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Networking The Internet

Decent Co-Location or Virtual Server Hosting? 145

Posted by Cliff from the assure-your-place-on-the-internet dept.
gclef writes "Speakeasy announced recently that they're being bought by Best Buy. Despite all the promises to the contrary, I suspect my ability to host servers in my home is going away soon. Does anyone have hints as to where I can get a reasonable co-lo space or virtual hosting? I don't want to outsource the management of my domains entirely, nor will 'webhosting' be good enough, since I like having control of my own stuff (and like running my own DNS, IMAPS, and other assorted network services). Is there some place that will give me a blank box with an unfiltered connection to the net?"
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Decent Co-Location or Virtual Server Hosting? More

Decent Co-Location or Virtual Server Hosting?

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  • That really depends. (Score:3, Informative)

    by the unbeliever ( 201915 ) <chris+slashdot&atlgeek,com> on Thursday April 05, 2007 @08:23AM (#18618839) Homepage
    How much are you willing to pay?

    A lot of places are running "Specials" right now, giving you a relatively decent piece of iron but very little bandwidth for ~$100/mo

    Other places give you less impressive hardware but more bandwidth for about the same price.

    I personally host with Cyberwurx [cyberwurx.com], a p4 3.0, 512mb ram, 80gb hd and 500gb bandwidth for $95/mo, and they'll install your choice of Linux on it, or even boot you into a gentoo live cd so you can roll your own.

    If you go that route, put "vanamar" in your referral code!
    • Bytemark [bytemark.co.uk] - UK based, decent service, VMs and Dedicated hosts... really well supported. Been using them for two years.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mashade ( 912744 )
      If you're looking to spend less, virtual private servers are the way to go. I've used two hosts and have been pretty impressed with both.

      Slicehost [slicehost.com] will give you a virtual box (root access, choice of distro) with decent specs for about $20/month.
      TekTonic.net [tektonic.net] (whom I found through www.unixshell.com [unixshell.com]) gives you an unmanaged virtual host for $15/month.

      Again, I've used both and have been very happy with the services. Bandwidth hasn't been an issue, uptime and performance have been great.
      • I use Pagesgarden and have had awesome luck with them. May be too managed for Topic Starter's wants, but they do not shut down sites based on silly C&D letters (site in sig).
        My plan is $125/year for 1 gig disk and 24 gig bandwith/month. You can buy more of either as needed, host 5 domains and up to 50 subdomains, again buying more if needed.
        -nB

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ari_j ( 90255 )
      I was with Superb [superb.net] for a leased server for a few years. I was very pleased with it and only moved on because I decided to colocate a server of my own construction. The trick is to watch for specials. They'll frequently have slightly-underpowered hardware (mine had an 80GB hard drive, a 1.4GHz Celeron, and 512MB of RAM) on special. I paid $80/month for 1,000GB of transfer, and the latency was phenomenally low. Their customer service always treated me well and answered the phone when I called, and when I
    • You can host at GuaranteedVPS [guaranteedvps.com] and get root and a bandwidth minimum with no cap starting at $13/mo, actually.

      Then again, I own GuaranteedVPS, so whatever.
      • OK, this may just be a hell of a coincidence, but the day you post this on /. you raise your price by $9.04??? [guaranteedvps.com] I added some bold to the quotes to highlight the relevant sections.

        Price Update Apr 5 2007
        Written by GVPS Staff, April 5th, 2007
        Prices have changed. All customers prior to April 5 will continue old pricing, including for new slices. Please see the pricing page for details on the new prices.

        The new base price per slice is $31 US. The same breakdown applies to pre-pay discounts. The new stac

        • OK, this may just be a hell of a coincidence, but the day you post this on /. you raise your price by $9.04?

          The base price is the price before time or quantity discounts apply. The price I cite in the slashdot post as "if you pay for a long time" and the price on the price chart for two-year payment are the same. The prices in that post are correct; they're just phrased in a confusing fashion. My apologies. I will endeavour to be clearer in the future.

