Dedicated Servers - Where's your box? What do you think of your host?

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I haven't had a box with Leaseweb in over two years, so this may be a bit outdated.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 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.

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-see...pinions-342758 ???

I think this is different as he wants to focus on Dedicated boxes not people reselling them as seedboxes.

I'd like to hear more about hosting-ie, I've heard Keyweb is a dead end as far as torrents go, Dedibox also not very friendly on torrents & not available outside France. I've been checking out LeaseWeb but it's just too expensive for what I need.

I think its a very useful thread Vars started off. Let me add my cents to it:

1) Leaseweb : its one provider ive never used before and I sincerely wanna give this a try especially on the gbit one coz unmetered 100megs is at 199E and gbit at 250odd . I would however share my expenses if indeed i plan to take this ruthless speed machine. Known to host many trackers but slowly and surely they are moving them off their network. Not sure if p2p is too safe.

2) PRQ - no ideas

3) Ovh - hmmm, ive been using them since my early seedboxing days so cant complain much and have been pretty reliable using them.

4) server.lu - the new baby in town rocks and gives the best bang for the price paid, quality of bandwidth is exceptional and it peers well just about anywhere

5) Softlayer - No ideas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Six66Mike

I think this is different as he wants to focus on Dedicated boxes not people reselling them as seedboxes.

I'd like to hear more about hosting-ie, I've heard Keyweb is a dead end as far as torrents go, Dedibox also not very friendly on torrents & not available outside France. I've been checking out LeaseWeb but it's just too expensive for what I need.

---

In my opinion Hosting-IE have great servers (hardware) and fast & unmeterd 100Mbits connections, but their servers with Gbit are too slow! Also they have very expensive setup fees. To sum up, hosting-ie its a good server provider if you choose servers with 100Mbps or 2x100Mbps connections, but not with Gbit ;)

yeah the gbit on hosting-ie is shockingly slow :/ Also there setup times are horrible :S i had to wait 2 weeks for them to install hardware raid on my box :P

but i had a 100mbit VPS with them and it was just amazing :D

I have already tested Keyweb during several months and I can confirm their speed/reliability are excellent (so I think hosting-ie too).

The problem is more the cost of setup fees and the german language of the "manager". I've also read that Keyweb doesn't like P2P, maybe Hosting-IE is a better choice for seedbox ressellers or "powser users".

server.lu DS7000 here, best dedicated server Ive used. (all my passed servers were never for seedboxes though)

Yeah, I'm looking for reviews of hosts specifically, not seedbox resellers. You don't necessarily need to list the ones I put in the OP, I only put those there to share my experiences.

Anyone who's been with Leaseweb recently, I'd like to hear from as I think I may be getting a few boxes from them soon.

i'm on a journey to find the best or the fastest seedbox out there...

1) FDCServers (SiSHCO) -- Unmetered 100mbit Quad Core with 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive and Windows x64. The speeds are bad. Their routing is terrible and I haven't hit 10MB/sec download or upload on any of my high ranking trackers. I've complained and they said nothing. They have a new datacenter in Denver, but when I traceroute my IP, it says Chicago (their other datacenter) when confronted with this, they said I'm mistaken, even when I showed them a screenshot.

Hardware wise, it's good, but everything else is not. All my US peers get around 150kB/sec each, if that.

2) NetDirekt (JMHServices) -- This is an awesome box! Always max out my speeds with new torrents (12MB/sec down, 12MB/sec up) and I constantly upload 4-6MB/sec with 40+ torrents. Its a Windows box with a Dual Core E and 2GB RAM. I wish I had more HD space since 250GB isn't enough anymore, but I'll keep them because support is awesome and setup time is fantastic! Wish they had gigabit.

3) OVH (0utsystem.pl *change the 0 to an o*) -- Ordered an EG MAX and have been waiting for a long time due to availability. The reseller has given great customer service by offering me a *FREE* Kimsufi 4XL server to use while I wait for my EG MAX. At the time, EG MAX was way oversold and the reseller offered to get me an unmetered Leaseweb gigabit for the same price as the EG MAX. I was happy and he placed an order for it and forwarmed me the comformation from leaseweb. First they said 48 hrs, then it became 7 to 9 business days and after the 9th business day, they stopped responding to emails. The reseller disputed with Paypal to get the money back since 3 weeks have passed.

While he was waiting for a refund, he ordered an EG MAX since availibity was only 72 hrs. Keep in mind, he let me use the 4XL while all of this was going on. He could not control what was going on with Leaseweb or OVH, but still took care of me.

I finally got it today and since it took so long, he refunded my money and is letting me keep the EG MAX for one month. Can't get any better than that. This reseller has made dealing with OVH much more bearable. The support is great since it's a combo of email or live chat (MSN Messenger). Because I value support, I will continue to do business with him. As far as the performance of the 4XL, I can say it's been OK. I've hit 55MB/sec upload with it a few times, which is nice, but you can't do that with multiple torrents since the hard drive will be going crazy trying to read. What's good about OVH is that everyone has it, so having a gigabit with them is OK. Routing to other datacenters and overseas is medicore, but thats to be expected with the low prices they have.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/443492141.png

http://i39.tinypic.com/2gubfc9.png

4) Server.lu (seedbox.ws) -- Great resller and great dedicated server. No complaints, here. Support is available via IRC or email. I happened to use IRC since it was faster. I'm looking forward in getting a gigabit dedi from them as soon as it is available.

Thanks for the good reviews, I take it that seedbox.ws's "solo boxes" are from server.lu?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carlpb

Thanks for the good reviews, I take it that seedbox.ws's "solo boxes" are from server.lu?

---

Yup.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carlpb

Thanks for the good reviews, I take it that seedbox.ws's "solo boxes" are from server.lu?

---

Yes and look at their Gold box $110usd compared to a DS4000, 60 Euro is just over $90 so what's the extra $20 for?

Good question. But buying from server.lu you're also paying a setup fee for the DS4000 which makes it 180 USD for the first month. I think seedbox.ws takes that setup fee and divides it by 12. 90/12 = 7.5, but they round up since most people don't keep the server for a full year, plus their fees and support. Not bad, IMO.

Seedbox.ws speaks fluent English which is a plus too. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gueriLLaPunK

Seedbox.ws speaks fluent English which is a plus too. :D

---

:01: Or learn a different language (German or French) for server.lu.:D

Anyway, with the current/new preliminary server-agreements, everyone seems to be able to get discounts in the long run. And the info on server.lu I've gotten so far from several people, makes me kinda confident I will at least get a machine for 3 months and if things really work out for me, renew the contract for a year and/or get a second machine.

^^Yeah I want to get a server.lu gigabit, but it's going to be very expensive :( I guess I'm just gonna stick with my OVH in the mean time.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/447594043.png

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gueriLLaPunK

Good question. But buying from server.lu you're also paying a setup fee for the DS4000 which makes it 180 USD for the first month. I think seedbox.ws takes that setup fee and divides it by 12. 90/12 = 7.5, but they round up since most people don't keep the server for a full year, plus their fees and support. Not bad, IMO.

Seedbox.ws speaks fluent English which is a plus too. :D

---

But as a reseller on the old agreement they get free setup and a discount, which anyone visiting server.lu could read before they took it down a few days ago. As long as the service/support you get is excellent I suppose its worth it, but that much mark up on retail when they get like 25% discount + no setup to me is obscene. I would never and have not priced any of mine in such a way and hope I never have to.

I wasn't aware of the 25% discount the resellers received, plus the no setup fee. Good to know!