Review of fastsh.it Seedbox and VPS service

[neevakee]

I want to preface this review stating that I am in no way affiliated with the ownership. My only affiliation with this site is that I rent a VPS lu100 from them. I am not trying to advertise this site, but rather give an in depth review so other users know the good and the bad of this company.

So I have had my VPS slice with fastsh. it for over 2 weeks now and I can say that I am a very happy customer. I have the lu100, which is a vps on a server with 5 other users. This package is a great deal if you know Linux as I am allowed to have unlimited torrents, unlimited bandwidth, 100GB of storage and for me 512MB of RAM. They have since reworked their plans and this level is $20 and now comes with a little bit more RAM. In addition to this I have root access via ssh and NX. As far as speeds go I have seen them as high as 4MB/s per a connection with my fastest every being 7MB/s. As far as FTP speeds go they can vary, but I have never gotten less than 300KB/s per connection and I can usually max out at around 1.2MB/s. The catch with this package is it comes only with rtorrent installed and no webui so in order to setup a webui you must do it yourself. If you do not know linux command line then I would not recommend this plan for you as this plan has no support beyond what is already installed. However on their IRC channels a lot of time you can get help, but it is not guaranteed by any means. Although I must say that if you want to have a VPS this is the cheapest option out there, but make sure that you know what you are doing.

As far as other plans our concerned they offer a seedbox plan for $15 and $25 a month. I have personally not used these, but I have been told by other users that this is the best option for people who do not know linux. The lu100s is $15 and gives you 100GB of storage, unlimited torrents and unlimited bandwidth. Now there is a catch here these boxes are very crowded they typically have 12, yes 12, users on them for the 100GB and 10 for the 200GB. However since there is a high amount of RAM and good processors the only weakness is with the I/O. I personally have not heard of many complaints on this part, but I don’t know for sure. Although I have seen users post faster speeds on these shared boxes than I have received on my VPS. You also recive ssh access with this box, but no root. These boxs are managed and intended for someone who only wants a seedbox. Personally having just ideled in their IRC channel I can say that this is the way for 90% of users to go.

Now the bad news there is a wait for almost all services. There is never a guarantee time for setup for me it took around one week, but I have also seen more recently people getting their setup with in hours. Ultimately it is dependant on what they have in stock. If there is an open slot than you can expect to receive your log in very quickly less than 24 hours, but other wise it could be a little bit of time.

Personally I would recommend this company they are still very new and are still optimizing their setup and ordering process. Although I can say that this is not some fly by night operation the owner is well connected in the torrent community. This is a company created by torrent users for torrent users. Also it is one of the few if only seedbox companies which has IRC support in addition to a forum. There is almost always someone who can help via IRC and Forum post are replied to within 24 hours. Although this company does have some issues such as a lot of users on a box and wait times this is very easy to over look for what you get. Ultimately it is your call take a look at it though and ask questions. Currently the working link is fastsh. it / forum.

[sync]

Thanks for the review.

I suggest you take a look at the sticky named "Post ALL Seedbox Reviews In This Thread". :)

[Skiz]

Post the review in the sticky and we'll add it to the list. ;)

EDIT: Thanks. I'll add it to the list later tonight when I've got the time. I've opened this back up for any discussion.

[djfye]

I am on a lu100 also, but I think I was on one of the earlier servers setup because I have 12 other users on my server(making it a total of 13, i believe they only but around 6 on a server now though). I still get great speeds though, the max I have seen is 10 MB/s. for ftp I usually get 600 KB/s-1.1 MB/s(max dl speed). The vps's do have wine installed (at least mine did, so...) and you can install utorrent if you choose to, although they do suggest you use rtorrent.

[Dozer]

Hi all.

I'm on staff on fash.it, and the one in charge of sales/marketing. I gotta say, i'm very pleased to hear you all are happy with our services. We take in all your inputs, and always try and improve our VPS's for optimal performance.

djfye -> Yes, all servers come preinstalled with Wine for those who want utorrent.