          No, it isn't coincidence that I updated the prices
    • The thing I don't get is how many dedicated host providers offer dual-core servers with RAID Arrays and 2Gb+ of RAM, and then say "1000GB Bandwidth Included".

      If someone was only going to use 1000Gigs, then why would they need that type of machine?

      I currently do 500GB+/month on a 2.4Ghz Celeron with 512Mb RAM and a regular IDE drive. And it has worked well for the past two years, but I have started having some annoying outages and am shopping around for other possibilities.

      Also, reading the TOS on tho

    • NFS is nearly free, and offers as much control as you can possibly get on a shared server without paravirtualization.

  • EV1Servers.Net (Score:3, Informative)

    by JLester ( 9518 ) on Thursday April 05, 2007 @08:23AM (#18618841)
    EV1Servers has done a good job on mine so far. They have lots of options available depending on how much storage space, bandwidth, etc. that you need. You have full root control over your server. They recently merged with ThePlanet, but it does not seem to have affected anything.

    Jason
    • I'll second that. I've been using ev1 for more than a year now and I've been completely satisfied. The prices are reasonable, the hardware is rock-solid stable, the network is fast, and the tech support is competent. My plan with ev1 includes remote access to the serial port. I've been lazy and finally got around to setting up serial console support but I couldn't access it. I sent ev1 some technical data and they resolved the problem relatively quickly (it was on their end) without questioning the dat
      • I third that.. I used to work at rackspace and know managed hosting. Rackspace has an incredable network but they aqre a bit high. ev1 i have used them for 2 years now and they rock.. plain ol simple.. i have never had an issue there except the ones i cause. One downside is their support is lacking. Upgrading though was a simple thing also. But still if its of high imporntance i would go through Rackspace. They offer top tier support. Their guys can assist with anything for a price and their network is t

    • Re:EV1Servers.Net (Score:5, Informative)

      by walt-sjc ( 145127 ) on Thursday April 05, 2007 @09:12AM (#18619261)
      Yeah, but didn't ev1 buy a license from SCO, basically helping to fund SCO's assault against Linux? Then after the fact (due to customer / industry reaction) decided that they made a bad move? I'm still waiting for them to do the right thing and sue SCO for fraud (selling a license for IP they didn't own.)
    • The very best of all of these was EV1Servers if you want top notch support. I ended up going with Vaultnetworks due to price. They had a better piece of hardware with more bandwidth, but they're much more "hands off" when it comes to management. This suited me just fine because I'm comfortable rolling out my own patches and fixes (I used cPanel so much of this was done for me anyway).

      I've recently "downscaled" my webhosting business to friends-family only, and I was in need of something smaller with the
  • waveform.net [waveform.net]

    When I was recently looking, I found these guys and discovered that they are in my back yard (Troy, Michigan).

    $50/month to colo 1U (or a mid tower) and that includes 1000GB of transfer. If you are going to be using more than that, then you might want to look further into the unit cost per GB.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )
      If it isn't mission critical stuff, Waveform is good. I have a server over there and have been reasonably pleased. However, on two occasions where I had to call support, they took a few hours -- during normal business hours -- to get hands-on.

      They do offer dial-in backup lines, so if things are critical I suggest sticking a modem in your server and having them plug into a POTS line. Then configure your server for providing a terminal on serial via the modem.

      I'm not sure if they offer remote reboot. I ne

  • Personal Colo (Score:5, Informative)

    by miller60 ( 554835 ) on Thursday April 05, 2007 @08:25AM (#18618861) Homepage
    Paul Vixie maintains a directory of services providing personal colo [vix.com] for power users. You might find something there to fit your needs.
    • I have points at the moment but you've already been modded to 5, so I'm just going to take a moment to thank you. That reference is incredibly on-point in my life at the moment and it is, by far, the most informative and useful thing I've ever seen on the subject.

      I can't thank you enough. Bless you.

