. + No surge added to control panel (DirectAdmin, CPanel) you pay the license fee that those panel charge.
-Neg- - I have not found any real negative issue with Steadcom, the only possible issue was a lost email with login details to HyperVM but this could have been an email filter issue and it was resolved in 4 mins with a support ticket.
Overview So far this VPS host has been top notch and I look forward to doing business with them into the long term future. If your looking into giving VPS a try or looking for a new VPS provider give Steadcom chance to show you their 5 star hosting & support. With pay as you go plans and no contract pricing while you still save a discounted price you can't go wrong with trying this provider for at least a month to see how they measure up to your current provider. Moving from shared hosting to VPS with steadcom has been a great move, only wish I did it sooner.
This is a quick review of the VPS provider SteadCom, www.Steadcom.com
I purchased a VPS from Steadcom (www.steadcom.com) about 2 weeks ago. I have there Beginner A | VPS plan which includes 256MB of RAM, burstable to 512MB. 10GB of disk space, and 300GB of bandwidth after a upgrade. The reason i purchased the VPS was to host a proxy. Anyways to start of the review. I ordered the server around 1AM eastern. I recieved root information in about 10-20minutes. After about an hour I received another email with my DirectAdmin information. Hosting my first proxy i was looking for suggestions on what script to use, PHProxy, CGI Proxy, Zelune, ect... I ended up speaking with the owner about which would be best for me. I decided to use Zelune, after I had uploaded the script I had a few errors on my site which the owner was more then happy to help me with. Overall I have had 0 downtime in the 2 weeks I have had the VPS.
No network hiccups, hardware issues, control panel problems, or anything so far.
Basically my stay with SteadCom has been flawless. Two thumbs up for SteadCom .
- Quick Summary Fast Installation Fast and Helpful Support Superb Network performance and stability Very competitive pricing
About one month ago, I was having some problems with my hosting company and was looking for another one on these forums and found a really good one at last.
This was SteadCom.com and I bought an Intermediate VPS plan, which offerd me 384MB standard and 768MB burstable RAM and performance was awesome.
Before them, I've used two well known and reliable companies but one of them tried to close my site and the other blamed my service provider, but with SteadCom we had a similar problem and it's now solved.
They may be a new company but they respect their customers.
I didn't have any downtimes since I've started to host my site on SteadCom and our connection to our site is very fast.
They've got a really helpful support.
As a result of these facts, I give 5 stars to this hosting company.
I've been with Steadcom for a few months now, and I greatly their services. Such great deals have been offered to me. Each time I talk with the staff, I seem to want to use their services longer. I'm currently working with my own free hosting company and I entrust my uptime and reliability to Steadcom. I've had no problems with either of those aspects and it seems like their network is as fast as Google. If you find a better deal than this, it would be a miracle. I am working on obtaining up to six months with them for my next payment. I would fully recommend Steadcom and their services. I give it all of my reputation and respect as a business owner to acknowledge such outstanding services.
I've been with SteadCom for about a year and a half.
Reliability - 5 - To me this is the most important. As with any VPS, there will be the occasional issue every few months or so. SteadCom handles it QUICKLY, typically WITHOUT my intervention, and keeps me up-to-date with accurate, HONEST reports. Gotta love that. My servers have not been down for more than a few minutes every few months. Can't beat that.
Customer Service - 5 - Quick & Knowledgeable customer service. This is a company that will go well out of it's way to assist. I always feel like I am a valued client when I deal with SteadCom. I've never gotten the 'robot copy/paste' emails, but I always get personalized replies. Love it!
Server Speed - 5 - Off all the VPS plans I have, they are the fastest. No questions. Pages pop quick & MYSQL is speedy. In my opinion, I cannot tell the difference between their VPS & my dedi's.
Peripheral Issues - 5+ - To me peripheral issues are the multitude of little things that make the difference between 'good' and 'GREAT'. Just a few things that I've liked....
A) When I needed a new server FAST, I had one up and running almost immediately after I gave the specs. They customized a server for me...mem, HDD, CPU, everything to what I thought I would need. They didn't throw me a canned plan....they took the few minutes to ensure I had what I needed.
B) They are always more than happy to LISTEN, and to SHARE. SteadCom actually went into a dying server from another company I used to do business with, troubleshot it & kept it alive long enough for STEADCOM to move my clients to the safety of another server. Find me another company that would do that.
C) They understand what 'Full Managed VPS' means. With some VPS companies I might as well have taken a part-time job with them as often as I was in the VPS. With SteadCom, when I've had issues, they typically tell me proactively, repair the issue, and let me know what it was. I can sleep at night...and I like to sleep...
I think that would about cover my experience with SteadCom. I don't want to bore you all with too many details, but lets just say that when I find something good I stick with it, and I believe I'll be sticking with SteadCom for a long time....(Sorry, just love that dancing bananna!)
I just thought I'd post a quick review of SteadCom. I've been with them for a month now and have two dedicated servers with them.
Pre-Sales - Despite bombarding them with questions they remained extremely helpful and patient.
Setup - Servers were online within a few hours - very impressive!
Support - To say the support I have received is exceptional would be an understatement. Dimitri, Andrew and Gabriel will assist you until you are 100% satisfied and then some.
The ticket response speed puts a lot of companies to shame. Most tickets are answered in a few minutes and by few yes I really do mean 2-5 minutes.
Conclusion - If you were thinking of signing up with them think no more and do it now! Look no further! You're not going to get much better than this.
I say all of the above having had experience with many server companies over the past few years.
I¡¦ve been with Steadcom for 2 months now and my experiences with them so far have been awesome.
