Rackshack - To Host or Not?

[domainhoster]

I am considering Rackshack after having servers with Catalog for many years. Catalog have provided great service, but Rackshack's pricing looks rather attractive.

Can anyone give advice/suggestions as to the technical support response times, as well as overall performance (bandwidth) that Rackshack provide?

I heard that they use Cogent bandwidth, and am concerned a little about that.

[Robert]

I have a box at Rackshack and that has 1 site on it and here is the uptime:

[admin admin]$ uptime
7:58am up 286 days, 21:05, 1 user, load average: 0.25, 0.20, 0.20
[admin admin]$

Their connection is pretty stable, even with the transformer problems they had a few weeks ago.

What I'm trying to say is, if you are familiar with servers and how to configure and maintain them, how to secure them and keep them running, then Rackshack would be a good value. Their support is 2nd to none as they offer telephone, email, forums and live chat support.

I say you wouldn't be doing a bad thing by going with them!

[domainhoster]

Thanks for your comments. On occassions my existing provider, Catalog, has SSH'ed to the server and fixed some unix problems. They have always been helpful and prompt in addressing all of my support needs.

Is this the type of support I can expect from Rackshack? Should I need a support rep to log into my server to fix a problem, are they willing to deal with these types of issues?

[Robert]

Check out this post from a WHT member regarding his "indepth review", plus comments from Robert Marsh, the one of the owners of Rackshack.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=170825

[projo]

I have two servers and have found connectivity and trouble-ticket responses very quick. However the servers are provided unmanaged. If you mess things up beyond repair a reinstall is only about $35. I had 3 reinstalls in two weeks when I first started. A reinstall is quicker than it sounds. It is really a harddrive swapout. I understand they will move your original HD over to second position for maybe a week to give you access, if you need it and request it (don't think there is a charge for that).

You do pay Texas taxes on everything.
Gary

[Chet]

James, your post is inaccurate.

<<MOD NOTE: That post slipped by us. It has been removed. Only *actual* experiences from *actual* clients (or ex-clients) should be posted.>>

I have had an RS tech ssh into one of my servers on numerous occasions. While they say the servers are unmanaged, they have often gone well beyond their scope of promised support to help with an issue and have never left us dry. Reboots happen within minutes, other support varies.

Also they do not use Cogent bandwidth except for the unmetered boxes. Their network is rock solid.

We have over 10 servers with RS and have hosted there over a year and are 100% happy with our choice. I would suggest you check people who have actually hosted with RS, and not rely on rumors created by people who heard something from someone about some stuff. Because I will tell you now, you will hear - "my friend said, to fix his dns entry, they re-imaged his drive." BS.

Chet

[beley]

I have been very pleased with my RS server... but remember it's un-managed. They will do a lot to help you but in the end if it's a software issue they have no obligation to fix the problem.

[Flohost | Loren]

I agree with the rest of the people, Rackshack has some awesome services. I wouldn't recomend it if your trying to resell the servers because of RS not offring a SLA agreement at this time. But there network seems to be up 100% of the time.

[StLHosting]

Im not crazy about their tech support ive had multiple problems that I ended up fixed on my own after their attempts at trying. But as far as their network up time, not had one single problem.

[vivehosting.com]

it's unmanaged... the fact that they attempted to help is going out of their way.

[StLHosting]

Im aware its unmanaged but still if their gonna help thats great I appreciate it, but atleast know what your doing lol

[cbunting]

Hello All,
In the past, we had some Rackshack clients come to us after wanting to add windows hosting. Eventually, We helped manage many of the Plesk and Ensim servers and this took place before Ensim Pro and cPanel came into the picture. Rackshack seems to be stable but you really have to watch what you need support for and really read thier legal docs. We had clients who only had a $99.00 per month server with Rackshack for 6 months and already, thier credit cards were charged over $1000.00. Rackshack isn't for the beginner or the kind of person who orders servers without reading the fine print.

Just watch yourself and watch what you ask for support on before you actually submit that ticket.