  • WebHostingTalk.com (Score:2, Informative)

    by pci ( 13339 )
    I'd recommend reading a site like http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ [webhostingtalk.com] since it has forums dedicated to this kind of question.

    Or you could just google for "vps hosting" or "dedicated hosting" and start working through the plethora of results

  • VPSLand (Score:2, Informative)

    by extremescholar ( 714216 )
    VPSLand [vpsland.com] will give you a VPS Linux Box (w/Debian! or something else if you're inclined) or a windows box for fairly cheap. I used mine for a number of things that SBC or AT&T or whatever they are this month won't let me do. Their terms say that you can do anything but run IRC.
    • Why no IRC? It seems interesting that IRC would be the only thing they would disallow. Is there something about the traffic patterns or legality of IRC that would make it a problem? What about a server that does the same function, but isn't specifically IRC?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by amorsen ( 7485 )
        Why no IRC? It seems interesting that IRC would be the only thing they would disallow. Is there something about the traffic patterns or legality of IRC that would make it a problem? What about a server that does the same function, but isn't specifically IRC?

        IRC servers attract DOS attacks. It's better or worse depending on which particular IRC network they connect to, but it's no wonder that the providers find it easier to just blanket ban IRC.
        • i'm not so sure why everyone bans irc clients though. it frustrates the living @#$@ out of me.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amorsen ( 7485 )
            i'm not so sure why everyone bans irc clients though. it frustrates the living @#$@ out of me.

            Same deal -- worries about attacks. Why not run the irc client from home? (Actually I run my IRC client on my server, so I'm one of the weird ones.)

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by mikkelm ( 1000451 )
        IRC is a magnet for DoS. Even smaller networks frequently get hammered by random people for various reasons.

        Another reason is covering their asses legally. If you have someone hosting an IRC server in your facility and a botmaster decides to stop by on that network and herd his zombies from from there, there are pretty much no limits to what a law enforcement agency could take from the facility. Sad but true.
        • Couldn't covering their asses be a problem no matter what type of servers you run? What if you run an FTP Server, Or Bittorrent tracker? There could very well be pirated software on there. I don't think the police are extremely specific as to what boxes get taken as evidence when they're trying to bring one of these sites down. Even worse than IRC could be things like News servers, which contain all kinds of illegal materials. It probably is a situation to do with DOS attacks. You and another poster me
          • It's simply easier to deny IRC. If people want to run IRC servers, there are many easier ways than colo. There are a good number of companies specifically offering IRC server plans out there as it is.

            Most anything can be used for evil in some way, but IRC is just one of those things where it'd be easier to just disallow the whole thing.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Mooga ( 789849 )
              IRC also has a bad reputation in modern times.
              While there are many legal uses for IRC networks, all the main illegal content starts via IRC. Now-a-days most people using IRC are Gamers and Hackers.
              Plus, is there really a need for more IRC servers? Most of the big ones can handle them selfs...
      • A couple people have already said it, but I'll say it again. DoS.

        IRC kids can play very nicely sometimes. When they play rough, they don't hold back on anything. Think netsplit.

        We had some IRC junkies at one place I worked. I was impressed with what the other kids would accomplish. They'd take advantage of any remote exploits they could, just to knock someone they didn't like (for whatever reason) off. Then there's the battles over control of a channel. Read up on "net
  • $70/month, up to 50 hosts, root access.
    details here. [web.com]
  • If you consider Virtual hosting - I use KnownHost [knownhost.com] VPS and really like it - you get full access to a Linux instance (albeit on shared hardware) and it's been very stable, customer service is great too.

