Soladrive 6 years review from a very happy client

Ive been a customer of KnownHost for over 5 years. As my sites have been growing Ive used several of their different managed VPS and dedicated servers throughout the years. This has given me great insight both into their hardware performance and the customer support for the managed services they provide.

As most website owners know there are the occasional days which are nothing but headaches. Slow loading and watching as traffic drops. Its not fun at the moment but its part of the game. The most recent event was today and that gave me this reminder to take some time out of my day to write this review.

KnownHost is one of the best hosting providers out there which truly look after their customers. Today, as many times previously, they went far and beyond to resolve the issues with my dedicated server and helped boost the performance on my site significantly.

As someone who is not a developer it is truly a great feeling to know that a response from KnownHosts support staff is never but a few minutes away. This might sound too much like a 90s TV commercial, but I cant praise them enough! 5 years and they are still as good as back then (or maybe even better actually).

I highly recommend KnownHost to anyone who is looking for a trustworthy hosting provider with many years of experience in the space and who always puts their customers first.

Thank you KnownHost for being awesome! I will keep on recommending you.

I'm a small business owner and developer since 2003. We have a few dedicated servers, each one with a different host. One of these hosts was sold and the new owner wants us to use a new server in a new location. We are considering switching to another host. This server runs some important client web sites, our own site, and web apps we're developing.

What we're looking for:
- unmanaged bare metal dedicated server, Intel Xeon 4c/8t minimum, 6 or 8 core preferred
- 16GB RAM, 32GB RAM preferred
- 1TB (or 960GB) SSD, 2 x SSD software RAID preferred
- FreeBSD 11 or 12 (our other servers are FreeBSD 11.4)
- $140/month or less (we're paying $130/month now for the current server, no SSD, 16GB)
- US data center, east coast preferred

Obviously we want a decent data center and good customer support but we also want a company who is going to be around for the next 10 years and isn't likely to be bought up by some Wall Street investment firm who doesn't care about the customers of the smaller hosting firms they're purchasing.

Hosts I'm researching:
- Vultr
- OVHcloud (the US branch)
- Linode
- Hivelocity

So far, OVH seems to have the exact hardware, price point, and data center but their billing system worries me.

If you have any experience with these hosts, good or bad, please share. If you work for one of these hosts, I'm open to offers.

thanks,

Robert

On my webhosting journey I started with free hosts (110mb.com) then graduated to Shared hosting ($1.99 oversold?) and then lowend vps to much more expensive vps and finally dedicated servers.

My clients/visitors are from Asia so I was searching for a host with good connectivity in Asia. Servers in asia are expensive so after a little bit of searching I found out that the next best thing is a server hosted in the west coast. That is when I found out about quadranet.com(This is back in 2011). They advertise their network before as the "Asia Optimized Network" so I gave them a try and it was indeed the best network that I tried. Quadranet had the lowest ping that I could get on all the servers that I tried.

My business grew bigger and bigger and I ordered more servers from quadranet. One of services I offer is VPN so it was really cool that they can even accommodate my IP needs. I got a lot of /24s back then (A lot).

5 years later on I started having issues with failing drives on my servers. I still like quadranet even with those hard drive issues but I moved some of my critical services to reliablesite.net because of the hard drive issues (And because their name says reliablesite nah just kidding ).

A bulk of my servers are still hosted at quadranet. I rarely had any issues and if I do need support they really respond fairly quick. When I say I rarely had any issues I mean really rare because most of my servers are running for years without downtime.

Fast forward a few years later, I moved my critical services back to quadranet because I love their service. business has slowed down so I need to cancel some servers because I just don't need them anymore.

And then here comes 2020 and the pandemic. This is the year that it really went bad maybe because of the pandemic and the support engineers are not allowed to visit the DC, I don't know.

But quadranet's network has been really bad. Frequent lost of connection. Q4 of 2020 they had an un-announced maintenance on their network which lasted for hours. They said it was announced but I never received any email so whatever. And then another maintenance. Despite the maintenance network is still.. well "Shi*ty.

