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Ask HN: recommended dedicated server provider

18 points by s3graham ↗ HN
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?

19 comments

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lionheart
I, personally, have a dedicated server from HostGator. They don't tend to be very popular in in HN circles, but I've had a great experience with them.

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.

s3graham
Thanks for the suggestion. I'd prefer simple unmanaged rather than panels, etc.
holdenc
I am a hostgator dedicated customer too, and overall am happy. Here's some feedback on them.

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.

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s3graham
'Nitro' looks like the only dedicated they have? It's pretty pricey, though it does look like the hardware might justify that.
ahi
I suspect this might have been a recommendation for Media Temple. If that is the case "run away! run away! run away!" I had a "dedicated virtual" with them for about a year, a year too long. Clueless support which was a problem since their systems kept crapping out.
benologist
I have a couple with http://www.hivelocity.com/ that I throw a constant ton of traffic at.

As a bonus they have this guy there Dave who is absolutely awesome if you can get him on your MSN/whatever IM.

s3graham
Looks promising, thanks for the pointer.
benologist
If you go with them let me know, I'll pass on Dave's MSN addy ... it's insanely valuable having a direct line of contact.

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.

staunch
I'm using http://joesdatacenter.com/ because it's the best price:power ratio I've found under $100/mo. I've got a dual core/4GB/1500GB for $79/mo.

I've been using them for ~9 months with just one or two minor hiccups.

s3graham
Those do look like pretty good deals. Like the name too. :)

What "hiccups" did you have?

staunch
Two network outages that were both short. I've opened tickets for those problems and for some misc questions. They've been extremely quick in answering.
elliottcarlson
leeware.com is amazing in price, 100% hands off self managed dedicated hosting in bulk rentals only though. Not sure if I would recommend them for production ready servers though - great if you want a development environment, additional temporary memcache or anything you may not need 100% of the time. Currently manage 5 machines there. Don't expect support from leeware, which is more than fine for the price and the quality of servers.

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?

_b8r0
If you're looking for something flexible, powerful and straight up good, http://www.goscomb.net/ gets my vote.

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.

wtao
from all aspects, softlayer would be my choices.
matthewphiong
Try 100tb (formerly known as 10tb) http://www.100tb.com/

I was with them for a while and they are rock solid. Servers are hosted at Softlayer datacenters.

dav-id
I have a root server with http://www.hetzner.de/en/ it is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Web and is extremely quick and located in the EU so much lower latency for the people who visit it compared with one in the US - mainly people based in countries in the EU and Asia.