  • Linode.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by Smitty825 ( 114634 ) on Thursday April 05, 2007 @08:42AM (#18619013) Homepage Journal
    I'm personally really happy with my Linode [linode.com] For $20/month, I get a UML-based system with 256MB of Ram and a bunch of hard drive space. Granted, it can be a bit slow at times, especially if other users are heavily using your node at the same time. It's perfect for Web/Mail hosting, plus you do have root access, so you can get it to do whatever you want!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rafa ( 491 )
      About VPSs, I use Rosehosting.com [rosehosting.com], and I'm very happy with their service. If you find their google ad, you'll get the monthly fee down to $20. Performance has been fairly good so far.
    • I second this recommendation! I have been with linode for a few years now and other than a few glitches with the data centers where they are hosted, I cant complain. You get a nice web control panel which allows for total control of your vm. And the few times I did need support my tickets were answered promptly. Thanks caker, mikegrb & tasaro!
    • One more happy Linode user. I have the smallest plan available, and in the 2 years I've had it they've upped my memory by 50% and given me 25% more disk space.
    • I'm personally really happy with my Linode.

      I'm yet another happy Linode user. I have two: one for personal use and one that I administrate for my employer.

      I was a Speakeasy subscriber as well, hosting my personal mail server at home. But, when I switched to Verizon FIOS, the additional cost for "business" service (static IP and no port 80/25 blocking) was significant, and I could rent a decent-sized Linode for less.

      I'm actually happier with the off-site hosting, as it's more reliable. And, Linode'

  • They were perfect since 2003, without a glitch. They merged with ev1servers, some support latency problems issued. but it appears that they are fixing these matters. reliable - www.theplanet.com
  • There's lots of hosting providers and I actually work for one. We provide managed servers, unmanaged servers, VPS, and colo services, send me a message if you need more details.

  • linode.com (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I moved all of my server stuff to a virtual linux image at linode.com [linode.com].

    The cheapest plans are under $20/mo. and provide plenty of what I need for a box that hosts light web, email and ssh trafic. Connectivity is good and the customer service is great for such a cheap option. The only thing I had to do was get over the mental block of sharing hardware, but over the years they keep raising the amount of memory and other resources (and not the cost) so it performs pretty well. Their remote management tools a

  • For the important stuff, I use Rackspace [rackspace.com]. Starts at about $300/month for a decently-specced linux/freebsd box. Network, reliability, and support are top-notch. In the case of major problems like hard drive failures (which are going to happen eventually when you have enough boxes for enough time), they have been incredibly responsive and done everything I could have hoped for in order to get me back up and running ASAP.

    For everything else, I use 1and1 [1and1.com]. Starts at about $100/month for a decent linux/freebsd

    • I second 1and1.com. I've had a server there for two years, and I've uptimes approaching 300 days. The only issue I ever had with them was locking out my ssh server, which I fixed via their ssh-console-recovery tools. I'm thinking about leasing a second server.

  • I use RimuHosting [rimuhosting.com]. They are a bit pricey, but they have been unbelievably reliable and their support is actually competent, quick and knowledgeable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eakerin ( 633954 )
      I have used a Rimuhosting VPS for my personal server for over 3 years now, and I've been very happy with the reliability and performance I've gotten (and that was even before they switched to Xen, after the switch performance got even better!)

      I have not used the support staff much, but the few times I've interacted with them they've been knowledgeable and always get stuff done quickly.
  • I highly recommend "John Companies" (http://www.johncompanies.com/ [johncompanies.com]). I had a FreeBSD virtual private server with them for nearly a year. Reasonable price, excellent service, and no outages. With the VPS, you have root inside a FreeBSD jail. You have full control over your jail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rk ( 6314 )

      Seconded. Johncompanies is awesome.

      The virtual servers are responsive, and they provide secondary DNS for as many domains as you want to run off it. Linux server with 10 gigs of disk space (which the base OS doesn't eat due to virtual file system trickiness), 75 Gigs/month, $79 on a month-to-month basis, cheaper if you buy in larger blocks. The FreeBSD is cheaper and if you're hosting an open source project on it, they cut a pretty big discount, too. I've got multiple instances of Drupal and SMF runni

    • I'm also a John Companies customer and am very pleased. I've had 2 other VPS experiences, and I think JC did the best job. They offer email support which is prompt and helpful. They have also gone out of their way on a few occasions to help me with system administration stuff that they really didn't have to do. While I'm at it, I should sing praises to rsync.net, a sister company that does remote file backup space. Having reasonably fast remote backup location has been a godsend...

