I spoke with Technical Support regarding the validity of the 300GB offer, as well as a few people I know in the back. The reason they increased their bandwidth is because they purchased a few OC3s and placed them in the colo. From my knowledge of OC3 lines, upgrading from DS3 to OC3 (especially if they are OC3-100) most likely added more bandwidth at a cheaper cost (since EV1 owns and runs the network). Thus if this is true, Rackshack may be able to afford giving users 300GB of bandwidth since the cost of bandwidth is cheaper on their part due to the upgrade.

but are they going to give it to the current users as well?

I went to the the support chat room yesterday. They said that the 300GB applies to all customers. This is great news

Yep. If you log into your members area at Rackshack.net, you'll notice that under bandwidth allocation it says 300GB.

Could they also be banking on the fact that alot of users may not use all their bandwidth? Maybe not even use all of the previous 175 gigs.

lj, of course, every host does that. I don't even know how you could use 300 GB of bandwidth on a RaQ...I'm sure it's possible, but could a RaQ even handle that much?

Check out this thread in the Dedicated Server section:

Rackshack CEO responds (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=17688)

Now if only they provided a backup solution... :D

I am all ears for suggestions. We tried the Arkeia backup server and even bought a multi user license for the Server product. After several weeks of trying with Arkeia to make it work, it dies a hopeless failure and no refund from Arkeia.

If you have an idea or suggestion for an automated backup solution, that doesn't cost as much as a private island, send it my way.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net
ram3@ev1.net

headsurfer, I'm sorry to hear about the problems with Arkeia, and IMHO you should be entitled to a refund -- after all, it wasn't "fit for its purpose", and certainly didn't work as implied!

I don't know how workable this is, but here goes:

How about offering Rackshack clients the option of having a second HD installed for backup purposes (from my understanding, mirroring a disk under linux involves just a simple shell command?). Anyway: 20 GB disks shouldn't cost much more than $50, especially when purchased in numbers. If you charge $200, this should cover the cost of installation/maintenance and still earn some revenue.

I look forward to your input.
And thanks for answering. There aren't many CEO's who take the time to read forums. :)

I personally emailed him and he personally replied, EXCELLENT COMPANY!!

Originally posted by avara:
How about offering Rackshack clients the option of having a second HD installed for backup purposes (from my understanding, mirroring a disk under linux involves just a simple shell command?). Anyway: 20 GB disks shouldn't cost much more than $50, especially when purchased in numbers. If you charge $200, this should cover the cost of installation/maintenance and still earn some revenue.

I agree on this one for two reasons.

1. This would provide an easy backup solution that would cost you around $50-60 for each drive. Charging for installation and maintenance, an even $200 would be a good deal.

2. Mirroring a disk on a RaQ4 is easier than just a simple shell command. From what I understand, the RaQ4 features a RAID system which would make mirroring drives even easier. If I'm wrong, then a simple shell command would do :)

Originally posted by Reg
2. Mirroring a disk on a RaQ4 is easier than just a simple shell command. From what I understand, the RaQ4 features a RAID system which would make mirroring drives even easier. If I'm wrong, then a simple shell command would do :)

From what I've read previously, even if you install a second disk, the RaQ 4i does not support RAID. That said, RAID is not a true replacement for backing up on a daily or weekly basis anyway, as changes are made instantly on both disks.

If you want RAID, you need a RAQ4r. I am sure a few simple commands will allow an extra hard drive. But Coablt will not provide support if this is done. You void the warrenty. I really doubt RackShack would like to lose the support from Cobalt to add RAID.


headsurfer, does (Sun) Cobalt have a stake in your company to give you those deals? ;)

Disclaimer:

Sun/Cobalt does not own any stock in Everyones Internet or our parent company nor do they have options to aquire any.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

It's easy to write a perl script to create a tarball archive of the disk, and pipe that into ncftpput to upload to a backup server. Using the --newer switch of the tar command, you can perform incremental backups this way too.

