Volumedrive: Awesome Company

i'd post an update review on volumedrive. I'm a long standing client with them, varying between 3-5 servers with them at any given time.

Support. On the whole josh and jeff are the friendliest nicest people I know. They are willing to help out with any minor server issues, resolve rebuilds matters rapidly, and know where to point you to in the event of problems.

Network. Probably on the weaker side of their services. using burst.net i've had at least a couple of network complications every month i've been with them. some have been no-notice router updates / upgrades, some have been hijacked IP addresses from other servers in the network (should be resolved in new data center). But on the whole, good network performance, responsive and fast. And you can't complain with 10+mbit unmetered...

Current issues. Here's where the "don't jump on the boat" bit comes in. VD has been incredibly busy as of late shifting to the new datacenter. as a result their customer service and *actual* performance is suffering seriously. What I mean by this is that while they are super friendly, promise to get things done, give very confident and positive estimates as to when they can get a server up or fix some issue, they just don't get anything done.

In the last month I've faced some serious issues regarding this. The most in-your-face one has been an additional harddrive I had requested to be put in 15 days ago today and paid for it. They said they had them in stock. A few days later, still no drive - got an immediate response to my query that they had used up the drives in new builds and they had specifically ordered me one which would arrive on monday, so i'd have it monday evening.

monday evening came and went, tuesday came and went. responses each time are "We will add this for you tonight, I will make sure of it." (actual quote from e-mail sent yesterday, needless to say I don't have the drive yet) or along that tune. About 20 mins prior to this email I sent them an update request, I'll keep you up to date of this saga

Sadly, this has been the case practically everyday for over 2 weeks now.

That's just one example. A celeron which they had in stock which they said would take 2 days to set up took 6 days. A high power xeon that I made a contract with them to have it set up by Monday (this past one, 5 days ago) was happily taken on by them saying it would not be an issue. I said I'd pay on delivery as it was a time sensitive server and if I didn't have it by the promised delivery date (which they said they could definitely meet) I wouldn't be purchasing it. By tuesday I had no word, and obviously didn't end up getting the server and had to go with another company.

Bottom line. Guys please don't misunderstand - volumedrive is an AMAZING company and I've been with them long enough to still trust these fellows, even after being jerked around a bit this past month. The only reason I haven't jumped ship is cause I know these guys will get back on the horse. I'm just hoping it's sometime soon before their business starts suffering - I've been in the web hosting market long enough to know which direction companies take when they start falling through with promises and have demand outgrow what they can supply, and refuse to deal with customer service expansion.

So yeah, basically, keep an eye on these boards. I'm sure when VD is back on the horse it'll be known, but until then I'd be a little weary and realize these guys are under immense pressure and probably won't be able to fulfil your requests in a timely fashion regardless of how many promises they make or emails they send about it being set up by "tonight."