I cancelled some servers and move my services to another provider. I still keep some server just because I still trust them.

And network is down again.

I cancelled a few servers again. They even offered me a free 1 month service just to keep the service. which I declined.

And now 2021 network is still spotty. frequent disconnections here and there.

I opened another ticket asking them if there are issues with their network again. And you know what the support did? He rebooted my server without any warning. WTF!!! I mean yeah when you have a problem with your PC and you call for support sometimes they would ask if you turned it on and off already?
But why wont you ask me first if its ok to reboot it.
I can SSH just fine to the server so the server is fine its just the network is having issues. rebooting the server wont fix your network.

And they said it was blah blah blah that their system noticed it is not responding.
I cant copy paste their response anymore because you know what they did?
They fluffing deleted my support ticket.
When I asked why? They said it was a mistake. Really? Their delete button has no confirmation that you want to delete a certain ticket?

I completely lost faith on quadranet now. So I moved some services again and requested a cancellation. And after reviewing my services. I found out that the server that I cancelled which they offered me a free month of which I CLEARLY declined is still there and I got billed this January.

I sent a ticket asking for a refund to a server that I am no longer using which I already asked to be cancelled which they did not. (They can clearly see that on the bandwidth logs)
I believe it is not my fault if they did not cancel it. I mean I asked for a cancellation. They offered a free month. I clearly declined. Now whose fault is it if the server was not cancelled?

Well now I am scared because I am still on the phase of moving my services to another host.
I am afraid because they might just delete my servers and say it was a mistake too. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

So my rating?

Support 2/10 - I am still generous here. because I know they are trying to do it right. Its just not enough
Service 4/10 - I believe I reviewed them before and gave them a 9/10 but it is down now.
Value 3/10 - Prices have stagnated. There are better offers now out there.

Will I recommend them? For non critical services I still might use them but if you want a better service just look elsewhere.

Its like 10 years of hosting and its sad that it must come to an end like this. Thanks to Dustin whose always been there to accommodate my requests at Quadranet before (https://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?u=252125) I dont know what happend but since Dustin was gone it was never been the same at quadranet. Lol maybe just a coincidence or maybe there is a story behind it.

Hi Guys,

I guess they deserve to have this feedback, I've been using wholesaleinternet dedicated servers since 1st of January 2013 over 8 years damn! I am getting old

I used to have dedicated server with expensive providers before I met wholesaleinternet, believe or not I have less problem with wholesaleinternet after I changed from previous dedi provider. I have 0 problem last 5-6 years. These guys knows what they are doing from management to support, they have backup power, backup internet providers etc to maintain servers in good shape.

Price: I don't think you would find better pricing than wholesaleinternet I also have ovh budget dedicated servers close to wholesaleinternet prices they are also good after wholesaleinternet.

Support: When I had dedicated server with expensive service providers, response time of tickets around 2-12 hours. believe or not every time I create ticket with wholesaleinternet they response and make it happen solution nearly in an hour. My last interact was I need to have KVM and they installed within 30min. I have no words with these guys they are not only fast but also proactive.

I used Reliablesite once a few years ago for a long since dead project, this review focuses on my most recent experience, starting in June this year (a 6 month review). We had a few servers with Reliablesite, that have since been moved to another provider who were able to offer better hardware at this price point.

Sales: 8/10
I've only used their sales livechat, which was quick and concise with their replies to most of my questions, more in depth questions I was directed to email sales (although I never followed this up).

Setup: 3/10
I'll preface this by saying that this was during a large sale event, so I imagine they were under heavier than normal demand.

The first problem was "specials" ordered with customisation (eg ports or bandwidth) are provisioned without their upgrades. This means you have to open a ticket and request the installation of a NIC, or chase up bandwidth upgrades so they are properly applied to the account. We encountered problems spanning multiple servers with NICs not working, IPMI not working, OS installs via the panel not working, these issues were mostly resolved quickly, although a couple took longer than I'd have liked.

I would have preferred if the setup of a customised server was delayed and everything delivered working as ordered, but I understand some customers may want everything ASAP even if it's partial (and in some cases, unusable).