  • I used cooplabs.net for quite awhile in San Jose and would probably use them again. I paid a little under $100/mo for a 1U rack with 1mbps. They even went out of their way to drive into the colo facilities and check my server when my hardware was toasted (both of my N+1 hot swappable PSUs died at the same damn time!). And when I shipped them a pair of replacements, they had no problem replacing them for me. In fact, I don't think they even charged me for the time and trouble.

    The things I require of a colo a
  • I have been using PowerVPS [powervps.com] for close to two years. In that time, I have not had a price increase, but the specs of my server have gone up. Last year, the hardware node I was on had some stability issues where it would crash every few days. Rather than leave customers on an unstable box, they moved us to a new server with only a few minutes of downtime. When I decided to switch from Fedora as my OS to CentOS, they built a new VPS for me and gave me a week to move. Their Tech Support has been very helpful. Wh
    • I'll second PowerVPS. Been going strong for a year and a half. Oddly, I was part of the Hardware node issue as well and was taken care of without even complaining. Support is usually on top of any questions I have within an hour or two and they're willing to poke around your box to fix weird issues that come about.
    • Third. Of all the companies that I've used over the years to host various services, PowerVPS is the only one that has been both cheap and reliable. I'm currently running several ASP.NET sites from one of their VPS servers. My only complaint is that (at least when I looked) you can't order more RAM. You have to change plans to get a given amount.

      For what I pay, however, having my own server is nice.
  • Honestly? Think about it; Speakeasy made their market and sold their services based upon their "geek friendly" attitude. Now, I know that Best Buy really screwed up Geek Squad... but first of all that was a different business model, and secondly Best Buy are AWARE of how badly they screwed it up and I doubt they want to do it again any time soon. Of course, I get a lot of my business as an independent consultant from small businesses who tried Geek Squad and need someone to clean up the mess, so I'm a littl
    • I'm a Speakeasy customer (both personally and business-wise), and I'm taking a wait-and-see attitude, but I'm on a hair-trigger to move if service tanks. It isn't at all clear to me that Best Buy has learned from the Geek Squad debacle. Best Buy's service, salespeople, and culture are, shall we say, "challenged" (IMHO, they blow dead goats) -- every experience at Best Buy has been suboptimal for me, and I avoid them unless I have no other choice.

      Additionally, as a Fortune 100 company, management must mainta
  • I've had some dedicated servers with Cari.net [cari.net] for about two years now. While I think some of their setup fees are a little excessive for new hardware (it's reasonable for the initial server setup), their monthly costs are reasonable ($60-$100/month for most machines, though they have other options after that), they have pretty decent support, and they'll install any OS you want for a bit extra in the initial setup cost. After just checking their site, it seems if you'd rather pay more monthly in lieu of s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by siberian ( 14177 )
      I use cari.net for 3 dedicated servers and its been quite reasonable. For around $120 a month I get a Core 2 Duo, a gig of ram and pretty ok service. On this I run VMWARE and 4 instances (3 linux, 1 windows) and there is never really a hiccup.

      One of my customers specified their box to be behind Cari's hardware firewall. Turns out in this config Cari charges an extra $50 month for 'multiple MAC' support (ie: VMWARE). We just pulled it from the firewall and all was well with the world.

      So, cari is a nice ,reas

  • They're great. They offer the choice of Linux VMs with RedHat or Debian, or FreeBSD VMs. They also support the open source tools that run their stuff by giving discounts to contributors.

    Even through I am no longer with them (decided I didn't need a full VHost anymore so I am just with dreamhost.com) I highly recommend them.

    http://www.johncompanies.com [johncompanies.com]

    • I found their virtual server platform a bit unstable (unplanned outages happened every 2-3 weeks while I was a customer) and there were tons of changes to /etc files I would have to make..