Domain Hosted With Them:
There¡¦s not a lot in the blog since I¡¦ve been busy and it¡¦s new.
[url] [url]„³ Live VPS status.
My VPS Specs. I took advantage of their 50% OFF deal and this are my specs:
512 MB Guaranteed RAM 1024 MB Burstable RAM 20 GB Disk Space 700 GB of Premium Bandwidth HyperVM VPS PowerPanel 3 IP Addresses For $26.97 per month
Support
The Support is so FAST, is like if they are waiting for you to submit a support ticket. I submit a ticket, then I go to check my new emails and guess what, Steadcom already answered the ticket! 4 minutes after I submit the ticket, incredible! Also, their answers are very helpful. I am sure that Steadcom has a lot of clients to take care but I feel like I am their only client and I would like to give special thanks to Dimitri Despointes for all the help.
Uptime/Performance
This is what I get with the ¡§uptime¡¨ command via SSH.
The VPS has been up since the first day that I paid for it, 100% UPTIME. The speed of the VPS is very fast, the connection too, I have downloaded some big files (backup files) and the download speed is just very fast, the downloads are done in a couple of seconds.
If you are looking for a new VPS Provider, I recommend Steadcom. I am sure that you will have the same great or better experiences that I am having with them.
I would like to give a review of this company again, i have been with steadcom over 7 months now and this my second review of them.
So i figured i would let everyone know how Steadcom is.
Uptime:It has been excellent, only have in these months only two outages critical it got 99.9% uptime.
Speed: the server is fast, so fast it seems like a dedicated box sitting beside me. My ping time is only 100 ms from my country is really pretty good.
Performance: I only run two site with low traffic. I have never had any issues critical for the moment, only with a one software i have pretty high load but i think is for my CPU limit + optimizacion mysql and lighty on my end.
Billing: Pretty good for the most part, auto-charges my credit card for each month's payment so I don't have to deal much with billing. No complaints.
Support: Really good. No complaints. My last ticket was in december last year and for the moment i dont have any critical problem. Just a small problem,the CPU limit,no burst CPU time, they limit a litle much I think sometimes I got a high load.
Conclusion: They are very professional and have a nice setup for provisioning new clients and maintaining their systems. Notifications of scheduled maintenance are always sent out to affected clients, so there are no huge surprises. I would recommend them to anyone and for the money, it's a pretty good deal. I hope you or anyone else may consider them if looking for a VPS provider in the future.
I am pretty happy with the services from Steadcom. I would definitely recommend them to anyone who is looking for affordable, reliable VPS hosting. So if you are in need of a vps/dedicated, then these guys are the right people to pick.
Summary: Steadcom's customer service is consistently far above and beyond what I expect in their price range. They were very flexible in customizing a hosting plan to my exact specs. VPS server performance has always been very good. But above all else, their customer service is absolutely spectacular -- they really treat their customers well, and to me, that is the single most important aspect in choosing a host. I get enterprise-grade white-glove treatment on what is by all means a low-revenue plan.
The full review:
About seven months ago I started shopping around for a VPS provider to handle the growing traffic from my Wordpress sites and allow room for several new projects I was launching. After trying several other VPS providers, I found a promo in the VPS Hosting Offers forum and gave Steadcom a shot.
Billing: Right off the bat, Steadcom was willing to customize a package (and a promo) to my exact needs. It wouldn't be proper to quote my exact package here, as Steadcom has since completely revamped their packages. But I will say that they were very accommodating to my needs, including the multiple changes I made after the fact. My billing is always correctly invoiced and hassle-free. Frankly, I wish my wireless provider would take note.
Performance: I run two medium-traffic Wordpress installations, a light-traffic SMF forum, and two light-traffic DokuWiki wikis. I have never had any issues (SMF did slow to a crawl for two days, but that was due to a configuration error on my part). My sites are peppy and responsive.
Uptime: When I first signed up there were apparently some issues with my node (though I never personally experienced any trouble), resulting in a last-minute notice of "5-15 minutes of planned downtime". This downtime occurred during off-peak time. Ordinarily I might balk at such short notice; however, if a node is in need of physical maintenance, I would rather my provider pull it down for 15 minutes with short notice than let it go on unreliably for a few more days.
More recently, Steadcom (along with some other big-name hosts) was affected by a power incident at their reputable upstream provider. As a result, my sites were knocked out for several hours. For being knocked offline by extraordinary circumstances beyond their control, Steadcom automatically issued me a credit. That tells me a lot about how they view their customers.
Customer Service: Put simply, I'm treated as if I'm their only customer. The guys at Steadcom have, since my first day dealing with them, absolutely rushed to take care of whatever issue I have raised, no matter how small. They took the time to answer all of my pre-sale questions thoroughly. They helped me out with a minor DNS hiccup at GoDaddy. When they noticed me rebuilding my OS several times (no reason, just experimenting), they emailed me to ask if there was anything they could help me with.
When I wanted to change my plan (multiple times, in fact), it was done without any hassle. Every ticket I submit gets turned around very quickly. I am reasonably certain that Dimitri and Gabe sit around the NOC 24 hours a day just waiting for tickets to come in.
As much fun as it is to rave about how great their customer service is, the real-world implication is that these are the guys that I want in my corner when something goes wrong. Good customer service is the difference between "OMG my sites are down and nobody's doing anything about it" and "My sites are down, but I know my provider is rushing to get them back up". Anybody who has ever had a hosting provider for any length of time knows that 100% uptime is impossible, and that even the best host in the best facility can still get knocked down by DDOS, extreme weather, sabotage, or what have you. Knowing that your host is staffed by competent individuals who actually care about their customers makes all the difference.