The second issue we encountered was with our second order, where we had accidentally used the same hostname as the first during the ordering process. This resulted in confusion on RS' side during the setup process, as it seems they use hostnames to track servers within accounts rather than a numerical ID system, or possibly just human error on their side as well as ours.

The third issue was when we ordered a couple of "Intel special (5000+ score)" servers. One of the servers that was delivered had an 11 year old i7 860 with a score of 2891. Another was an 8 year old i5 3550 scoring 4805.

We explained that the i5 was fine and we didn't care too much about the score, the main issue is the i7 was so old that it lacked AES-NI, which was needed for our use case. One of the techs said they'd look into installing AES-NI (which obviously isn't possible). We requested an exchange with a server that had a CPU with AES-NI, or met the advertised 5000 score.

We were told that the Passmark algorithm was updated a few months ago meaning the i7 860 no longer met the advertised score, a swap wasn't possible so they'd refund the server and update the site. I'm not sure why they couldn't do a swap, as we just turned around and ordered a special with identical RAM/SSD but with a newer Xeon which was the same price. All in all, a lot of hassle, a needless refund and reorder, and they still haven't corrected their site with the correct score.

Support: ??/10
After the turbulent setup experience, we didn't need to contact support once. Obviously this is a very good sign, but as the only actual interaction we had with support was during the above setup period, I don't feel comfortable giving a rating here.

Network: 10/10
No complaints at all, speeds to Europe and across US have been very good. I'd seen no signs of packet loss, no drops, excellent.

Control Panel: 7/10
There's 3 separate control panels, 1 for billing, 1 for tickets, and 1 for managing servers. There is little integration between them visible from the client's side, making it a bit awkward to use. For example, you can't select a service the issue is about on the ticket control panel. The server management panel looks a bit dated but everything is there and functional that I could see, the only missing thing was the ability to edit the server names (which could lead to the confusion seen in the Setup section of the review).

One annoying thing is that RS blocks a lot of ASNs from accessing their site, I assume to block orders from proxies, however these blocks also cover their customer panels, meaning if you're on a VPN (be it a private or public) then you might not be able to manage your services. I understand wanting to block orders from anonymising services, however blocking entire ASNs from even accessing the management panels is a bit of an over reach in my opinion.

Pricing/Value: 7/10
Their specials are good value, although you do have to take into account the aging hardware on their cheaper specials. Their configurable hardware options are a bit pricey and I think could do with revisiting, eg $60/m for a 1TB SSD is a bit much for todays pricing. I'm sure they could work out a better deal if I were to contact their sales though. Their network upgrades are very good value, with cheap 10Gbps ports and bandwidth upgrades, especially during sales events.

Overall, despite the poor setup experience at the start, I'd say our experience was very good overall. I'd certainly use Reliablesite again for other projects in the future, and would recommend them if your use case matches their offerings.

Hello. I just wanna make a review about NetDynamics24.
I was looking around for 1-2 weeks to find a good Dedicated Host and after 10-20 message here on WHT with NetDynamics24 (me being a pain in the ass) I decided to choose them!

I haven't had any problem at all with my server or the customer service at all! I sent a ticket fast about reinstalling my OS quick and the support team responded quick and it was reinstalled fast!

I think I have been using the server for about 1 week and no downtime, quick good support and very friendly

Hello,

I've really strange issue with this careless company called Hetzner,

I've server with them for shared hosting, there was abuse for one site on it and they sent me mail to resolve this abuse in only 1 hour or they will block the service for the main server ip .

I've seen this mail after 2 hours, when all of my clients sites has been stop working , I checked my E-mail and i got this message on junk mail (no problem till now)

Then, I've sent reply to Hetzner abuse department, that i have solved this abused issue and deleted the abuse file from my client hosting site,

They didn't reply me for long hours, and keep blocking my main server ip which makes all my clients sites down !!

After that, i sent message to support, Hetzner support replied me with very strange reply !!