      Frankly, in a virtual host, I want to set it and forget it, except for security patches. If I have to update config files 2x a week because you're continuously tweaking the system, that's annoying.

      Plus, if they're still charging $75/mo for a Redhat vserver, that's a bit rich.

  • Quality Virtual Hosting (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a satisfied Slicehost [slicehost.com] customer. Their hosting is Xen based, screaming fast, and more affordable than anything else I've seen. They don't do any hand holding, but if you know what you're doing they get out of your way.
  • This is kind of a silly Slashdot question, just given the fact that you're going to get about a million different answers. Regardless, I'll toss in my vote for Superb[1]. I've had a box coloed there for years without any issues. They have given me a surprising amount of help, even going so far as to connect a KVM-over-IP to one of my servers without me even asking for it after they had exhausted their knowledge of the problem.

    Take a look at their network. It is amazingly good:

    http://ns [superb.net]
    • I'm currently not hosting with superb (our company doesn't need alot of boxes in colocation), but when I did, we had great results with them. They were quite tolerant of our idiosyncratic requirements and had very good uptime and response. I'd definitely go with them if I had to rack a few servers. However, I'm not sure if they'd be the best choice for a virtual private server. If you're going dedicated though (not that expensive these days), Superb is an excellent choice.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by meglon ( 1001833 )
      All of the decent Sys.admins have left Superb (apparently wanting to make more than 40k a year as a Unix admin in DC area is a bad thing at Superb/HopOne), and the owner is running half his NOC with no UPS; can get no more power from the building; and is lying to customers about a generator (one that wouldn't power the area he needs power to) being "backordered" when his 100% uptime goes down for extended periods.

      They put the KVM up so you could do it yourself, because it saves them money, and half their
  • I've been using Colo4Jax [colo4jax.com], a Jacksonville, Fla. company run by guys who really know what they're doing. I'm using a $30/mo Ubuntu VPS, but they have dedicated hosting as well as a $20/mo CentOS VPS package. I couldn't be happier with the service. I've also almost zero downtime, and when I've noticed that it was down, one email and about a half-an-hour was all it took to get it back up. Read the blurb on its home page, and I'm sure you'll be delighted.
  • If you can't afford to get a dedicated server ($100+), try a VPS. I've heard fantastic things about http://www.leeware.com/ [leeware.com] , they have rather generous unmanaged packages starting at $15 a month. Essentially it's a dedicated machine with less CPU and memory, but you have root, can install/remove whatever you want, etc.

    There are tons of offers and advice at www.webhostingtalk.com , your question has been asked a million times there already.

  • If you're looking for servers in the NY Metro area I'd recommend www.voxel.net. I've been with Voxel for a few years now, and the experience has been nothing short of stellar. With regard to colocation, they recently opened up another NYC facility just for colocation, and it's sitting on their 10Gbit fiber ring. They don't really have pricing on the site other than their wholesale stuff, but I called and a quick quote yesterday for a half rack and a full rack with 10 amps of power and 10Mbit that was *re

  • Tera-Byte (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've always loved Tera-Byte. A hosting company out of Edmonton, AB, they'll build you a server to taste, or you can send them your own hardware to co-locate. http://web.tera-byte.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=serv ices.colocated [tera-byte.com]
  • Are you looking for something local or do you plan to mail your servers out?

    Fuss & O'Neil Technologies [offsitenow.com] is a good service in CT.

  • Eapps.com [eapps.com] has plans starting at $10 USD a month. What you get is a VPS, with CentOS as the OS. You have root access, and so have full control. They are pretty quick on the Customer Service side, but its rare that you need Customer Service.
  • For a VPS I suggest Slicehost [slicehost.com]. Xen for 20$/month. AJAX-ified management of your account, console access, DNS, great choice of distributions.

    Also a great community on the forums and chat.

  • I'm with GrokThis.net which offers dedicated, colo, and (xen) vps hosting. We also have a no-frills VPS brand, VPS Village. VPS Village offers accounts starting from $5/mo. Prices for a VPS from GrokThis start from $20/mo.