Overall: Steadcom has been great. Although I frequently enjoy complaining about whatever vendor has managed to annoy me with subpar service this week, I'm hard-pressed to find anything bad to say about these guys. I heartily recommend them.
I have been with steadom for a month and can give a quick review.
I purchased a Enterprise A plan and got a great deal on a promotion they had - Under $50.00 USD per month.
Support has been very good. Friendly, helpful and they definately know what they are doing. Ticket responses are very good. I did submit one ticket just after midnight (pst) and a tech responded and fixed the issue.
According to hyperspin reports, my vps has had 100% uptime for the past 30 days.
Ping times are very good from west coast Canada. Generally between 65-85ms. I know this is not THAT important, but my customers think so - and if they are happy, that makes me happy.
I have had no issues or concerns with Steadcom, and would definately recommend them.
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. =)
This is a brief review of my experience with VT6 over the last year.
I have little to say, because it's "just worked". I've had to call upon their helpdesk twice in the last year. In both cases the response was timely and the matter resolved in a reasonable timeframe, both were matters beyond their control.
This is my first and last review of these guys. When I first colocated my server with them, they were still known as iHosting. The price was good, the support was excellent, and it was a friendly little place. I never experienced any down time to speak of, and when I needed something changed (like a reverse DNS entry), they took care of it almost straight away.
Of course, then a big mean company bought them. In(forbusiness).(nl|be). From day one I knew things could only go downhill from there on, and I was right. Every time they touched my server in the datacentre, it went offline. Even when they didn't have any business with my particular server. On three occasions they unplugged the power cable *WITHOUT PRIOR NOTIFICATION* so I couldn't do a clean shut down which resulted in a raid array rebuild. That in itself would almost be acceptable, but each time they didn't plug it back in properly.
Then on another three occasions they've messed up my connectivity by not handling the NIC with care. It's a sensitive little thing, and even though I've pointed it out to them time and time again, they keep messing up. Usually they've been kind enough to fix these problems, which they caused relatively quickly. However, it's happened again, and this time they're refusing to fix it for free. Needless to say, I'm not paying for something they broke, and I'm cancelling my account with them ASAP. They'd better not make a fuss about giving me back my server, or I won't be a happy camper.
As if unannounced shutdowns and unplugged cables aren't bad enough, I've also been paying for an APC connection/account for almost two years now. I still haven't received any actual login data that would in fact allow me to do a remote reboot. It's not like I haven't asked them .. I asked them at least every time the server went down, and about every other month as well. Each time my mail was either ignored, or I got some vague reply.
Oh, and about this latest downtime .. they told me they'd be rearranging things in the rack today. I asked them, yet again, to be careful with my server so it wouldn't go down for like a week again. That mail was nicely ignored. After almost a day of downtime, I told them I would be cancelling my account and that they'd better get my server back up ASAP. Their only reply was that that would cost me. After they guaranteed me there would be no more than 5 minutes of downtime while rearranging the rack. Right.
The hosting world has changed a good bit in those years I've been with them. I can now get a reseller account that gives me just as much freedom for less money with more support. And face it, support is what it's all about -- and theirs blows.
I wouldn't recommend this host to anyone, not even if they paid me. Not even if they were the last host on the planet. Never again.
I have had several accounts with Powweb for 5 years now and I thought I would write a brief review of them:
BEFORE
I originally went with Powweb 5 years ago based off of a referral from a friend. At the time, the “shared hosting environment” isn’t quite what it is today. For the first several years, I experienced trouble free hosting (for the most part) and truly felt as though I was “getting what I paid for.”
Powweb, back then, was a privately owned company based out of California ( I believe) and I usually got the impression that most of their employees truly cared about their customers and the quality of service they provided. What made them semi-unique at the time, was that they offered only a “one plan solution” (they didn’t offer multiple plan types) and the simplicity of their business model worked well for most.
Powweb was also unique in that they offered community forums which were pretty “open” and it truly allowed customers to discuss problems and issues with one another. A few years ago, they transitioned from private dedicated servers to a clustered environment and that did bring along some hard time, but they got it under control eventually. Overall, I was satisfied with the service.
NOW
A year or so ago Powweb was bought-out by Endurance. If you do not know anything about Endurance, they are a very large web-hosting company which has acquired several other large shared-hosts over the past few years.
Once Powweb was purchased by Endurance, the quality in service immediately decreased. Part of what Endurance does with most of their acquisitions is to assimilate them into their fold. This was a very shaky process and nearly everyone experience a large amount of downtime.
Additionally, Powweb is now plagued by horrible MySQL issues where the service is nearly completely useless. For the past year, Powweb has been either unable or unwilling to fix these issues. It can often take several minutes for even the most basic of queries to run. Any dynamic type of an application: forums, blogs, CMS, are usually rendered completely useless.
To make matters worse, Powweb continues to aggressively advertise these resource heavy applications and then ask for patience as they attempt to get their issues fixed. It has been about a year now, and still it is not resolved. Much of these issues come from the extreme overselling that Powweb does. Nearly every day, all websites (even static ones) come to a complete crawl.
Calling customer support is also a waste of your time. 95% of the time, you are met by a rude person who simply tells you “well, it seems to work for me” or that “we are aware of the problem” (at best). Opening support tickets is also usually not helpful. Tickets are often closed without any contact with the customer and it is very common for them to “give you the run-around.”
I have been told by support several times to keep an eye on the forums for updates on issues and whatnot. Then, if you go to the forums and attempt to get any information from there, you are told that ‘these are only user-helping user forums’ and that you can’t get any official help there, though customer support told you to go to that very place. Additionally, Powweb’s staff practices extreme censorship of the forum and it is common for negative remarks to be removed or posts completely deleted, many times without any acknowledgement of the act.
