Is rackshack.net good or bad company to deal w/? Is there priceing good? Has anybody had any problems w/ them?

Thank you

You have searched the forum, right? http://www.webhostingtalk.com/search.php?s=

Originally posted by wpayton71
Is rackshack.net good or bad company to deal w/? Is there priceing good? Has anybody had any problems w/ them?

Thank you Good, 2800 servers and rising, about 99.+ percent of them quite happily. You'll read messages from some who will try to convince you that the place is a chicken coop staffed by complete slobbering idiots..

You'll read many posts by people who vary between estatic about the pricing and bandwidth and/or quite happy they have gotten what they paid for.. An operational server in a very well air conditioned, secure, well connected network data center..

I am a happy RackShack customer not in any way affiliated with, nor receiving any compensation for my continous support of the guy who gets kicked...

Did I mention that I get really tired of HOST BASHING?

Shortnot

It depends on your needs. They didn't meet my needs. Also, after trying some other providers, RackShack is not as bad as some people claim it is, but they're just not for me.

We are a webhosting company w/ about 600 clients. Who would u recommend? :confused: IM w/ dialtone right now and they are killin me. We have been having problems w/ servers for the past a week and a half now and they still cant find the problem. They also throw charges on our creditcard w/ out authorizing them. :mad:

That couldn't be the same ToastyX I've seen before... nah... no way... or is it?

If you're the same Powerlord I've seen before on IRC, then yes, it's me!

RackShack is an unmanaged hosting service. If you have never administered a server before - brace yourself. :)

Their service is generally good, though tech support can be terribly bad or exceptionally good depending on the cycle of the moon.

If you want to host a mission-critical operation, however, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

Good luck,

Leo.

Originally posted by leonardteo
Their service is generally good, though tech support can be terribly bad or exceptionally good depending on the cycle of the moon.

If you want to host a mission-critical operation, however, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.
I'm glad to say that this is simply no longer true. It might have been the scenario during the 3rd Q of 2001, but they've moved to a new data center, and now have 24 hour on location support. More support staff have been recruited as well.
RackShack is an unmanaged hosting service. If you have never administered a server before - brace yourself. Most of the managed solutions come with a price premium - it might be worth your while to make use of somebody that can help you with part-time system administration (*wink*) until such time that you've learned how to do it yourself.

I am a current Rackshack user and so far they have been pretty good. I do have an issue late at night here right now at like 1245am and am trying to get it resolved via IRC and trouble tickets. Its taking a while because there is only one tech in the DC data center right now so I suppose ill just be patient.

As far as support goes its patchy but they try. No - comments about them so far. I would however like to have seen a detailed new customer letter go out which explains the rackshack process and FAQ's. I was lost when starting out with them and thier network. Thats just my 2 cents.

For what rackshack charges they have amazing service. Many people forget that dedicated does not mean managed and start assuming that their host should help them with general linux questions such as how to install a perl script, thats not what rackshack offers, if thats what you need, get a managed server. I've worked with many clients who have rackshack servers and have never had a proble... the connection is pretty good, the servers are solid and thats what people ar epaying for.

well there probably better than dialtone. Thanks for the help guys. I greatly appreciate it! Sorry it took so long to reply back!

You think RackShack is better than Dialtone? I've always heard Dialtone was one of the best hosts around...

What are we comparing? I don't think we can even compare these two companies, as one is managed and one isn't. If you're comparing the network, then I think Rackshack are not far from Dialtone. The support side of things jusy can't be compared, full stop.

Rackshack's network is very good I think, their lines going out are always up, they went down last time, but only one or two, so the other lines they had backed it all up, so they still had 100% uptime. People are complaining that they don't have good uptime because they are managing their server wrong or they don't have the experience to keep their server online. If you kept your server up 100%, ignoring hardward problems, then you'll probably get 100%.

Alan

If you're comparing the network, then I think Rackshack are not far from Dialtone. Actually, I think Dialtone has a much better network than RS. It's got better providers, set-up a little better for redundancy, quicker and more mature.

I disagree with that you should go with RackShack.

I was terribly let down with their service. For example, if you want to do anything via CMI, the software (ensim - which I'm not a fan of) will mess up.

Their support was so-so?

RS-Support > You need to change x in apache's conf file from the command line in order to fix it.

Xnet > Okay, can you walk me through it

RS-Support > We don't support that.

Prepare to walk blindfolded if you need to do anything. Thank god I know linux pretty well.

I've never been a fan of quasi-OS's (SP?) like Ensim or Plesk - I'd much rather use interfaces like Webmin or Cpanel. Give me more control.

But the decision is yours :)
I just wouldn't go with them.

