Seeksadmin Blog

DedicatedNow

I have 3 servers here. One Mail server, One backup server and one test server.

Sales - 5/10

Initially before I was a customer sales was really none existant, live chat was never online (even when i was up at late making it working time for them) and emails were replied to in 24 hours, which is pretty slow for me.

However now that I am a client sales has been very good, if I open a ticket asking a question (most of them have been asking for custom setups) they have replied quickly and given me some pretty good deals.

Hardware/Support 6/10

I have never really used the support so this is judged soley on hardware.

For 2 of my servers I have had no hardware problems but on one server I ordered it and within 24 hours I had a hardware failure. Not the most comforting thing. But the hardrive was replaced and the old one mounted as a slave so we could get the data we had uploaded off it. I was relitavely pleased with that.

One thing that I am a bit…dissapointed with is the cost of OS reloads. My test servers costs me $53 per month and an OS reload costs $75 one time. For that reason this test server is the last I get here

Network 10/10

The network has been great. Speeds are good to other places in the US and for me in the UK and there has been no network downtime which is just what i want for my backup servers

Summary 6/10

I still highly recommend these guys to most people because they have a good network and they are making vast improvements to their system. They are a very good budget provider, and are my “budget” provider of choice.

Softlayer

I have been with softlayer for 8 months now and have a total of 7 servers there.

Sales - 10/10

Always the first point of calls when you are trying to get a new server and I can tell you here and now that SoftLayer have the best sales that I have ever had. Even if I just need a backup server with low specs I somehow manage to walk out of the chat with a server about 3 times the specs that I needed/wanted. You may think that this is bad so to speak, but it is amazing sales work.

I usually deal with Amanda and Mary and I think they are amazing. I dont know how many times they have got my server up quicker than they promised or sorted some deal out for me. I think I have something like 3 free hardrives a few gigs of RAM free and one 100mbit port free, they really do cut you a deal.

On the first server I had there they had run out of the spec I wanted, so they gave me a better server for exactly the same price

Hardware/Support - 9/10

Support reply quickly and tickets have been replied to within a few minutes. I have not really submitted anything particullarly taxing, so not sure how good they are at this, although they do have a $3 system admin option which I can imagine is very useful and the reviews off are great.

Hardware has been top quality and apart from once IPMI problem I have had no hardware issues.

Hardware addtions such as RAM, processor or hardrive are done quickly and are scheduled easily which is great. I have had one problem with this and that was not really a big problem. I asked for extra GB of ram to be added on a monday and it was done on a saturday when I was not there. It was done quickly however and no problems and it was investigated afterwards (why it was done earlier).

Network - 8/10

This is the big kicker for everyone it seems, and there is alot of questions being asked about SL’s network. Honestly I have no issues, I am in the UK and the ping I get is as fast as to any other datacenter. The only problem I had was caused by a massive DDOS on the network where the whole DC was done for 40 mins I believe and for that I was credited for next month.

If people are still asking questions about it, SL are planning on adding a lot more providers and I think Global Crossing was planned to be added before christmas (I think i read something about christmas day?)

Summary and Other - 9/10

At the moment Softlayer are by far my favourite provider. Their portal is just stunning, and nothing compares to it, their support is great and the general atomosphere in the community is good. They are definetly my number one datacenter at the moment and I would reccommend them to anyone.