In addition to the MySQL issues, Powweb also experiences frequent “lock-ups,” CGI issues, email issues, dns issues, and so on and so forth. The list of problems that has occurred over the past year is literally too long to remember.
In conclusion, the Powweb of new is nothing like the Powweb of old. This new Powweb is controlled by an over-selling giant (Endurance) that is only concerned with the number of accounts as apposed to the quality of service. While certainly any business related site should not be in such an environment at all, I would even suggest that people looking for a host for hobby related purposes stay clear of powweb – it’s that bad.
One year has gone by since we bought our hosting plan at HostMySite (HMS) and I thought I'd post another review. You can read my previous review here (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=659594)
The Short Of It We have 2 IIS Coldfusion VPS (CF VPS+ plan). The first one we had was originally just a CF VPS (for developing) but we later changed it over to a CF VPS+ (more ram, more space, etc). This VPS is 1 year and 1 month old. Our production VPS which currently hosts our website is a healthy 1 year old. The reliability has been great and we never had any speed or performance issues.
We are very happy at HMS. We have had very little issues with the our VPSes and those issues are usually resolved very quickly. Anytime we needed support, it was overall always quick and helpful. We recommend HMS to anyone who needs a Windows VPS.
Security and Friends The SSL certificate we purchased from our previous host expired so we bought a new one via HMS. At first the order we placed was apparently processed by them but wasn't sent to the issuer for processing. We didn't find out until we sent a ticket in wondering about the status. They immediately processed it for us. Except for the fact that they processed it for 1 year when we bought it for 3. So another ticket flew across the internet and flew back to us just as quickly resolving the problem.
They asked if they wanted them to install it and we emphatically said yes. They installed the certificate and we were set. Or so we thought. We began having issues with our merchant account not being able to verify our SSL certificate. They forgot to add in the intermediate certificate so that third party processors can see verify it's legitimacy. This was resolved very quickly (faster than we expected) and we have not had issues with it since.
The One Thing The only thing we'd like to mention was an incident that occurred several months ago. One day, out of the apparently gray clouds, for some reason our site could not be connected to. After shaking our fists futilely at the weather gods, we sat down and tried to figure out what was wrong. By doing the basic diagnostics to make sure it wasn't us or our ISP we cursed the Lunar Goddess and contacted HMS to see what was up. They fixed it but didn't tell us what the issue was. Apologies in the form of cup cakes to the Moon was issued.
The next day, the same problem occurred or at least we thought and was told it was the same problem. We could not access our site. This time we did both live chat and started a ticket (for documentation, last time we just called). In the live chat they stated it was an issue with the node and not specific to our VPS and they were working on it. They said it was the same issue as yesterday.
This is where it starts getting dicey.
They also responded via the ticket that the firewall was blocking the ports and not the same issue as yesterday. Now considering only one person has access to the VPS (via RDC) to make changes and he did not log in to make any changes to the firewall (why would we?) that explanation didn't even seem plausible. And the ports blocked (pretty much everything except FTP) didn't make any sense. We went back and forth, with me explaining that after several months of not touching the firewall after setup, why would we inexplicable block ourselves out? Why would we even touch the firewall? Also that it can't be a coincidence with the node issues yesterday and they had already stated it was the same issue.
After a bit of going back and forth, they finally came to the conclusion that the patch they applied to fix the node issue made changes to the firewall which caused the subsequent issue. While this explanation didn't exactly seem completely kosher, we weren't going waste more time asking for a better explanation.
Now given that the total "downtime" of both issues was about 5 hours we thought we'd see how much of a resistance they will put up for the uptime guarantee. The first issue we pretty much knew wasn't going to get any attention because according to their TOS, they will only refund for time it was down when you posted a support ticket. Since we did this over the phone, there was no documentation to speak of when it went down and when it got fixed.
As for the second issue (which did have a ticket) they stated that since the VPS was technically up, the uptime guarantee did not apply even if the problem was caused by them (they didn't specifically say that but it was implied). While we didn't expect anything from it and didn't bother to pursue it, that response raised some eyebrows. While within their rights, it did seem a bit "whoa". They did apologize and were very polite and respectful. It was pretty much what we expected in terms of responses.
The Train Ride While the above issue may seem bad, it was a one-time event. These things can happen. We haven't had any uptime, access or server issues since that problem. Support is quick and helpful.
The site has been running fine for months with no downtime.
We are overall very happy with HMS and would recommend them to anyone who needs a Windows VPS.
I will try to share my experience with all of you regarding the company I rent my dedicated servers - Netdirekt.
I found out about them over an year ago when I needed to move to dedicated server. I decided to give them a try, since I was new in this area and since I am perfectionist in this job (making backup of backups of backups)I thought I don't have what to loose if they disappoint me. At least not much.
So over an year ago, I ordered my first server with them. It was Core2Duo server with 4GB of RAM, with a nice price. By the way, when I saw their 1996 website and their pricing, I was getting ready to get disappointed)
I didn't need much help in the beginning, the hardware and network were (are) top notch. Some months later, 4 if I remember correctly, I expanded my business and ordered a second server with them. So, I am really satisfied with their service.
Couple of experiences I got with them that I would like to share with you.
Once, the hard drive of one of my servers started fiving SMART errors so it needed to be changed. It was Sunday, 1AM, so I didn't expect much and it was the secondary (backup) drive so it wasn't THAT urgent to me. Anyway, I dropped them an e-mail requesting drive change. 15 minutes (yup, 15 minutes, Sunday, 1AM) later I got an e-mail back, their representative asking me am I ready for the hard drive replacement. I replied yes. I told him i shut off the server. 10 minutes later my server was back online, with new drive in it.