In fact, that's exactly how Dialtone Internet does their backups. It's just a perl script running on a cron job. Their only cost for setting that up is the hardware for the backup server, and the programming time for making the perl script. If you have a good programmer, that could be the way to go. (It's probably cheaper to just buy such a script if it's available, though.)

For restoring files from the backup, a similar script could be used.

If you want to use a second hard drive for backups, it doesn't have to be RAID. It could just be a hard drive mounted normally, with a cron job that copies files over to it. If the second hard drive is larger than the first, then it can store multiple backups.

that any way you add it up, 99$ for 300Gigs just doesnt work.

That is 0.33$ per Gig, and as discussed in several other topics on the General Discussion forum, thats really not possible, wethere its OC-3, or OC-192.

They are obviuosly heavily banking on the fact that the sites that run off their servers wouldnt use 300Gigs (which is a good assumption, 300 gigs is approx 30million impressions).

Throw in the fact that they need to pay off the server, which in itself probably takes quite a few months to pay off at 99$ a month, even with the 250$ Setup Fee.

IF it is possible (i said IF), i wonder how minuscule their profit margins must be.


If they foudn a way to do it, Kudos, i envy you guys.
Rock On

Originally posted by RunOfTheMill
They are obviuosly heavily banking on the fact that the sites that run off their servers wouldnt use 300Gigs (which is a good assumption, 300 gigs is approx 30million impressions).

Not much different than offering general purpose hosting customers 100M of space...when most use less than 5M. Is the 100M of space actually allocated to the customer...or is it just available if they need it?

It's all just a numbers game....some will use it to the limit the majority will not.

headsurfer, what do you think of the "second HD for backup" idea?

First, a disclaimer. I am not a tech. My background is not technical. If I say something technical, it could very well be flat out wrong. With that understanding, here goes!

This afternoon, we installed an "off the shelf" Seagate 30 Gb hard drive in the spare bay in a Cobalt Raq 4i. There is already a spare power cable and drive cable there. Easy enough. (I just watched!)

Raq was booted with no problem. When re-booted, we used the "add storage" from the maintenance screen. It automatically identified the drive, formatted and partitioned it, all with no further user input.

Once the system listed the drive, a user was created on that drive and allowed a designated amount of storage.

Then, from another screen in the GUI, our tech selected the file types to backup, identified the ftp area to send it to (on the new drive), and gave it the user name and password.

All of the above was done from within the GUI. (The Raq GUI)

Then, Patrick went to the command line and forced the backup process to start (normally the backup would not go until the middle of the night).

After the process was finished, we checked the new drive for the backup file. It was there.

For a restore, you would need to download that file to your desktop and start the restore utility (from within the GUI) and select the file to restore from the GUI.

Pretty neat if you ask me. The solution is superior to nothing at all but falls short of having backup on another machine. While it seems workable, it is not the BEST solution available.

I'll have more info for our users in an email over the weekend.

Just like I said, I'm all ears for suggestions. Kudos to avara for the suggestion.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net
ram3@ev1.net

Originally posted by headsurfer
Pretty neat if you ask me. The solution is superior to nothing at all but falls short of having backup on another machine. While it seems workable, it is not the BEST solution available.

I'll have more info for our users in an email over the weekend.

Just like I said, I'm all ears for suggestions. Kudos to avara for the suggestion.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net
ram3@ev1.net

I'm flattered... *blushes* :)

You might also want to look into pmak0's suggestion.

Thanks again for your time.

Originally posted by RunOfTheMill:
That is 0.33$ per Gig, and as discussed in several other topics on the General Discussion forum, thats really not possible, wethere its OC-3, or OC-192.

Oh it's very possible when they own their own ISP and their own network. For a normal host, yeah this would be next to impossible. But, because they own and operate their own network, this gives them an edge, especially since they are using the unused bandwidth from their dialup and DSL accounts.


They are obviuosly heavily banking on the fact that the sites that run off their servers wouldnt use 300Gigs (which is a good assumption, 300 gigs is approx 30million impressions).