Neevakee -> I thank you very much for the kind words. Unfortunately yes, the delivery times isn't as fast as we want them to be, and we still have some stuff that is done manually, which will be more automatic in time.

The reason for the wait on delivery, is simply that server.lu can't keep up with our orders ;) Atm we're ordering somewhere between 3 and 10 servers a week, which apparently, is a bit much for server.lu. We're always trying to be ahead, but we still have the finances to think of as well. So even though we would like to order a 100 servers from them this instant, we simply haven't got the funding for it yet :)

I will keep reading this thread, and hoping to hear from even more customers.

Regards,

Dozer

[sync]

I recently signed up for the fastsh.it shared box, not the VPS. I think it is a good service but at the moment I can only recommend it to casual torrent users because they use wTorrent for the GUI. If all you do is start and stop/delete the entire torrent then it is ok. If you need to select parts of a torrent or manage your torrents then it is quite inferior to TFlux or UTorrent.

They are talking about also putting Deluge on the shared boxes. I haven't used that one so I have to wait and see on that.

[ben99]

you can dl only select parts with wtorrent too. And fyi wtorrent is far superior to utorrent and tflux.

Utorrent does have it beat on ease of use but you get so much better speeds with wtorrent/rtorrent.

Tflux is utter shit, resource hog to the max.

[Valoo]

UT isn't slower and less powerfull than rtorrent, it depends of the resources of the machine. And that's the problem, they seem to have an I/O overload problem on some VPS servers.

[Six66Mike]

Big post coming :)


As far as other plans our concerned they offer a seedbox plan for $15 and $25 a month. I have personally not used these, but I have been told by other users that this is the best option for people who do not know linux. The lu100s is $15 and gives you 100GB of storage, unlimited torrents and unlimited bandwidth. Now there is a catch here these boxes are very crowded they typically have 12, yes 12, users on them for the 100GB and 10 for the 200GB. However since there is a high amount of RAM and good processors the only weakness is with the I/O. I personally have not heard of many complaints on this part, but I don’t know for sure. Although I have seen users post faster speeds on these shared boxes than I have received on my VPS. You also recive ssh access with this box, but no root. These boxs are managed and intended for someone who only wants a seedbox. Personally having just ideled in their IRC channel I can say that this is the way for 90% of users to go.

Now the bad news there is a wait for almost all services. There is never a guarantee time for setup for me it took around one week, but I have also seen more recently people getting their setup with in hours. Ultimately it is dependant on what they have in stock. If there is an open slot than you can expect to receive your log in very quickly less than 24 hours, but other wise it could be a little bit of time.

Personally I would recommend this company they are still very new and are still optimizing their setup and ordering process. Although I can say that this is not some fly by night operation the owner is well connected in the torrent community. This is a company created by torrent users for torrent users. Also it is one of the few if only seedbox companies which has IRC support in addition to a forum. There is almost always someone who can help via IRC and Forum post are replied to within 24 hours. Although this company does have some issues such as a lot of users on a box and wait times this is very easy to over look for what you get. Ultimately it is your call take a look at it though and ask questions. Currently the working link is fastsh. it / forum.

Thanks for the review :) Here's how the current numbers stack up:

LU100 - 6 users
LU175 - 8 users
LU220 - 6 users
LU350 - 4 users
LU100S - 12 users
LU200S - 9 users

You're right about the shared boxes, there really hasn't been any complaints about the speed or performance of the servers. There's been some grumblings recently about wtorrent as the UI so we're going to trial TorrentFlux on a server and see how it goes.

As you also mentioned we already changed the LU100 from it's old 512mb to a 576mb ram with 6 users. The remaining plans will have changes soon as well within a few weeks, no plan will exceed 6 users and the minimum of 4 for the current VPS price ranges. There may also be Premium VPS with even fewer users at additional cost for users who want more & willing to pay for it.