Later on, once they had 2 hours network outage and another time 1 hour power outage I think, that is in an year. My servers are checked by Pingdom so I believe their uptime.
Then I left them alone for some months, didn't bother them since I had no issues at all, until 2 weeks ago when I got my third server with them. I believe I have been the most boring client ever to them. 10 times maybe I asked IP transfer from one server to another, and they did that very fast and without making me feel uncomfortable by asking that from them over and over again.
So overall, I am very satisfied with their service. They don't do much (hardware and network only, no management), but I think they are perfect in what they do. Keep up the great work netdirekt, and you will keep me with you forever.
We've been a customer of Steadfast for a little over a year with a VPS plan. We had been using a dedicated server from another provider and we were looking to cut costs a bit since the server was very underutilized.
After researching here, we originally signed up on a low-end VPS plan and set up monitoring. Our goal was to monitor the server and service for a couple/few months prior to moving any services over to it; just to make sure the company and VPS would meet our needs.
After a several months of monitoring the server closely we decided to migrate from our ded server to the VPS at Steadfast. We haven't looked back since.
Our criteria for VPS at the time were:
1) Had to run Debian.
2) Reliability of service/provider.
--Uptime of the server itself
--Network reliability
--Redundancy
3) Customer support responsiveness.
4) Price.
Steadfast has exceeded our expectations in all areas. First off finding a host that supports Debian is not as easy as it should be.
(Note to VPS providers: This is a deal-breaker for us. If we can't use Debian then there's much less chance of us signing up for your services.)
Off the soapbox and back to Steadfast: The VPS is quick - with no I/O lag at all. It feels like a dedicated server. The service itself has been reliable and the network has also been responsive. (We monitor our servers from two separate geographical locations).
Further, we've opened more tickets than a 'normal' customer probably would, mostly just to find out what our options are for growth, backups, etc. The team (Karl and others) at Steadfast are very helpful. I don't have any specific recollection of opening a true tech support ticket but I'm sure I have. The fact that it doesn't stand out as remarkable indicates that it was answered quickly and with a personalized (non-generic) response.
We've grown since we started using the VPS and the upgrade process has been painless and quick. Maybe this is true of all VPS providers since all they need to do is allocate more resources, but either way, it's been painless and quick for us at Steadfast.
I have been with futurehosting since October 2007 and have had my ups and downs. see my history below:
October 2007: Signed up for both a vps in chicago and one in dallas datacenter. I used my chicago server for my primary hosting and my dallas server is used only for DNS failover for 2 websites. I am a small town host that hosts locally only so we have around 15 clients. Everything was working ok, but the chicago server just always seemed slow, ocasional load spikes throughout the day hitting the 5 or 6’s. So finally in May 2009 I posted on WHT to seek some help for why loads were so high and we came to the conclusion in that thread that it must be an overloaded server. So I shot off a ticket to futurehosting to move me to a different node and they did without any problems. Loads seemed to go way down after the move and my server was zippy fast again.
August 2009: My chicago server has been getting progressivly slower throughout the last 3 months and we are back to load spikes again. I finally give up with the load issue and just assume it is my problem.
September 11, 2009: Now I run into a problem with php handeling sessions and ask for help from futurehosting and have a problem with them lying to me. You can see the thread here. Jim at futurehosting is aware of this and apologized deeply. And they reprimanded the admin working on my case.
September 21, 2009: I migrated my chicago server to Wiredtree and still have my dallas server as my backup with futurehosting. Since moving to Wiredtree, all of my load issues have gone away and load sits around 0.25 average.
Please note that in all these cases I have opened tickets with futurehosting and worked with them through the problems.
Now, after I got my history out of the way, here is my review:
Value: 10/10
futurehosting is one of the best values around especially now with their 40% off for life and more ram. I, as an existing customer even submitted a ticket complaining how new customers get this and we as exhisting don’t and they gave me the discount.
Support: 7/10
I think the support of futurehosting is a little below of top tier. When you submit a ticket with futurehosting after 15 min you get a reply stating “we’re working on it”. Then sometimes after 30 min you get a reply “we’re escelating this to sysadmins”. And finally after 45 min the problem is fixed. Now keep in mind this is just one instance, but almos all receive a first ticket stating “we’re working on it” and then 15 min later it’s fixed. Now, I really don’t have much to compare to here other than wiredtree, and when you submit a ticket to them, 15 min later you get a response “fixed”. Now about the server admin lying directly to me when he couldn’t fix the problem. I realise this is a rare isolated instance, but still put a sour taste in my mouth.
Server Performance: 5/10
Performance was good at times bad at times and overall seemed slow at futurehosting. I think, but not sure that maybe they are overloading their servers…
Server Uptime: 10/10
Server was always up, and I mean always. Only around once or twice in two years was there a problem with DDOS on another server that caused routing problems in the datacenter to cause my server to be unreachable.
I hav enever had any problems with my server in dallas and it is always fast and zippy and never down. I have also never really submitted a ticket on my server in dallas because it is used so infrequently. We, however are leaving futurehosting and will be in process of moving our dallas server away from them soon.
Well, there you have it, my review of futurehosting after two years.
I've recently had some issues with a script I wrote and I contacted support about it. Three techs assisted me with it, but could not resolve it. I later found the problem was with my outputting text when there should be no output at all. I closed the ticket and thanked the techs for their work.