Please note that it's 02:20 CET Saturday morning. So currently there's no one available I regret. Most likely they will be back in office by Monday 08:00 CET.

They want me to wait more than 2 days with server down because they blocked it and went to the weekly vacation !!!

How Hetzner imagine the clients can wait more than 2 days with all sites down ? Could a company that respects its customers block server for 2 days till there employee ends the vacation ?

Do you think that clients can trust you again after making them losing there business ?

What is the regret that your company gives ? Does Hetzner really respect its clients ?

It's very bad experience with Hetzner

I have been hosting my sites on my current hosting company for 7 years. TBH, I am happy with them most of the time.

Since they were sold to another company, the tech support is getting worse. Each time it takes a long time for them to figure out what's going on. They always said the problem is on my side. But it turns out all the issues I complained locate on the server side. I had enough with those offshore tech support.

The second thing is: on my current plan, the server blocked a lot of proxy/Tor access, maybe for anti-spamming or whatever. And host-tacker shows some "HostNotFound" results, which I have not seen it from my friend's sites (we both run the same type of sites). So I lost some traffic as well.

That's why I am thinking to move my sites out.

My site is not big. Currently, I have 2500-3000 unique visits/day, and bandwidth/m is about 700 GB. I am thinking to try a dedicated server plan this time. Then I will have the faster page loading speed, which means better SEO, I guess? Hopefully I can get more traffic and more visits. And I won't get bothered by bad neighbors any more.

I checked a few dedicated plans, can you tell me what these mean? esp WAN uplink and LAN Uplink? Should it be included in total bandwidth?

1,000 Megabit WAN Uplink
1,000 Megabit LAN Uplink
25,000 GB Included Transfer

I read some articles about Dedicated IP vs Shared IP. It seems Dedicated IP is better than Shared IP. But for a small site like mine, do I really need a dedicated server?

I am thinking of mojohost as some friends recommend them. Do they have a coupon or I can negotiate with them for a discount?

Any advises are appreciated.

I tell you my experience.

He tries many times to contact me with the sales sector, to discuss issues according to my needs and I never received any response.

I think they should improve their customer service.

Background
We run a game server hosting company which has been running since 2012. We currently rent roughly 200 dedicated servers from 6 different providers. We currently rent roughly 60 of these dedicated servers from WebNX. We've been with them for just over 7 years and I can safely say that they've been the best datacentre we've used. I know how important reviews are to a company; I feel that we've used WebNX long enough to write an honest review.

Support
We've had our fair share of rubbish support from datacentres in the past. WebNX definitely provides the best support out of all the datacentres we've used. During the past 7 years, I'd say the average response time for a ticket at WebNX was about 10 minutes. We've found the biggest issue with large datacentres is that their support teams are disjointed. This leads to issues which "don't fit the norm" taking a long time to resolve. WebNX is large enough to provide 24/7 365 day support yet small enough to provide genuinely good "straight to the point" support.

Reliability / Uptime
All the datacentres we've used have had some sort of major outage at some point in time. During the 7 years, there have been a couple of network outages at WebNX but the issues have always been resolved quickly along with good communication. Considering the number of servers we have with them, I'd say the uptime is incredibly high.

Hardware
During the past 7 years we've switched our server hardware roughly 4 or 5 times. It's as simple as contacting them letting them know what hardware you like, they provide a reasonably priced quote and in a couple of days, the server is delivered. I'd say on average, broken hardware is resolved in roughly an hour from us opening the ticket.

DDoS Protection
I'd say this is the downside of WebNX. They'll automatically nullroute the IP address if a DDoS attack is detected. The amount of time the IP address is nullrouted depends on how much traffic the attack is sending. It's not really a huge issue for us as we can quickly work out which one of our clients was targeted and then get migrate them over to a DDoS protected IP address. I'm hoping at some stage they'll provide onsite DDoS protection.

Price
They're very reasonably priced considering the support and customisation which they offer.

Network
WebNX's network is top notch. Nothing to complain about at all.

Keep up the great work WebNX! Would be great if you could get another datacentre setup in East Coast USA.