Also coming up, the website is nearly ready for launch, control panel for users to reboot/re-install their VPS etc also nearing completion, and new OS choices are also being worked on so you can have your preferred linux distro instead of the current default Ubuntu 8.10.


I am on a lu100 also, but I think I was on one of the earlier servers setup because I have 12 other users on my server(making it a total of 13, i believe they only but around 6 on a server now though). I still get great speeds though, the max I have seen is 10 MB/s. for ftp I usually get 600 KB/s-1.1 MB/s(max dl speed). The vps's do have wine installed (at least mine did, so...) and you can install utorrent if you choose to, although they do suggest you use rtorrent.

Now that we got the extra servers we're going to start migrating these users to the smaller boxes and retire the DS9000. That's what we said we would do and while performance issues have had significant improvements with configuration & file system changes, the switch to a smaller box with 6 users is still going forward :)


Neevakee -> I thank you very much for the kind words. Unfortunately yes, the delivery times isn't as fast as we want them to be, and we still have some stuff that is done manually, which will be more automatic in time.

The reason for the wait on delivery, is simply that server.lu can't keep up with our orders ;) Atm we're ordering somewhere between 3 and 10 servers a week, which apparently, is a bit much for server.lu. We're always trying to be ahead, but we still have the finances to think of as well. So even though we would like to order a 100 servers from them this instant, we simply haven't got the funding for it yet :)

Have you received induction training yet? :lol:

Server delivery recently has been a couple days, I think they are getting ahead of the game now. They had a huge burst after Easter which was mentioned by their staff here in another thread but the orders I placed shortly after came through in ~48 hours. I've just started a new job so try to get them done as soon as possible, and we received our excess order of servers last week so any remaining back orders are being filled now as well. Setup recently has been done usually with 24 hours for shared and LU100. Automation for this whole process is also a project nearing completion. Pretty exciting stuff :)

The main thing we're waiting on sorting out with the supplier now is dedicated servers. The reseller agreement has expired and a new discount plan has not yet been released, which means those people waiting to buy a dedicated server below retail cost will need to continue to wait & try being patient with us. I'm still trying to get information about when this will be completed.


I recently signed up for the fastsh.it shared box, not the VPS. I think it is a good service but at the moment I can only recommend it to casual torrent users because they use wTorrent for the GUI. If all you do is start and stop/delete the entire torrent then it is ok. If you need to select parts of a torrent or manage your torrents then it is quite inferior to TFlux or UTorrent.

They are talking about also putting Deluge on the shared boxes. I haven't used that one so I have to wait and see on that.

Deluge is on 3 of the shared servers, and is being pushed out to the rest as they were missed during setup. Tflux test server coming soon, we've got quite a few experts and coders as users who have done various scripting & work on torrentflux so will be looking to them for optimal setup & security on the shared server for testing before it is pushed out to all boxes.


you can dl only select parts with wtorrent too. And fyi wtorrent is far superior to utorrent and tflux.

Utorrent does have it beat on ease of use but you get so much better speeds with wtorrent/rtorrent.

Tflux is utter shit, resource hog to the max.

This is what I've been saying :) In order to use utorrent you need wine and it takes up more resources. Some of the fastest speeds we've seen are people using rtorrent because it's incredibly lightweight and native.


UT isn't slower and less powerfull than rtorrent, it depends of the resources of the machine. And that's the problem, they seem to have an I/O overload problem on some VPS servers.

On a linux server, it is. Hands down nothing really competes with rtorrent on the linux platform, especially utorrent since you need to load it through a Windows emulator. Even a dedicated server with plenty of RAM & CPU, rtorrent will out-perform uTorrent.