This is just one of the many examples I have of how they are willing to work with the customer, even if it is not their fault. They will do what it takes to keep the customer happy, except fixing the customers' code. Jedito and his team really strive at providing superb support for their customers.
I have a few domains hosted with them and also have pointed others to their services. I currently use two of their servers, one is production and the other is staging. They are quick to get services setup and ready to go, as well as providing quick support through their ticket system. Their live chat doesn't always reach people (when it says it is online), but they respond to tickets within a few hours, sometimes within a few minutes.
I have the Silver plan with them, and I think they recently changed the amount of disk space available from 7GB to 14GB because that's what I now have available. I did not know they were planning that, but it was a pleasant surprise when I logged in to cPanel.
I can't think of any problems I have had with Downtownhost in these two years of experience with them, though I have had problems with my scripts and code. If they make a mistake, they admit it and are quick to fix it. I might have had a little bit of downtime over a year ago, but I think the server went down briefly. The uptime has been superb and the services have been wonderful.
To anyone who is in search of a good web host, Downtownhost is the way to go for shared hosting. I have not tried their other services (well, I am using blogging on the staging server), so I do not know what they are like. I have been with my share of web hosts and I have not found one that is better than Downtownhost.
I have now been with PrecisionEffect.com for two years and have just paid for year number three. I have to say I have been very happy with the quality and service I have received. For my site I currently need over 7GB of storage space plus over 60GB of bandwidth a month. For me, the few extra dollars a month that I pay for a top quality host are well worth it. It is critical that the site loads quickly and has hardly any down time. I am currently using their failover-enabled server. From what I can tell my site has only been down a total of about an hour over the past two years. I don’t think you can beat that anywhere. I have never had that kind of uptime with any other host.
In the past I have been with web hosts that have put me on servers with 500 or more other hosted domains. PrecisionEffect.com currently has me on a server with only 200 domains (5 of which are mine). I believe not pushing their equipment to the max has been the main reason for the really good uptime.
If I ever do need support, Dave or Steve Garbus (both run PrecisionEffect.com) respond within minutes. Being a smaller size host, they know me and my site and are able to help me quickly. They are also able to help me customize the service I receive on the fly (Adding storage, domains, bandwidth to the plan).
I recommend PrecisionEffect.com to anyone looking for a long term top quality host with fast loading webpages (see their LiteSpeed plans) and excellent support. The couple of dollars extra you will pay for the service will be well worth it and save you in the long run.
I have been a WiredTree customer for about one year and I am very happy with their services. One of the top VPS providers available on the world, WiredTree runs its servers in its own datacenter and it is the real peace in mind company. On January 15th 2008 I've started a VPS 512 in WiredTree using a a WHT promo offer and encountered not only one problem with billing, hardware, software, support! I'm running 16 monster websites of my selected customers on this VPS under cPanel optimized for VPS release 4-R32603 - WHM 11.24.2 - X 3.9. OS: CENTOS 4.7 i686 on Virtuozzo. I've recently rebooted my VPS by command line (SSH) due a new app install exigence and this task was performed in few seconds without only one problem with cPanel!
I've been with Downtownhost for a little more than a year now, and figured I would share my experiences with others.
When I first signed up with Downtownhost, everything was great. Transferring my sites went super smooth: my server was very fast and support was amazing (got replies in under a minute!). Unfortunately, as time has gone on, I've seen a dramatic drop in server stability and support.
My first major issue with Downtownhost happened in March of this year, when my server was constantly being brought offline with DDoS attacks. I requested that they switch me to a different server, hopefully with less DDoS attacks. Downtownhost gave me a date and time when they would switch my account to a new server. That day and time went, with no word from anyone at Downtownhost. I sent an email to Downtownhost asking if my account had been moved, but apparently they had forgotten to switch me. Jorge was very quick to switch me once I asked to be moved again.
Everything was smooth on the new server until April, when it went down for periods of at least 6 hours or more on several different occasions (at least 3). These extremely long periods of downtime were very angering.
Everything has been fairly stable up until these last few weeks. I recently registered a new domain and went to add it to my cPanel account as an addon domain. Something screwed up within cPanel, so I was unable to add my new domain to cPanel. This issue took over 5 hours to even get a response from Downtownhost (which used to be very unusual). Eventually, the issue was resolved.
Now, my server is timing out several times per day, and my email has now stopped working.
On top of the increasingly longer support response times, nobody *ever* answers me on their live support feature, which is a big downside for me. I'm not sure what has caused this dramatic drop in quality from Downtownhost, but it's not looking like I will be renewing my contract with them
I’ve had a shared "Solarcluster 5 Lifetime" account with iMountain for a year, hosting low-traffic "community" sites, including shops, a blog, forums, CMSs, mailing lists and photo galleries. Here are my impressions so far. I’ve concentrated on things that are different from previous hosts I’ve used (mainly cheap cPanel shared hosting).
Summary Pros: Very good support, fast servers, solar powered Cons: Mediocre reliability, price, file permission issues, no forum
Pre-sales and pricing I found iMountain here on WHT after searching for a host with a good reputation for support and reliability. I was initially impressed by the consistent fast loading of their demo Gallery site, and by their solar powered and "clustered" hosting. However, their prices (for 10 domains) were above my budget and they had problems connecting to Europe (see http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=649322), which put me off. I signed up after they fixed the bandwidth problem quickly, and I discovered there was a 50% discount offer, and a "lifetime" subscription option (both now withdrawn) which made their prices more competitive.