I'm beginning to reconsider RackShack. I've tried a couple of other providers, and I'm even less satisfied and more frustrated. I'm not really a fan of Plesk, but I can deal with it. I tried the Ensim demo and don't like the interface, and I've read quite a few things about Ensim breaking things. I don't need a managed server. Their support is more than sufficient for me. Their network is not as fast as other providers, but at least the price reflects it. They don't provide everything I'm looking for, but at least they give you everything they promise, even the no-refund policy. :(

With all due respect........

and in my humble opinion ......

Our network is as fast as nearly anyone and we certainly have more capacity that just about anyone including Rackspace which has a reported just over 1 Gig actual capacity. (but less than 1.5 Gig)

Plus, with most other providers they say we have this and that but will not show you their actual graphs. Even when we were having trouble, we left the graphs up.

Plus, we now have just turned up a Gig-e to Verio to add to our Oc3 that we already have to Verio.

So, that's three Gig-e circuits plus 2 OC3s and a Ds3 for goo measure. Who can up that one?

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Just a quick point (please don't take this as a slam as it's not) but quantity does not equal quality.

I have to put my 2 cents in...and say that RackShack uptime is great. I haven't had any major uptime with them...the most i've had is a few minutes...which compared to my old host is excellent.(Exhost = ***** reseller)
Quantity does not equal quality, however RS has been able to maintain quality services...even though they have 2800 servers.

Xnet > Okay, can you walk me through it

RS-Support > We don't support that.

Prepare to walk blindfolded if you need to do anything. Thank god I know linux pretty well.

I've never been a fan of quasi-OS's (SP?) like Ensim or Plesk - I'd much rather use interfaces like Webmin or Cpanel. Give me more control.

If you've never been a fan of quasi-OS's, why did you lease a machine with a quasi-OS?

You did realize you were leasing an un-managed server, meaning you need to administer it yourself, or hire an admin. Why would you ask for a walk-through?


My opinion, if you can handle unix systems administration, and don't mind dealing with the Plesk, Ensim or a Cobalt GUI with all their quirks (those have nothing to do with RS), RackShack is awsome. Their support for unmanaged servers is good too, any time I've had problems, they've given me excellent support.

If you need hand holding and walk-throughs, find a place (RackSpace maybe) that will do it for you. But you will pay $$$ for that kind of service.

Well...im not to good with linux, but by hanging out in the 24 hr support chat, i've learned alot, from the support team and other members. From the support team you will here alot of 'that's not supported' and alot of times they will recommend a restore when one's not needed...however for a 100 bux a month I could care less. Plus RS isnt the place to recieve handholding as driverdave put it...Rs hosts dedicated servers, not managed dedicated..

Argh, why'd headsurfer have to reply. I didn't mention that I just pinged and downloaded from someone else's RackShack server, and they're getting MUCH better ping times and transfer rates than my server did. If my server had ping times and transfer rates like those, I would have been more than happy. Now I feel like I got screwed, because this is one of the main reasons I closed my account and demanded a refund, but they wouldn't give me a refund. I'm seriously reconsidering them, but I'd have to pay the setup fees all over again. If headsurfer hadn't replied, I might have been willing to do that, but now that he did, I feel like I must bring the issue up to him. I just private messaged him, but I get a feeling I won't be getting a reply. I'm so frustrated. :bawling:

I just had to post to this thread, to defend Rackshack. I've been a happy customer, even though I've only been with them for two weeks. I was used to using Webmin on a dedicated server, but then I decided to choose Ensim over Plesk, which I liked. Everything will work fine if you know what you're doing and you don't need RS tech support to tell you every command or to give you instructions for everything.

I've only used support for requesting additional IPs and also a few other problems with the account, which were dealt with in a good manner. After this, I would think that I will no longer require tech support at RS, well maybe a question or two a month, but that'll be it, I'll just be managing the server myself.

Rackshack are certainly heading towards something good, they're now hosting at least 3,000 servers by now, with good connectivity (as HS mentioned, a new GB link to Verio has just been turned on, making THREE GB links + other smaller links) and redundancy. Also, don't forget that Rackshack is a profitable company, and they also will have financial backing from their parent company, Ev1.net.

Alan

So the conclusion is Rackshack is not bad (I am not saying they are good ), they give you what they sell you, a dedicated server, they dont sell you a managed server so dont expect that :)

Originally posted by ho247
... Rackshack are certainly heading towards something good, they're now hosting at least 3,000 servers by now...

Darn, they must have made at least some profit with 3000x99 = about $300,000 / month, not including setup fee and many other higher montly machines. Hence for the fee to maintain the whole facility, connection, sysadmin's salary, security etc. I bet that they at least making some profit.

As long as they are making profit, they are alive, and both sides happy :).

OK .....