[manu1991]

I am on a LU100S and happy till now , before this I was paying 15$ for a 10 Gb spot on a kimsufi and now i get 100 Gb space :)
Speeds for me have been good so far , 1 mb + average . On burst reaches 4-5 mb/s
However maybe its just me but OVH peering is a bit slow (or maybe the trackers i use have an overflow of OVH users :P) , ofcourse its not fastsh.it's fault , but OVH to OVH transfers were lightning fast

The setup time for me was only ~ 9 hours

Also their IRC channel is very helpful , i had some problem with the rtorrent and was helped nicely in the channel

I am pretty happy with wtorrent , has all the features | TFlux becomes VERY slow on a high number of torrents and on my own PC in ubuntu 9.04 , Deluge hogs ~ 40% more memory than rtorrent

[Sanka113]

I'm glad to hear that a "proper" site with cpanel and what not is coming soon. The speeds aren't too bad considering I'm only paying $15 bucks for unlimited bandwidth. Also, since the VPS come with wine pre installed it takes only a wget "utorrent url" command away from having utorrent setup. Easy stuff even if you can't spell linux.

[iansltx]

Just a comment here: what do you guys think of Transmission? It's native, runs at the command line (no UI needed) and is quite speedy, seems to me. Maybe not as good as µTorrent but the lack of a need for a server-side UI is a big plus.

Quick question as such: can you get a box with just Ubuntu Server installed? That's what I'm used to...I can take it from there to a full GNOME/µT setup or a nginx + Transmission lean machine. Rather cool really :)

[Six66Mike]

You can remove the Gnome UI and other services you don't want fairly easily, quite a few people have.

I would rate Deluge over Transmission for a variety of reasons including its acceptance on more trackers.

[xirvflux]

I would rate Deluge over Transmission for a variety of reasons including its acceptance on more trackers.

I'm curious, isn't transmission a frontend anymore?

transmission-b4rt (which we heavily customize) supports bittornado, azureus, transmission and mainline. I still haven't seen any tracker that won't allow at least one of them. Most support tornado (given that it's the reference implementation) and transmission.

[Six66Mike]

Most SysOps I know don't have anything good to say about Transmission :D Not sure why, working at an ISP I saw it do a lot of dodgy things and kill people's monthly usage quota with random bugs & excessive hashing etc. Maybe it's better since then though, still don't hear many people praising it though.

[xirvflux]

Most SysOps I know don't have anything good to say about Transmission :D Not sure why, working at an ISP I saw it do a lot of dodgy things and kill people's monthly usage quota with random bugs & excessive hashing etc. Maybe it's better since then though, still don't hear many people praising it though.

Sounds like FUD to me, given that it's open source and anyone can see what is doing. It's accepted in most trackers (right now I can't remember any that doesn't allow it).

I port the last version to b4rt regularly and from what I've seen in the source code, the codebase is quite clean. It's still missing a few things I'd like to see implemented but none of them affect trackers in anyway.

Edit: I just noticed this is a review thread, I apologize for talking about a client here... if needed we can create a new thread somewhere else.

[manu1991]

I would rate Deluge over Transmission for a variety of reasons including its acceptance on more trackers.

I'm curious, isn't transmission a frontend anymore?

transmission-b4rt (which we heavily customize) supports bittornado, azureus, transmission and mainline. I still haven't seen any tracker that won't allow at least one of them. Most support tornado (given that it's the reference implementation) and transmission.
Confused here , are you referring to torrentflux-b4rt , there is NOTHING like transmission-b4rt , and TF is independent of the development of transmission , you can have TFlux + Bittornado without having transmission

[iansltx]

I use Transmission on my "normal" computers (I have Comcast so I have a little bit of DL/UL to play with) since they're Macs and µTorrent isn't developed well enough for the Mac as of yet. Seems to run smoothly to me, though performance on higher-end boxes, as I said, leaves something to be desired versus µTorrent, as far as I can tell.

[manu1991]

Even on macs deluge works better

[lishpin]

Got my seedbox a few hours ago.

Everything is working great and I couldn't be happier.

Getting great speeds too both upload and download.