Migration Moving my sites over to iMountain was not entirely trouble-free. They don’t offer to do the migration for you and I didn’t yet have SSH access at either end, so I had to download all the files and database contents from my old host and upload them again to iMountain by FTP. This took many hours, especially since my local ISP (Virgin) decided I was "abusing" my connection and silently throttled my upload speed to 128 kbit/s! Manually recreating all my databases and mail accounts took some time in the unfamiliar (and buggy) H-Sphere control panel, and some of my sites ended up offline or in maintenance mode for several days.
Support Support quality is definitely one of iMountain’s strong points. They claim all their support staff are Level 3 and up with 15+ years experience. It’s all done by e-mail and can therefore be a bit slow (sometimes hours for a response), but they generally get to the root of every problem and work to find a workable solution, unlike other hosts I’ve experienced, where it can be a constant struggle just to get a problem acknowledged, let alone fixed. They’re also pretty good at monitoring servers, which means it’s worth waiting a while before raising a trouble ticket. There’s no phone support, instant messaging or user forum though. There’s a tiny knowledgebase, a blog and a ticketing system but they’re barely used.
Speed Generally, my sites have been much more responsive since moving to iMountain, and this is the main reason I would recommend them. I’ve only raised three "sites slow" tickets in the last year and they’ve all been fixed quickly. At previous hosts, applications that should load in seconds would regularly take minutes or time out completely. Indeed, iMountain proudly state "…we can handle load surges from Digg, SlashDot, etc. When your site is getting the hits of a lifetime, we’re here to make sure your visitors get through…". So far I haven’t tested this, though! Ping times from the UK are consistently about 180ms (monitored by [url].
Reliability I’ve been monitoring one of my sites at 5 minute intervals for a year [url] and average uptime has been about 99.5%, which is about the same as my previous hosts. I’m a bit disappointed by this - I had hoped that by paying a bit more and moving to a more reputable host I would see some improvement in uptime. I’m still getting some website users urging me to move to a "more reliable" host.
Reliability is supposed to be one of the advantages of clustered hosting, but the "clustered" hosting that iMountain offers only means that the web server is separate from the database server, mail server etc., not that there are redundant servers that can take over if one of the servers in a cluster fails.
File permission issues Once my sites were up and running, an annoying problem kept recurring - I would come back later and find some of them down or showing errors. It turns out this is due to iMountain running PHP as an Apache module, which means that files created by a PHP application when someone visits the site (such as cache or log files) can’t subsequently be modified or removed by it. It’s a well-known problem, and the solution here is to simply raise a support ticket every time such a PHP application is installed or moved to get it fixed (not sure exactly how, sorry). It’s all a bit slow and inconvenient. It also affects updates - you have to overwrite the application in situ, instead of doing a clean installation and renaming it.
An alternative solution is to configure the entire site to "cgi mode", which can be done from the control panel. This solves all the file permission issues, but the big disadvantage for me is that it’s no longer possible to override local PHP settings (even using a local php.ini or ini_set), which means register_globals is always ON and the timezone always PST, for example.
Certificates I found that iMountain’s security certificates for shared SSL, secure mail and FTP connections etc. are all self-signed, which means you get a warning popup whenever you try to access them - a showstopper for an e-commerce site. I haven’t encountered this at previous hosts, and when I raised a ticket they said it would be too expensive to fix this on every server, but I could buy my own certificate and install it. I only needed it for one site and they were good enough to give me a free static IP for it, so I was happy with that, but be careful if you’re planning to host lots of secure sites with them. For email access I’ve simply gone back to unencrypted connections.
E-Mail Incoming mail is filtered with SpamAssassin and ClamAV and works pretty well. Outgoing mail is sometimes blacklisted though (e.g. by AOL and madasafish), which can be a pain - I’ve had to redirect some mail to users on these domains to go via googlemail.
There’s no real support for mailing lists (but no silly limits either) so you will need to install something like phplist or Dada Mail if you need them. There was initially no support for mail "domain forwarding" (all mail for xxx@mydomain sent to xxx@mysynonymdomain) but they enabled it when I asked.
Control panel The control panel is H-Sphere, which I have found quite capable but buggy. Obvious things like file uploads, moving directories and CHMOD sometimes don’t work, and very strange things can happen if you try to move and rename things too quickly. Also the menu structure can be very obscure - CRON jobs are found under "FTP User", for example.
Backups There’s no real support for backups - users are expected to make their own. I found a script to do mySQL backups, but file backups are harder because large directories will time out if you try to zip them. The options seem to be FTP (slow and not very reliable) or rsync (needs SSH access and a unix box).
Solar power The power supply is not 100% solar - they still connect to the grid, but they sell back almost as much power during the day as they buy at night, so they are still "greener" than most.
I've had a shared "Solarcluster 5 Lifetime" account with iMountain for a year, hosting low-traffic "community" sites, including shops, a blog, forums, CMSs, mailing lists and photo galleries. Here are my impressions so far. I've concentrated on things that are different from previous hosts I've used (mainly cheap cPanel shared hosting).
Summary Pros: Very good support, fast servers, solar powered Cons: Mediocre reliability, price, file permission issues, no forum Pre-sales and pricing I found iMountain here on WHT after searching for a host with a good reputation for support and reliability. I was initially impressed by the consistent fast loading of their demo Gallery site, and by their solar powered and "clustered" hosting. However, their prices (for 10 domains) were above my budget and they had problems connecting to Europe (see [url] [url],which put me off. I signed up after they fixed the bandwidth problem quickly, and I discovered there was a 50% discount offer, and a "lifetime" subscription option (both now withdrawn) which made their prices more competitive.