3250 is the actual number and growing every day. The national ads have just started kicking in and our daily run rate is approaching 30 servers per day.

To Rackmy's comment: we run a VERY good network. We have good providers. Some "gooder" than others. Could there be a better network out there somewhere? Quite possibly. That does not take away from the fact that we run a VERY good network. The fact that a Mercedes S55 is not the fastest sedan available mean I shoudn;t buy it or that it isn;t darn good or great?

Even when you through Cogent into the mix, Cogent has consistently improved month over month and they represent a ever decreasing percentage of our capacity.

To ToastyX: Our no refunds policy is well known and you must click to agree to the policy when you order a server. We simply do not make exceptions to this rule. It is intended to discourage the merely curious and allow us to concentrate our efforts on folks that really want to do business. I regret that you are upset that we did not refund your setup fees but I simply don't deviate from that policy. There are many hosts that do offer a money back option but that is simply not something that we do. Our managers will work with anyone who is having problems. My personal email address is in every welcome email to new customers. ( as is that of at least three of my top managers/Vps)While I am not able to respond to every email that is sent to me, customers who email me with problems that they have not been able to resolve through normal channels do get expedited assistance when the complaint reaches all the way to my level.

The proof of the value is evident in the extremely low churn and dramatically increasing sales numbers. What other host has done over 3000 new dedicated servers in the last 12 months?

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Rackshack are your $2 shop of hosting providers.

They have no idea about admining, advertising nor how to even have a decent looking website.

I had waited 3 damn weeks for a cobalt at one stage, because the inept sales people could not do their job properly.

I have another mate who wanted a few servers and already has a handfull with rackshack. Since he was stuffed around for so long he has made his own little data centre with a few mates.

Good Work RACKSHACK!

Originally posted by hostshell
he has made his own little data centre with a few mates.
<meow> Don't tell me, let me guess, and they named it cobaltracks.com </meow>

Sorry list, after the jacking we all got for a few weeks from that <ahem> *other* host... I just could not help myself. I've found myself suspecting every post by any newbie with less than a few posts to be.. well... a "poser"... too bad we can't have "post X-RayVision" to see who really does these messages.

Yea.. RackShack is at the top of the 2buck hosts. Right...

NOBODY is perfect but there damn sure are a lot of us there who are pretty happy with what we get... which is... an operational machine, far above that offered by anyone else on a price:feature ratio..

Slam em all you want. I think they try their best to be everything to everyone but fall a little short of the goal.. which is beyond what you sign up for anyway. I never expected my former host to do anything inside my box and I never asked them for advice on how to run it and I was happy with the performance. I'm much happier now with RS because I don't have to worry about busting bandwidth, I get a lot more server for less than I was paying and I still would not think of ever asking them how to do something inside my box. Outside, within their network, yep.. I have asked and have gotten what I asked for...

To Hostshell, I can see by loading your website, you certainly got what you paid for! About the slowest loading page I've visited in a while.. what you guys use in that datacenter... a dialup?

To Robert... You thinkin of that Merc or just teasing us poorfolk?? :cool:

Shortz

My server is hosted in south-east asia, because thats where my customerbase is.

I get =< 20ms pings to it, so it's all good for me.

:P

HERE'S a normal support request froma customer....

Since prices are very cheap LOT OF NEWBIES getting dedicated!!!
THEY DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT UNMANAGED means!



rs-xxx = a customer number


<rs-xxxx> RS? i need some hwlp
<RS-tech> rs-xxxxx: How can I help you?
<rs-xxxxx> i just created a site, and can see it ok via the web
<rs-xxxxx> created a user, and cannot access via ftp or pop to that site
<rs-xxxxx> neither access via admin ftp to upload the site
<RS-tech> What type of server?
<rs-xxxxx> ensim
<RS-tech> username for login is username@domain-name.com
<rs-xxxxx> for all services or just ftp?
<RS-tech> for all services
<RS-tech> Ensim uses PAM authentication which requires you to login that way
<rs-xxxxx> ok, ftp worked ok
<rs-xxxxx> on the ensim, which should be the name of the main page? index.htm or index.html?
<customerX> i think be default its .html
<customerX> maybe wrong though

Rackshack is awesome for what they are, now the problem is, many people get into a RS dedicated server with absolutely no CLUE what they're buying.

You're buying an unmanaged DEDICATED server. In all honestly the only thing you should ask for support on are:

network failures "can't ping the box" "slow as hell downloads" or other network problems not necessarily related to the machines.

hardware failures "bad sectors" "corrupt files" "overheating cpu" etc

other than that, reboots and restores should really be all you get from Rackshack, but they give more which is what any good company does.

Here is my only real problem with Rackshack from a very recent trouble ticket:

2/17/02 5:11:56 PM
I cant get to the server via SSH, WWW, but I can ping it.

