Vars
03-28-2009, 11:44 PM
I've been with a handful of hosts, some good, most bad. I'm created this thread to get others opinions about hosts, their policies, which countries are 'safe' and all the other stuff that people have to think about before ordering a dedicated server.
1) Leaseweb
I haven't had a box with Leaseweb in over two years, so this may be a bit outdated. Speeds were good, but the server was expensive and the 2TB bandwidth cap was a pain. I didn't interact much with their support, so not much to say about that. 10mbps 'unmetered' aren't useful since it's really a 3TB per month limit (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=10+Mbps+*+1+month&btnG=Search) and pretty slow.
2) PRQ
Don't recommend. Hard to get in to; expensive; little-to-zero support which can take days to weeks to respond.
3) OVH
Speeds are good-ish (feel's a tad oversold) until they decide to limit your box and you're stuck with only a handful of megabits. Of the 40-something servers I've had with them, there were 5 dead hard disks, a dead replacement hard disk, dead ram, and a dead power supply. All of them ended up limited. Support is alright, although you have to nudge them some times, and normal tickets can take around a day for a response. Their recent attack on seedboxes makes them useless though.
4) server.lu
Absolutely amazing speeds (undersold network) at a great price. Hardware is pretty good, fast processor and lots of ram and hard disk space. They fail miserably at support, though. You can't yet order more servers from the control panel, so you have to order via ticket, and it can take them 3-4 days to get around to invoicing you (they won't even respond to say they're looking at it, so you don't even know if anything's happening). I've also had a decent amount of dead hard disks, and a dead power supply. Took about 3 days to get each of those repaired. They say I was compensated (extra days), but it doesn't really show that anywhere in the control panel, so no way to verify. Recommend if you only plan on having a few servers and not interacting with support.
5) SoftLayer
By far the best host I've ever been with. Consistent 100 Mbps (I had Gbit, but no easy way to test that). Support is absolutely amazing and can help you with most everything, with a response within a few hours (even at night). All hardware is certified tested before being released, and you can run an automated hardware test directly from the control panel. Their control panel is by far the best for any host I've ever been with. You can control absolutely everything, and it's chock-full of information. Servers come with an IPMI card, so even if you break networking you can get in. They also provide a VPN and 'private network' so all data between you and your server is secure. Helpful forums full of experienced sysadmins. 2TB bandwidth caps and being in the US don't really make them suitable for seedboxing, however, their policy seems to be "don't get us in trouble and we'll look the other way" (aka no filtering / monitoring). Recommend if you can afford them.
So, what do you have to say about a host? Please only review hosts you've actually personally purchased servers from and interacted with.
1) Leaseweb
I haven't had a box with Leaseweb in over two years, so this may be a bit outdated. Speeds were good, but the server was expensive and the 2TB bandwidth cap was a pain. I didn't interact much with their support, so not much to say about that. 10mbps 'unmetered' aren't useful since it's really a 3TB per month limit (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&q=10+Mbps+*+1+month&btnG=Search) and pretty slow.
2) PRQ
Don't recommend. Hard to get in to; expensive; little-to-zero support which can take days to weeks to respond.
3) OVH
Speeds are good-ish (feel's a tad oversold) until they decide to limit your box and you're stuck with only a handful of megabits. Of the 40-something servers I've had with them, there were 5 dead hard disks, a dead replacement hard disk, dead ram, and a dead power supply. All of them ended up limited. Support is alright, although you have to nudge them some times, and normal tickets can take around a day for a response. Their recent attack on seedboxes makes them useless though.
4) server.lu
Absolutely amazing speeds (undersold network) at a great price. Hardware is pretty good, fast processor and lots of ram and hard disk space. They fail miserably at support, though. You can't yet order more servers from the control panel, so you have to order via ticket, and it can take them 3-4 days to get around to invoicing you (they won't even respond to say they're looking at it, so you don't even know if anything's happening). I've also had a decent amount of dead hard disks, and a dead power supply. Took about 3 days to get each of those repaired. They say I was compensated (extra days), but it doesn't really show that anywhere in the control panel, so no way to verify. Recommend if you only plan on having a few servers and not interacting with support.
5) SoftLayer
By far the best host I've ever been with. Consistent 100 Mbps (I had Gbit, but no easy way to test that). Support is absolutely amazing and can help you with most everything, with a response within a few hours (even at night). All hardware is certified tested before being released, and you can run an automated hardware test directly from the control panel. Their control panel is by far the best for any host I've ever been with. You can control absolutely everything, and it's chock-full of information. Servers come with an IPMI card, so even if you break networking you can get in. They also provide a VPN and 'private network' so all data between you and your server is secure. Helpful forums full of experienced sysadmins. 2TB bandwidth caps and being in the US don't really make them suitable for seedboxing, however, their policy seems to be "don't get us in trouble and we'll look the other way" (aka no filtering / monitoring). Recommend if you can afford them.
So, what do you have to say about a host? Please only review hosts you've actually personally purchased servers from and interacted with.