Migration Moving my sites over to iMountain was not entirely trouble-free. They don't offer to do the migration for you and I didn't yet have SSH access at either end, so I had to download all the files and database contents from my old host and upload them again to iMountain by FTP. This took many hours, especially since my local ISP (Virgin) decided I was "abusing" my connection and silently throttled my upload speed to 128 kbit/s! Manually recreating all my databases and mail accounts took some time in the unfamiliar (and buggy) H-Sphere control panel, and some of my sites ended up offline or in maintenance mode for several days.
Support Support quality is definitely one of iMountain's strong points. They claim all their support staff are Level 3 and up with 15+ years experience. It's all done by e-mail and can therefore be a bit slow (sometimes hours for a response), but they generally get to the root of every problem and work to find a workable solution, unlike other hosts I've experienced, where it can be a constant struggle just to get a problem acknowledged, let alone fixed. They're also pretty good at monitoring servers, which means it's worth waiting a while before raising a trouble ticket. There's no phone support, instant messaging or user forum though. There's a tiny knowledgebase, a blog and a ticketing system but they're barely used.
Speed Generally, my sites have been much more responsive since moving to iMountain, and this is the main reason I would recommend them. I've only raised three "sites slow" tickets in the last year and they've all been fixed quickly. At previous hosts, applications that should load in seconds would regularly take minutes or time out completely. Indeed, iMountain proudly state "...we can handle load surges from Digg, SlashDot, etc. When your site is getting the hits of a lifetime, we're here to make sure your visitors get through...". So far I haven't tested this, though! Ping times from the UK are consistently about 180ms (monitored by [url].
Reliability I've been monitoring one of my sites at 5 minute intervals for a year [url] and average uptime has been about 99.5%, which is about the same as my previous hosts. I'm a bit disappointed by this - I had hoped that by paying a bit more and moving to a more reputable host I would see some improvement in uptime. I'm still getting some website users urging me to move to a "more reliable" host. Reliability is supposed to be one of the advantages of clustered hosting, but the "clustered" hosting that iMountain offers only means that the web server is separate from the database server, mail server etc., not that there are redundant servers that can take over if one of the servers in a cluster fails.
File permission issues Once my sites were up and running, an annoying problem kept recurring - I would come back later and find some of them down or showing errors. It turns out this is due to iMountain running PHP as an Apache module, which means that files created by a PHP application when someone visits the site (such as cache or log files) can't subsequently be modified or removed by it. It's a well-known problem, and the solution here is to simply raise a support ticket every time such a PHP application is installed or moved to get it fixed (not sure exactly how, sorry). It's all a bit slow and inconvenient. It also affects updates - you have to overwrite the application in situ, instead of doing a clean installation and renaming it.
An alternative solution is to configure the entire site to "cgi mode", which can be done from the control panel. This solves all the file permission issues, but the big disadvantage for me is that it's no longer possible to override local PHP settings (even using a local php.ini or ini_set), which means register_globals is always ON and the timezone always PST, for example.
Certificates I found that iMountain's security certificates for shared SSL, secure mail and FTP connections etc. are all self-signed, which means you get a warning popup whenever you try to access them - a showstopper for an e-commerce site. I haven't encountered this at previous hosts, and when I raised a ticket they said it would be too expensive to fix this on every server, but I could buy my own certificate and install it. I only needed it for one site and they were good enough to give me a free static IP for it, so I was happy with that, but be careful if you're planning to host lots of secure sites with them. For email access I've simply gone back to unencrypted connections.
E-Mail Incoming mail is filtered with SpamAssassin and ClamAV and works pretty well. Outgoing mail is sometimes blacklisted though (e.g. by AOL and madasafish), which can be a pain - I've had to redirect some mail to users on these domains to go via googlemail. There's no real support for mailing lists (but no silly limits either) so you will need to install something like phplist or Dada Mail if you need them. There was initially no support for mail "domain forwarding" (all mail for xxx@mydomain sent to xxx@mysynonymdomain) but they enabled it when I asked.
Control panel The control panel is H-Sphere, which I have found quite capable but buggy. Obvious things like file uploads, moving directories and CHMOD sometimes don't work, and very strange things can happen if you try to move and rename things too quickly. Also the menu structure can be very obscure - CRON jobs are found under "FTP User", for example.
Backups There's no real support for backups - users are expected to make their own. I found a script to do mySQL backups, but file backups are harder because large directories will time out if you try to zip them. The options seem to be FTP (slow and not very reliable) or rsync (needs SSH access and a unix box).
Solar power The power supply is not 100% solar - they still connect to the grid, but they sell back almost as much power during the day as they buy at night, so they are still "greener" than most.
I must have raised around 60 to 70 tickets with them in last 1 year. 90% of the tickets the response time is less than 3 minutes. Sometimes they take around 5 minutes to reply.
But definitely i get back replies in less than 5 minutes all tickets new and pending.
It feels like they have a huge team which is always online waiting for tickets.
Recently i had problems in server on 31st December night 11pm Indian Time. I sent a ticket surprisingly their ticket reply came back in 2 minutes and again in next 3 minutes the second reply came that the server is again up.
Last week they helped me with one server which had few problems. They reinstalled the server for me and also transfered the accounts and checked each website. One of the website had issues de to mysqli extension not installed. They did it too and completed the entire job very professionally.
They also configured one of the servers for application hosting. The server surely has become 2x faster after Eurovps tuning work on the vps. They also called me on mobile to inform me.
I surely recommend eurovps for someone searching for premium and reliable hosting. one word of caution dont use bad language with them. The people manning the support team are no nonsense people and will not accept rude language. If you are good with them they will also be good with you.
If others also happy with eurovps support then please feel free to post it here.
All in all their servers are pretty fast due to quality hardware and support also very fast .. complete peace of mind for me with eurovps.