Regards,
Chris Bunting

[beley]

Very true... I'll second the post above. If you don't know how to take care of your own server, don't choose RackShack.

I just wanted to note that RackShack has some windows server 2003 servers for $99 right now... with $1 setup. If 'ya need a windows server that's a great price. You can get it with or without Ensim.

[Chicken]

That is quite low. The other day I called Robert (something I actually hadn't done before), to talk about some other things, and mentioned the Windows servers. He seemed rather pleased with the Windows server sales. At $99, I can see why. Pretty darn inexpensive.

[cbunting]

Hello Chicken,
I was not trying to put RS down. I have however heard about various bad experiences with them but that is based normally on the users and doesn't actually reflect the company/host.

$99.00 per month is cheap but look at the options. Win2K3 is a beginner OS and for Rackshack with a monthly gross totaling what they do, 10,000 servers x's /$79.00 at the least... Cough...

Windows 2003 Web Edition doesn't support SQL, Windows Media, terminal server, internet connection firewall, can't be a domain controller, and supports only 1 vpn connection..

With the money Rackshack pulls in monthly, They could at least offer Windows 2000 or 2003 and not the $15.00 per month leased versions of Win2K3. Everything seems cheap about thier servers other than all of the extra costs included in the members section. Last I heard about IP's were $25.00 setup for with a 7 IP limit Max @ $1.00 per month per IP? We all know Ip's don't have these limits and fees are yearly. These are thier choices to get to to buy more servers. EG: You host 7 ecommerce sites with 7 SSL certs. You have to buy another server to host 7 more.

Regards,
Chris

[xerocity.com]

Originally posted by cbunting:
Last I heard about IP's were $25.00 setup for with a 7 IP limit Max @ $1.00 per month per IP? We all know Ip's don't have these limits and fees are yearly. These are thier choices to get to to buy more servers. EG: You host 7 ecommerce sites with 7 SSL certs. You have to buy another server to host 7 more.

Regards,
Chris

Unfortunately, the above statement is not completely true.

The fees are correct however we recently added 15 IP's to one of our servers and they had no problems doing so (the server now has a total of 16 IP's allocated to it). It is my understanding that they do not have limits to the amount of IP's that they have (based on my experiences with them), however I have heard of 32 as being the limit from more than one person. I will confirm it with them and post it here.

[Linkin]

Yes, I believe 32 is the max although I could not find anything stating that on their site. We were going to order our last windows server from RS but didn't want the 2003 Web Edition so we went with the planet to get the 2003 standard. We will get a RS server when they release Helm though.

If you know how to manage a box, RS is great. If not, either buy elsewhere or hire someone to manage the box for you. Simply knowing WHM is no where near knowing how to admin a box, and I think some people don't realize that, go to RS and buy a $99 box only to have it crash.

[xerocity.com]

Originally posted by Linkin:

Yes, I believe 32 is the max although I could not find anything stating that on their site. We were going to order our last windows server from RS but didn't want the 2003 Web Edition so we went with the planet to get the 2003 standard. We will get a RS server when they release Helm though.

If you know how to manage a box, RS is great. If not, either buy elsewhere or hire someone to manage the box for you. Simply knowing WHM is no where near knowing how to admin a box, and I think some people don't realize that, go to RS and buy a $99 box only to have it crash.

They also sell the Std. Edition and Helm.

http://www.rackshack.net/english/win_series.asp

See all the way at the bottom of the page. I do think that these were a recent addition to their line up though. They are currently out of them.

Also, I still haven't gotten a response from them about the IP's.

[Operator]

Originally posted by Linkin:

Yes, I believe 32 is the max although I could not find anything stating that on their site. We were going to order our last windows server from RS but didn't want the 2003 Web Edition so we went with the planet to get the 2003 standard. We will get a RS server when they release Helm though.

If you know how to manage a box, RS is great. If not, either buy elsewhere or hire someone to manage the box for you. Simply knowing WHM is no where near knowing how to admin a box, and I think some people don't realize that, go to RS and buy a $99 box only to have it crash.

