We are currently looking into moving from a Shared environment into a ds environment.

So far we have received offers from 3 companies but I was wondering whether there are better options out there.

Some specs: Entry-level server (i.e. 2.4Ghz,512Ram,80HD), Linux, Apache/Tomcat, mySQL, Firewall
Service is critical: prompt customer service (I hate waiting in a queue for 20 minutes), weekly Tapebackup, monitoring, reasonable HW replacement time --> overall a good service experience is important.

Any posts appreciated.

Well, if you're looking for "low cost", don't expect great service. That having been said, you might want to look into Nocster.com. They have good service and a decent network. Go through a reseller such as MainArea.com or HiyaCorp.com, and you'll pay around $90/month for a P4 2.4 GHz with 512 MB RAM.

If you're willing to shell out a bit more, ServerMatrix.com offers a similar package for around $110/month. ServerMatrix has a better network, although their support isn't quite as good; it may be worth your money to pay an extra $50/month for gold service.

Moving up from there, we've got ServInt, Rackspace, and Clook. Managed service from them starts at around $200/month.

All of these companies offer what you're looking for as add-ons, but only the $200+/month ones offer the majority of them standard.

Originally posted by spida99999
We are currently looking into moving from a Shared environment into a ds environment.

So far we have received offers from 3 companies but I was wondering whether there are better options out there.

Some specs: Entry-level server (i.e. 2.4Ghz,512Ram,80HD), Linux, Apache/Tomcat, mySQL, Firewall
Service is critical: prompt customer service (I hate waiting in a queue for 20 minutes), weekly Tapebackup, monitoring, reasonable HW replacement time --> overall a good service experience is important.

Any posts appreciated. The only place I know of that does affordable tape backups is ServerMatrix, however, for your other requirements, I'd suggest Nocster.com. I've used them for almost 2 years now, and have been extremely happy with their customer service and support. Instead of tape backups, I'd suggest getting remote backup service from TranXactglobal.com (GNAX) - They offer reliable, inexpensive remote backup solutions, and you'll get good transfer speeds from Nocster to them. If you're not going to use 1000GB BW, and you don't mind using up some transfer for backups, that's my recommendation. In my experience, Nocster has been great for replacing failed hardware, even on weekends.

-Josh

EV1 (http://www.ev1servers.net), ServerMatrix (http://www.servermatrix.com), and Nocster (http://www.nocster.net), are all great providers. I've had wonderful personal experience with all three.

Originally posted by Joshua
The only place I know of that does affordable tape backups is ServerMatrix, however, for your other requirements, I'd suggest Nocster.com. I've used them for almost 2 years now, and have been extremely happy with their customer service and support. Instead of tape backups, I'd suggest getting remote backup service from TranXactglobal.com (GNAX) - They offer reliable, inexpensive remote backup solutions, and you'll get good transfer speeds from Nocster to them. If you're not going to use 1000GB BW, and you don't mind using up some transfer for backups, that's my recommendation. In my experience, Nocster has been great for replacing failed hardware, even on weekends.

-Josh

Josh,

From my experience, Nocster doesn't offer any sort of server monitoring or proactive management, for the matter. I think that only Clook.net offers that standard on their servers.

Using a remote FTP account, such as one from TranxactGlobal is a great way to do backups. It's relatively inexpensive ($.50/GB/month), and short of a large-scale natural disaster, your files should be safe.

Originally posted by HostMidwest
Josh,

From my experience, Nocster doesn't offer any sort of server monitoring or proactive management, for the matter. I think that only Clook.net offers that standard on their servers.

Using a remote FTP account, such as one from TranxactGlobal is a great way to do backups. It's relatively inexpensive ($.50/GB/month), and short of a large-scale natural disaster, your files should be safe. Can't find a mention of proactive management anywhere in this thread. Anyway, Nocster does offer server monitoring, and are releasing a new, better system for it shortly. New servers may take a day or two to get into the system, but I've had my server rebooted within 20 minutes of it going down, without having to request it myself. Their new system is much better than the one they're currently using for monitoring, as my server logs show that their system can "spaz" occasionally, and monitor at odd intervals (i.e. 2 minutes apart, then 20 minutes before the next, then back to 5 minutes). It could be that their current system is buggy with the sheer number of servers it has to check, but their new system (NocSoft) is fully developed "in-house" by their own programmers, allowing them to integrate whatever they need. I'm looking forward to seeing the final product.

-Josh