VolumeDrive.com Review 9 Months And 13 Servers Later

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.