You can request your first seven IPs from Rackshack -- free. The setup is waived too I believe.

:p:

[xerocity.com]

Originally posted by Operator:

You can request your first seven IPs from Rackshack -- free. The setup is waived too I believe.

:p:

It's things like that that they need to let their users know are available. I didn't know that they did that.

[Linkin]

Originally posted by xerocity.com:

They also sell the Std. Edition and Helm.

http://www.rackshack.net/english/win_series.asp

See all the way at the bottom of the page. I do think that these were a recent addition to their line up though. They are currently out of them.

Also, I still haven't gotten a response from them about the IP's.

You cannot run out of something you've never had ;)

They have not released Helm yet. It was slated for late last week, but appears to have been delayed. Domain purchases were delayed until this Tuesday as well.

As for the IP's, I know about the 7, but is there still a total limit of 32 per server?

[hostdime]

For the love of god do not use Rackshack. We use WHMAP, and have instant activation. We review the orders, but cant always trap fraud. Someone published an E-Bay scam and Rackshack emailed me, I got it the second they emailed, they said I had 2 hours or the server would be pulled. I was in the process of deleting the account, and they pulled it. They're idiots, and their billing system is that well, It just double billed us today for a Ram upgrade. We reuqested a PRIORITY upgrade( done within 2 hours ) It took 3 hours to start, then those idiots forgot to release Iptables, and they had everyone out of the Ev1 LAN couldnt get in. We for these reasons are cancelling all our Dual Xeon 1GB servers. Hope it was worth it Head surfer.

<<MOD NOTE: The private problems you have on WHT is not related to this thread, please take it up with the mods there.>>

[etecc]

Rackshack... they are the Microsoft of the server industry. I would recommend to stay away from them.

[xerocity.com]

Originally posted by xerocity.com:

Unfortunately, the above statement is not completely true.

The fees are correct however we recently added 15 IP's to one of our servers and they had no problems doing so (the server now has a total of 16 IP's allocated to it). It is my understanding that they do not have limits to the amount of IP's that they have (based on my experiences with them), however I have heard of 32 as being the limit from more than one person. I will confirm it with them and post it here.

I did get a reply from them a while ago, they said that you can add 31 IP's to any server (for a total of 32) but you may have to justify them.

Sorry I never posted it until now.

[Spencer]

I know this is a fairly old thread, but I'll just reply to the question at hand. RackShack is the best. The ONLY drawback is that if you want anything other than a reboot, a reinstall, or extra IPs, you're going to have to do it yourself.

[prowebuk]

We have a few servers with them and never had a problem, 99.9%+ network uptime since starting with them a good few months back, not seen a power failure where servers have gone down since using them, average ticket response times although, live support is 24/7 which makes up for that, now theres instant server setup.

Other good comments about RS:

- some software very cheap - urchin for $1!!
- restores very quick - we ordered a normal restore on a test box and everything was restored and our previous HD put as slave drive all in less than 1 hour.
- They go more than out of their way with support.. cant fault them one bit for the time and effor they put into doing things which they are no obligation to do.
- reboots i have yet to see take longer than 5 minutes

the downsides
- limit of 32IPs per server, although that should be more than eniough if you use them wisely ;)
- you need to make sure nothing on the server is not breaking the RS TOS and / or AUP agreements, this is something that should be obvious, but dont forget clients can break the TOS aswell, the best way to make sure your ok here is to do regular checks throughout the server.
- Not required to provide any support for software, you wipe your hard drive, its your fault, you break software, its your fault, you install software that breaks the server, you pay for the restore. RS only have to do anything when there is a hardware fault or they caused the damage. If you dont know how to manage a server, either buy a managed server package or purchase a server and hire a server administrator.
- Upgrades, not had any bad experience with this, although heared from a few that they often do damage here.... I would recommend make a backup before anything like this anyway and if something does go wrong, you have to hope they will get it sorted quickly..... i trust RS in that way ;)