    The difference is that VPS Village lacks the RAID and backups that provides the reliability and assurance that GrokThis.net customers enjoy. GrokThis.net's VPS plans also provide optionally-hosted DNS and email services, useful for customers simply looking to manage their web services.

  • My company does that - Mi-Connect.com [mi-connect.com] - cheap colocation with good service. $49.95 a month with a 400 gig a month transfer limit for a 1u. $89.95 a month for a 4u. I can also do a dedicated server (my equipment, your control) starting at $89.95 a month. And no, I don't do "VSP" type hosting - too much potential for performance hits by having a single "host" getting popular.

    My connectivity is good: 1 gig to level-3, OC-12 (620 meg) to Saavis and OC-3 (155 meg) to UUNet.

  • http://www.layeredtech.com/ [layeredtech.com]

    Rock solid for me. I've got a dual Xeon 2.8 / 2g ram / 2x500g SATA (RAID1). 10mb internet connection with 2(something) terabytes of transfer.

    Check out their specials.

    • They're great aside from their total lack of any sort of decent support... A reload shouldn't take a week and a half, a KVM setup because they fucked the reload up shouldn't take 4 days. They should be monitoring tickets much more actively, I've sent in a reboot ticket with them once that took 3 hours. Basically, they're a bunch of incompetents. I moved all of my stuff over to http://www.softlayer.com/ [softlayer.com] which has a much better support system, much friendlier staff, and much better infrastructure in general.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by robpoe ( 578975 )
        I've not had any of those kinds of things. I ordered on a Friday, got it Monday afternoon. Small technical glitch (which was not a result of their f* up), resolved in a very short time.

        Never needed any more than that. I've heard that it used to be a bit slower, but they're really on the ball to get things looked @..
  • I just started with a company called cari.net and their service has been exemplary so far. I have really enjoyed working with them.

    I was working with a company called valueweb.net and their DNS took a huge hit, and they came out with the statement "DNS is not a guaranteed service" My opinion of them took a hit.

    The cari.net server I just turned up was on an IP address that wasn't on any black lists, but I've been getting bounces like this:
    T=remote_smtp: SMTP error from remote mail server after initial conn
  • Reasonable pricing, pretty reliable.
  • m5hosting.com is great if you don't mind spending $105/mo. Good service, good connectivity, no discernible botnet traffic.

  • Try rackmounted.com [rackmounted.com]. For $50/month, this is what I get:

    Budget Server running Linux / FreeBSD
    1.8 GHz Celeron Processor
    256 MB RAM
    40 GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive(s)
    8 IP Addresses
    200 GB Data Transfer per Month

    I don't think they offer this configuration anymore, it looks like the cheapest now is $64/month. They do offer colocation for $55/month. You can get any flavor of Linux or BSD and they have very competent techs. You can even have them host a mac mini or xserve for you. Checkout their network setup [rackmounted.com] and fac [rackmounted.com]

  • Anyone have a good resource link for larger scale than this question is covering? Looking for several (up to dozens) of cabinets in multiple locations. Must have multiple gigabit internet access links available. Concerned about cooling and power - cabinets will be dense and I understand some colo sites have had problems in those areas. Cabinet, power and bandwidth pricing are important as well. Not so concerned about location (though U.S. to start), remote hands and so on.
  • My website is hosted with linuxvps.org [linuxvps.org]. Gentoo or Debian based vservers. They don't use UML or Xen - they use some paravirtualisation stuff, so you don't have access to kernel functions, and hence no iptables, but it is faster than UML or Xen. And there's always tcpd for restricting access to services via IP.
  • About six months ago I had a dedicated server with Layeredtech. Apparently AOL didn't like some of the posts on a forum I was hosting - so they complained to SAVVIS, calling the forum a "phishing" site. Even the rep who was checking into the complaint saw that it was not a phishing site, and decided to change the complaint to "Other" - filling in "Hacking site" on the report. Now just to clarify, the content they were complaining about was one thread with people discussing social engineering in general,
  • ... but the last time I checked, they were out of space and weren't selling any more virtual servers.
    • yeah its frigging killing me. i'd be reselling the @#$# out of them if they had space. as it is, i cant even expand. :/
  • I'm in the market for some dirt-cheap FreeBSD jail virtual hosts. I want to get each of my kids their own domains for their birthdays this year, with the intent of keeping them for at least until they either leave the nest or decide to get their own domains later on. I found this teaser [articlestree.com] article mentioning the possibility of $3/yr, but I haven't come across anything that I want yet.

