VolumeDrive Review Part 1 - Good Start

A few people have asked me to give feedback on my experience with VolumeDrive so I decided I will be posting a 3 part review on them:

Part 1 - initial impressions
Part 2 - three month review
Part 3 - one year review (hopefully)

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When I first got in contact with VD, contact was slow: about an email a day. It was very annoying to say the least. However when VD realized that I was genuinely interested in purchasing a server, and not just a window shopper, contact was more frequent and acceptable.

After looking around and comparing, I ended up ordering the following server from VD for a whopping $105 per month:

Q6600
4 GB DDR2 800 RAM
500 GB HDD
10 Mbps dedicated unmetered
5 IP addresses
Plesk 30 domain
Full managed services

Well just at face value, I don't think anyone will argue with me when I say you cannot beat the price. Where else will you find that kind of server w/ full management for $105 a month?

In the ordering process there were a few forgivable annoyances:
1) VD does not have any sort of automated, order online system for their "good" deals. I had to order via email and manually pay from PayPal. I was, however, emailed an invoice confirming my purchase after I paid.

2) It took VD 2 hours to send me my order request after I said "I am ready to purchase". Now it was late at night, so they probably only had a skeleton staff on hand, so this is understandable; however this point is sort of related to the lack of an automated system point mentioned above.

So after I paid and all, I was told they were building me a new server and it would take 3 business days to arrive. I was bummed out upon hearing this but this was understandable and justifiable - if they don't have the parts on hand, they don't have the parts, no big deal. I did appreciate the fact that they were honest with me upfront instead of trying to con me into giving me a different server (like I have been hearing stories about with other hosts).

So I waited. I was told my server would be setup on Tuesday afternoon and it was. The actual time between order and setup was about 5 and a half days: 3 days for the parts to arrive + Saturday + Sunday + time to build the server.

On Tuesday I was informed that my server has a Q8200 instead of a Q6600. To me this was not a big deal so I didn't object but if you are going to order from VD and you want one specific CPU I would be very clear with them that you won't accept any alternative. What did make me chuckle, however, is the fact that I was told "I received a free upgrade" to Q8200. It made me chuckle because I don't consider it a "free upgrade" when I was offered a choice between the Q6600 and a Q8200 for the same price during the ordering process. However, as I already said, a Q6600 or Q8200 - it does not matter to me: both are very similar in performance anyway.

So since I got my server I have been busy setting it up so VD can secure it after I am finished migrating my website (which by the way they just did - I just got an email ).

During that time I have emailed VD a fair amount of times, sometimes asking for clarification and sometimes asking for assistance with a problem, and they have responded back in a more than acceptable time frame and manner.

The only one major problem I have had so far is that initially, and by initially I mean first ~12 hours, it seems the connection to my server was not all the best. Randomly pages would take a while to load; I was curious as to why this was happening so I did some pinging and saw packets were being lost sometimes. This problem seems to have been auto-corrected itself now and I am did email VD about it; hopefully if it happens again we can get it perma-fixed.

Final verdict: people say "you get what you pay for". I say "I got more than I paid for". Hope it continues this way.