That may be true. :)


Throw in the fact that they need to pay off the server, which in itself probably takes quite a few months to pay off at 99$ a month, even with the 250$ Setup Fee.


Not really. See, the servers are already bought and paid for. They buy servers in huge volumes from Cobalt. Thus, they get the best deal for the money. They are not leasing servers.

Not really. See, the servers are already bought and paid for. They buy servers in huge volumes from Cobalt. Thus, they get the best deal for the money. They are not leasing servers.

"On December 22, EV1 made the largest single purchase ever (by an independent North American ISP) from Cobalt. This order consisted of almost 700 Cobalt Raq servers (Totaling over US$ 1,000,000), was shipped complete 12/29/2000, and arrived in our facilities 1/8/2001. "

That comes out to $1428 per server. Sure they have the set up and other pieces to cover more of the cost, but at $99.00/mo, it would take almost 12 months to cover the RAQ if someone didn't pay for extra options.

I bet this deal they got is pretty close to what many others got when Cobalt was doing a ramp up for the Sun buy out. (Host2Own bought 500 for example). Correct me if I am wrong Robert, but you guys had to agree to this large shipment before Dec 31st right?

Oh it's very possible when they own their own ISP and their own network. For a normal host, yeah this would be next to impossible. But, because they own and operate their own network, this gives them an edge, especially since they are using the unused bandwidth from their dialup and DSL accounts.

They do not own their own network backbones. They are not a tier 1. They buy from the same places other colos do. EV1 has a DS3 from Verio (OC3 soon), and OC3 from SAVVIS, and I think they will be upgrading the third pipe to a OC3 soon too. Do you really think they get better deals then like Exodus, Switch and Data, Inflow, etc... for bandwidth?

Also, as a side note, unused for a colo and unused for DSL/ISP is no different. A pipe is a pipe. It can only transfer so much. (all though 155 Mbps is a hell of a lot). It really doesn't matter where the traffic goes (push or pull), it still fills it.

I would love to see what the Cobalt guys are saying about this pricing. I am sure they are not happy since some big guys like RackSpace stopped buying Cobalt (at least this is what I heard and see on their web site). Don't get me wrong, I think it is great. It tells me that any company, no matter how large can be competed against. I just really wish I could fast forward a year. :D

You make very good points.

We are not a Tier 1 Backbone. This is absolutely true. We do, however, own(lease) our own transport network between the 7 colocation facilities we have in Texas. Only one is used for Rackshack.

Again, you are right that we buy from upstream Tier 1s. There is a clarification that needs to be made on the configuration of the pipes.

While an Ethernet can be simplex (BAD) or duplex (GOOD), a DS3 and OC3 go both ways. As a DS3 is 45MBPS, it has 45 MBPS in each way, push to the Internet and Pull from the Internet. This is the way that we essentially get to use both ways of a pipe as opposed to just one way for the typical ISP only. The ISP typicall pulls much more data from the Internet than it pulls and the DS3/OC3 allows the full speed in BOTH directions.

Our very first ever connection for EV1 was with Savvis and it as Ethernet. I had no idea that it was only Simplex and would actually peak out at less than 10 MBPS. A very hard lesson learned. They really nailed us on price to make it Duplex when we were in a bind.

As far as the Cobalt purchase goes, yes, there was a lot of pre-December 31 activity. Let's just leave that at that.

One thing I have noticed is that there are fewer and fewer companies concentrating on the Cobalt platform. Just look at Dialtone's offering for example.

The Cobalt landscape just six to nine months ago was much different. It will continue to change. Hopefully, Rackshack will change along with the market.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

I would love to see what the Cobalt guys are saying about this pricing. I am sure they are not happy since some big guys like RackSpace stopped buying Cobalt (at least this is what I heard and see on their web site). Don't get me wrong, I think it is great. It tells me that any company, no matter how large can be competed against. I just really wish I could fast forward a year.

I agree. I would love to see where the RaQ will stand a year from now. I would love to see how the future of webservers stand from now.

