Ask HN: recommended dedicated server provider
Hi
With various levels of virtualization taking over, dedicated servers seem to be on the wane (or at least less talked about).
Can anyone recommend a favourite dedicated, real-metal server provider?
With various levels of virtualization taking over, dedicated servers seem to be on the wane (or at least less talked about).
Can anyone recommend a favourite dedicated, real-metal server provider?
OLM.net has also been good and extremely reliable - I recommend them for cheap self managed hosting for production level service. I manage 18 machines there. Annoyed by their billing practices (need to sign and fax a document each time you set up a new server to authorize the CC, and the same when you change the CC you are using).
servint.net has the best support and are extremely reliable. I have used them for nearly 10 years however they are the priciest of the three so sadly am slowly phasing them out. I currently run 4 servers there. Did I mention I LOVE their support?
Not the cheapest, but definitely one of the best. We used them for a dedicated pen testing server, and when you're running port scans and exploits across the Internet they were surprisingly trouble free (other hosting providers had their IDS' go off, had filtering for various ports or would just randomly shut our systems down for 'hacking', despite us telling them what they were being used for.
We've replaced it with a beefier office link and a smaller VPS (also from Goscomb). Goscomb are UK-based, so you might find that it's less suitable for Asia-Pacific users due to latency.
I've been using them for ~9 months with just one or two minor hiccups.
What "hiccups" did you have?
Support is very fast and very helpful. They have even installed some software on the server that I was not able to, within hours of my request. And I've had bascially 0 downtime in the 4 years that I have been using them.
That said, I am right now looking to switch over to a virtualized host because I want to learn more about server management. But if you don't want to deal with that, then HostGator is a great solution.
Downside:
- You pay the same price for your hardware every year even though that same hardware gradually gets cheaper for new customers.
- I pay $50 a month extra for a RAID 1 controller. This seems pretty steep, although I guess I'll find out the true value of this once a disk dies.
The good:
- Hostgator is a down-to-earth company with pretty good customer service. They aren't trying to re-invent the hosting business model to reap giant returns. They do the basics and seem to have enough competent help to do this well.
- Several years ago I had shared hostgator server get hacked via an insecure wordpress install. Hostgator automatically alerted me to this.
As a bonus they have this guy there Dave who is absolutely awesome if you can get him on your MSN/whatever IM.
Or just put "Dave" in the how you heard about them field, he'll probably contact you just from that.
To really put into perspective how useful it is - a while back this crazy little game caused a million+ people to connect to my servers simultaneously. Dave has his own big-ass server and within an hour or so had a few VPS's deployed for me to carry the slack.
I was with them for a while and they are rock solid. Servers are hosted at Softlayer datacenters.
http://www.nocster.net/sale.shtml
You can get a quad-core, with 8GB of RAM and 1TB of disk for less than $100.