    I found a place a few years ago that was like $20 for a year, but I lost the info I had on them. It was a minimal account-b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      I've been thinking of doing the same thing. Try out NearlyFreeSpeech.net [nearlyfreespeech.net]. They are awsome. You get ssh and ftp access and only pay for what you use. I think my domains are about $8 / year, hosting costs me about $1 a month on a busy month. This is more then $3 / year, but it's a really good price IMHO and scales easily. I could easily decrease my costs by turning off my email forwarding and deleting some stuff, their base price is 1 penny / MB stored and $1 per GB transfered each month.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Deagol ( 323173 )
        That's gotta be one of the coolest sites I've ever run across. Thanks a lot for the pointer!
  • Let me add another vote for tektonic.net. I have been using them for a year for my personal mail/web/shoutcast server, and have been very happy.

    I have a plan that they no longer offer (128MB Ram for $8/month).

    The cheapest I've ever seen is vpsvillage.com, where you can get a low-powered VPS for $5. I haven't used them, so I have no idea how good they are.

    Try browsing the VPS forums at webhostingtalk.com, and you'll be able to quickly learn who the players in the game are.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by WoTG ( 610710 )
      Ditto. I've been using a $15/mo VPS (Virtuozzo powered) for a couple years now. Very few problems. FAR better than the shared hosting that I've used before.
  • Have you called around locally?

    I have been colocating my personal server for nine years. At first, it was just a desktop on steroids. When the ISP went from charging by the network port/device to space, I got a 1U server to keep my costs low. (Colos generally bill by the U.)

    In every town I have resided, I went to my phone book and started calling local ISPs. Never have I been disappointed. In every case, the local shop has been less expensive or at least competitive with the national players. Best of all, i
  • I've had a virtual box on Tummy.com for several years now, iirc. It's hard to be sure since it's been so trouble-free. $25/month.

    It's very Linux friendly -- it's the source of Linux Weekly News (lwn) and highly knowledgable if you have questions.
  • I should point out that I run a small VPS company called "guaranteed VPS." It's just starting up, but the premise is simple: I don't oversell boxes, ever. I guarantee all five major resources as either minimums or fixed amounts, and I give details that not many companies seem to give regarding the system's configuration. The prices are cheap, there are good discounts for pre-pay, and the bandwidth is awesome.

    On the downside, it's a two-man operation, and we both have day-jobs, so the tech support is pret
  • I use http://jumpline.com/ [jumpline.com]

    Jumpline provides a virtual dedicated server, their uptime is excellent and the application management system and accessibility is usable to good. The site is way over engineered and quite slow, and its hard to find stuff. Their customer service guys are helpful, mostly.

    Their prices seem reasonable and response times acceptable.
    I like em, and have used em for a couple of years, despite their dumb-ass website.

  • iWeb is great and they're in Montreal.
    Prices are good, i think they'll price match too.
  • Get in touch with us at http://www.omegasphere.net/ [omegasphere.net]. We'd be happy to find something suitable to your needs and budget. In your case we could get you set up with colocation or give you root on hardware that we deal with for you.

    We have extremely low client churn -- we make a point of treating every customer well and providing them with excellent support.
  • I personally use WestHost [westhost.com] for VPS and EasySpeedy [easyspeedy.com] for dedicated, and I am happy from both of them.

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