One thing I have noticed is that there are fewer and fewer companies concentrating on the Cobalt platform. Just look at Dialtone's offering for example.

Yeah I have noticed this too. I think the main reason for this is because the RaQ's hardware is slowly becoming outdated and the RaQ's prices are not reflecting this. Let's see, RaQ4i, 450Mhz processor, 256MB ram, 20GIG HD, $1,749. You can get another brand of server with a better processor, more HD space, and an easy to use control panel for the same price or less.

Cobalt tried to compete in the market with the release of the Cobalt RaQ XTR. The 933 MHz powerhouse would have been successful and still CAN be successful... if someone in the back can fix the darn thing. :( I think that if Cobalt comes out with a RaQ5 that is more up to date, yet has the ease of the RaQ's today at a price that's affordable (more affordable I should say), sales on the RaQ will just get better.

I'm glad to see that EV1 may consider moving into other server platforms. You should add a Linux and NT solution with the prices somewhere in the range of your RaQ's prices. This will greatly increase your sales on your part. I would love to find an NT solution for less than $200 (hint hint ;)) .

The RaQ4i, which has an AMD K-6 450MHz processor costs $1,749?! You could get a dual Pentium III for that price!

. I would love to find an NT solution for less than $200 (hint hint ) .

I just don't see the economics on an NT solution at that price. I guess we'll just have to do some more research.

One reason we have stayed with the Cobalt is that we are startingh to understand it. If we go to 2 op systems, even just a linux, we may lose our concentration. I think we owe it to our Raq customers to be the best we possibly can before we try new platforms.

With that said, I have been looking into the Sun Netra 1. Its pricepoint, a little lower than a Cobalt, with better performance, is interesting. I'm just not sure on the software, support, etc.

Is there anyone out there interested in seeing a host with Netra 1s at about the same price as a Raq?

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Personally, I don't have any interest in Netras. I'm a Linux person myself. Real Pentium III servers (especially dual Pentium IIIs) are a lot more powerful. We're getting one from freebsd.efreeservers.com actually; they offer a dual PIII with 200 GB bandwidth for $300 per month.

The disadvantage of PIIIs v.s. RaQs is that they don't have that control panel that non-programmers love so much. (Personally, I think the RaQ4i's control panel runs too slowly... but it does have some nice features, such as allowing virtual host owners to create their own user accounts.) There's Plesk, but I believe the license for that costs $550 per server! Dialtone Internet programmed their own control panel.

Robert , it is pretty cool you take the time to visit.

It will be interesting to see what you will do with these ~1100 RAQ's when they become outdated (shortly for a 450 AMD) and new RAQ's are (if) released. I have heard a few rumors about the Sun Cobalt situation. 1) They will slow the hardware/software solution and move to an all software release like Solaris. Maybe we can update 2's, 3's and 4's so they all have the same OS and migrate to our own boxes. 2) They will scrap the Cobalt model completely. For someone who bought so many RAQ's, do you have any word? Care to share. :D

Yes off topic. But still Cobalt related.

My opionion on the matter.....

The Cobalt Raq was designed to fill a specific need. I believe that this needwas to provide an inexpensive box that was also cheap to operate (low power/ 1 u) and be able to host normal websites, email, etc.

In that purpose, it will be a viable box for many years, at least 3 or more. It won't be the best available, but it will work just like it works, ok with a few bugs, today.

As far as Cobalt/Sun goes, I was once told that the Raq would eventually have Sun processors and the Solaris operating system. I certainly don't know this to be fact and don't know what eventually is time wise.

I can say this ... if Sun put out a box with Sparc processor (s) and the Raq interface, one word WOW! .

While others are dumping Cobalt and not ordering new boxes, we're firmly committed to the Raq platform as we're selling more than we did just a few months ago. When a massive upgrade, other than the XTR, does come along, we'll be right there.

That is just my .02.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

headsurfer,

I too am pleased to see you posting here. I had vowed myself away from WHT, but your presence has brought me back for this post at least. I am a new rackshack customer, that recently had a good/bad experience. I would like to share that experience as a prelude to a suggestion as you seem committed to increasing customer support.

