Server choice help?

[Ross]

Right now I'm looking for a custom dedicated solution. I'm looking for one rent-to-own server and a standard dedicated rental. I have narrowed my choice down to a couple of providers and would appreciate any feedback that their customers could give me.

Rent-to-own server:
www.rusko.us
www.ethr.net
www.superbservers.net
www.ezzi.net

Standard dedicated:
www.tailoredservers.com
www.ezzi.net
www.servermatrix.com
www.gnax.net

[alex042]

What exactly are you looking for in a server? What are your support expectations? Are you looking for non, semi, or fully managed?

I can give you some input based on my experience with servermatrix. I'd put them in the semi-managed category. Their free management plan is basically patches with most of the administration falling on the customer. Their network has had a few periodic outages, but they're probably running close to their SLA of 99.9%. They've got some pretty good deals on the hardware themselves for low to mid servers if you get one of the pre-packaged deals, but prices can quickly increase if you start adding on things. Most, if not all, of their dedicated line is towers and not rack-mounted. Although we haven't had to interact with their support that often, from what I can tell, a majority of the servermatrix customers seem fairly pleased. From my support responses, I'd place most of the support around level 2 support. If they feel something requires level 3 support, they'll typically tack on a charge. Their 24/7 2 ring SLA is especially nice in an emergency if you can't wait a few hours for a ticket response.

[Ross]

I don't really use support so unmanaged is best for me. I'm just looking for decent speeds and great uptime.

[alex042]

Although they did have 1 big outage across multiple segments that lasted sporatically for several hours 1 afternoon last year and a couple of minor instances on certain segments since then, their speeds and uptime are 'usually' pretty good. And even though they have limited piping through theplanet's datacenter, theplanets multiple bandwidth options give the servermatrix branch an overall reasonable speed and uptime. Also, servers have the option to upgrade from 10bt to 100mb if you think you might need large data bursts.

[Felix]

www.ServerMatrix.com -> Superb network, wonderful to do business with. :D

As for the rent to own servers, do you plan to colocated the box with company you're renting it from? Or do you want your toy box to come in the mail after X amount of months? :p:

[Felix]

So really, leasing it would be a cheaper solution. If he's paying 230.00/m for the space/bandwidth when he could lease it for "cheaper" directly through Server Matrix.

[megri]

We will recomment to go with www.ServerMatrix.com we have fine there prices are very resonable and there basic support and uptime is also as they mentioned on there site