I ordered raq on 8/8/01. It was online in no time, and I was a happy little camper learning my way around the control panel. On 8/9/01, I noticed that I could not ftp to the server. I had yet to attempt to telnet in, so I tried to telnet, no go. I contacted support via the irc chat room at 8:00 pm EST. By 8:10 pm we decided to reboot the server via the control panel. The server refused to come up. A manual reboot was in order. Unfortunately, the one person in the server room had just left for lunch, and would not return for an hour. When he returned it was not 9:30pm EST. Server down for 1.5 hours. He attempted a manual reboot at 9:45pm. Server did not come up. He told me he would try again, but if it did not come up he would have to pull it from the rack to ascertain the problem, and told me it could be back up the next afternoon or possibly the following day. After the 3rd reboot attempt the server still hung on the reboot and did not come back on line. It was now approaching 11:30 EST. Server down for 3.5 hours.

I suggested that they just replace my raq with another rather than me be down (after I had paid the $360+ the day before) for a potential two days. I was told that only someone from customer service could authorize a replacement and that they were all gone for the day and would not return until 9:00 am CST or 10:00 am EST. To me, this was unacceptable. I probably seemed like the customer from hell to the technician and the colo guy that were helping me at the time, but I have a business to run, and the idea of the server being down that long when a replacement was available was unacceptable. To the technicians credit (and many kudo's to Zach) he called a CSR (at home a presume) and got approval for a replacement. I was back online at 12:30 am EST after 4.5 hours of downtime with a new raq.

I am hoping that some of the improvements that you are discussing will include someone available to make these sort of decisions. Fortunately, my raq was new and did not have client domains on it, but if it had, had 200 client domains, a complete overnight downtime could have been very destructive to my business. Zach's proactive behavior in support of me, saved a customer. I already had a letter written to demand a refund with your email address in the to: field :). At the moment I am a happy but apprehensive rackshack customer.

Let me say that I like some of the changes that I am seeing. I like the idea of a support forum, but I would like to see someone with the authority to make judgement decisions in these cases available 24/7. They would not necessarily have to be on site, but at least on call via pager.

I understand that there are customers who break their own servers and then demand replacements. This was pointed out to me by the technical service reps during this incident, but I was new customer that had never as yet been beyond the control panel. I was somewhat angered that I was going to be penalized because of the actions of others.

Again, let me repeat, in the end I feel that the support worked out well, but it took some serious effort from me to get that done.

My only problem now, is that my credit card was charged for the replacement raq, so I have been charged for 2 raq's even though I only have one, but I have an email in to customer service to try and get that resolved. I only noted that this morning, and am sure that will be resolved.

The last thing I would like to see, is lower prices on ip's and possibly a loosening of the ip use policy which is based on an Arin policy that has never went into effect. But that is not a real big deal, it would just be a nice to have.

I would like to see some policies made clearer. I have heard from some of your tech reps that the 1st 8 ip's are free, and then I have seen sales contradict that in the same conversation in irc chat room. It is little things like this that leave new customers a bit in the dark.

Originally posted by Marty
headsurfer,
<snip>
I would like to see some policies made clearer. I have heard from some of your tech reps that the 1st 8 ip's are free, and then I have seen sales contradict that in the same conversation in irc chat room. It is little things like this that leave new customers a bit in the dark.

Yes, better IP policy!! Faster response time for issuing IP's, took me two whole days to get mine. I set quite a few customers up with their own SSL and to do this they need their own IP# They run shopping carts, etc.

I was told, issue one of your IP's to your SSL customer and put other virtuals on that IP.

Well if the non-ssl customer does a IP lookup on thier domain and they happen to punch it in a browser, guess what, I just broke the SSL's customer's privacy. Also this is unproffessional. The IP's I use for non-SSL customers I put a place holder for my own company if they stumble upon the IP # they are assigned to.

When I issue a IP to a customer for SSL, it is theirs and no other domain will use it.

I almost hate to post this response for all the hate mail I am likely to receive but here goes.

I completely understand that our IP policy needs work. We have recently made some changes in order to speed the time for issuance of ip numbers.

As a larger user of Ip addresses, we have a moral and ethical obligation to be good neighbors on the Internet by being as frugal as possible with IP addresses. Yes, this means name based hosting is the order of the day. When it comes to this policy, we practice what we preach. On our virtual customers, we host them on Cobalt Raqs. First it was Raq2s then Raq3s and now it is Raq4is with 512 Mb memory.

As a matter of policy, we require our dedicated Raq users to use name based hosting. Only when they are doing something that REQUIRES a dedicated IP (like anonymous ftp, SSL, etc), do we allow the assignment of dedicated Ip addresses.

By taking this stance now, we can do our part to conserve IP space and possibly prevent ARIn from re-implementing their "Name Based" requirement. Plus, the Cobalts handle name based hosting with no problem.

As far as pricing goes, we WILL be making a change for the better very soon. It will likely come when we make the monitoring change. I have to very careful not to have a pricing policy that encourages the frivilous use of Ip addresses.

When we go back to ARIN for additional Ip addresses, and have to do our justification, we'll be better off for having a responsible policy in place.

With regard to the re-boot and replacement issue, we'll be making changes there by October when we have techs available for re-boots, replacements, etc on a 24/7 basis.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Originally posted by headsurfer
With regard to the re-boot and replacement issue, we'll be making changes there by October when we have techs available for re-boots, replacements, etc on a 24/7 basis.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Yes it does and thank you for responding. This is my primary concern as a customer.

I really don't have problem with restricting IP use. I understand the need to do so. My main concern is the set up fee of $29 for each order. I would likely only request 4 at a time, as I would only use the for sites that require SSL, which isn't that often. My typical thought is to use one for the main domain on the machine, one for my business site (uses SSL), and one for hosting accounts. Then I use 2 for nameservers.

The one thing I don't like though, is that you can only limit bandwidth on the RaQ per ip on vitual site. That make it a little tough to monitor the bandwidth used per site, but then again, maybe I just don't understand the RaQ well enough.

By the way, thank you for addressing these issues in such an open way, and I can't wait for you to open your own support forum.

I completely understand the IP use. I am changing my pricing and policies this weekend. I have a package that gives a IP with my highest package, that will be changing. I am going to set my policy to get a IP, the same way Rackshack's policy is. There will be a addon price to get a IP #, seeing I have to pay extra for the IP, my customer will. Any they will have to justify their needs.

As far as anonymous FTP, I don't really see a complete need for that. They could add a extra username and give that username and password to the public.

You could link like so:
Just an example.

ftp://anon:anon@64.65.2.46/

In a link you use username:password

This is a great alternative to anonymous FTP

Yeah I understand the IP policy too. But, then again I can see what people mean if they are running a webhosting service in which they give people SSL or unique IP's. Hopefully, in the future, there will be an alternative to this. Maybe there will be an upgrade to the RaQ's software which may help in the combat of this.

A 1mb pipe is = to 324Gigs per month, assuming of course, that you can fill it 24/7. Nice sales tactic.

Rackshack is a good host. Just hope that they can keep their 300GB promises and don't kick people out for bandwidth usage...

<<MOD EDIT:>>
Please post actual experiences with a host to justify calling them a 'scam'. This isn't the first time we've had to request you do this. This will however, be the last as the next time, we will unfortunately have to ban you if you continue to make such unsubstantiated posts again.

Is the word 'scam' on sale at K-Mart 4 for $1 this week?
(Retorical question)
<</MOD EDIT>>

B-Broker, you are fighting for a good cause with the ***** issue. However, I would not lose credibility by making a stupid statement about RackShack like you did. Especially if you never even have used them.

I still think their pricing is non sustainable too. However I would love to see it stick as it helps keep the big boys in check. Only time will tell.

Calling them a "Scam".... :confused: :eek:

<<MOD NOTE: Comments have been removed.>>