2/17/02 6:49:45 PM
server back online

Which is why instead of getting more Rackshack servers I'm putting new servers in a local colo with some nice (smaller) redundant pipes. I can leave my house and be on site in 25 minutes during traffic times, and 15 minutes during non-traffic times. I also bought an 8 port APC Masterswitch so I can reboot remotely and I'll be getting a terminal server so on-site shouldn't be a necessity too often.

Short-

I plead the fifth on the "merc" (thanks enron for the idea) but yesterday at lunch ***** shameless plug for needy children coming **** I got to drive the all new 2002 Acura NSX, one of 200 that will come to teh us this year. Serial number 60. I would have written a check right then and there for myself but we were seeing the car and finanlizing a deal with Everyones Internet/Rackshack.net and John Eagle Acura to split the costs 50/50 to buy the car and donate it to Houston Childrens Charities to raffle off at $50 per ticket. (10,000 tickets if they all sell)

If we are successful, this will add 40% to their operating budget for this year. Full details will be on my website when we launch in a couple of weeks.

There's more to running a business, finding a niche, and making a profit .... it's still about people ... your employees and the community.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

HS, from what I've seen, I'd take the new Caddy anyway.. More car for less moola.. :D

Good work on the Kids thing! And good luck on the project!

Shortz

Sounds like you're a follower of the "Mattress Mac" school of marketing.

For the non-houston crowd, Mattress Mac is a local furniture retailer who has one store that outsells most every furniture chain in the US. The average furniture retailer turns their inventory about twice per year. At last count, Mac does this about every 2 to 3 weeks. His one store is now doing about $120 million per year. He is also a shameless marketer.

He started out in a bunch of tents selling furniture then moved to a former model home park. Then after a decade or 2 in the business, he built a new warehouse and store. Simply incredible. But even with all of the footage in his new building, about 6 times what he had before, he can;t drop his roots ..... he still keeps putting up tents to hold more furniture!

When you hit the front door, he is right there at the front counter. He makes frequent use of the overhead speakers to announce specials and financing deals, and is always giving away something.... basket balls, t-shirts, jackets, etc.

He bought Elvis's Corvette and Dianna's jewels to display. When he sold Diannas jewels, he gave the money to a local charity to build a new building addition that they needed.

Oh, I almost forgot, "But it today and we'll deliver it tonight". And he means it. If you buy a sofa or big screen at 9:30pm, you'll be sitting and watching by midnight.

Like Rackshack, he has the masses that simply love him and then there is everyone else who hates him and won;t step one foot in his store. (The other furniture guys REALLY REALLY hate him.

After 15-20 years of offering instant deliveryat Gallery Furniture, another long time chain furniture store has now started offering same day delivery for a premium over their regular delivery fee. But after 20 years of hearing "but it today and I'll deliver it tonight", it;s hard to make an impact against him.

What he does do with his money in Charitable causes is quite incredible. There can be an apartment fire, and there will be 4 or 5 Gallery Furniture trucks show up with NEW furniture free to set those families up in new apartments. He has chartered jets to get sick kids to the best doctors across the country. A bunch of school kids got stuck in Cancun on a Spring Break vacation when the tour operator failed to pay for the charter flight back. He came to their rescue and chartered a plane to get them home. He uses his company to make a difference.

I can only hope that Rackshack/Ev1 can do the same. Last year we began an agressive charitable campaign focusing on Children primarily and animals secondarily. Last year, after we became profitable, we gave over $150,000 to various childrens causes, took 500 kids to see the circus, took 200 kids to a Comets game, and helped out with a "Christmas Party" for another 500-700 kids. It was about the most fun we ever had.

This year, there was an inner city school that had their band qualify to participate in a national band competition at Disney World. They needed to raise about $35k to go but in the end could only raise $25k. So, we cut a check for another $10k to get them up to the amoumt of money they needed.

Back to Mattress Mac ...... I can only hope someday to be as successful and generous with my businesses as Mac is with his. He has consistently proven that if you give back to the community the community will give back to you as well.

I also hope that I will continue to be able to apply the lessons that I learned from him in my business: Out-maneuver, out-perform, and out smart your competition.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Next off topic rant will be about "Bud" who founded Kwik Kopy and re-invented his business a few times along the way. By the way, both of these men (many,many years my senior) have written great books of their business stories, successes, and most importantly their failures.

Hey Robert,

Yes, he is amazing but have you heard the stories of how he actually started and got his seed cash?

Originally posted by headsurfer
Plus, with most other providers they say we have this and that but will not show you their actual graphs.

Very true, I once asked one member of this board (he seems to be very respected here, and seems to be big, but who knows) who claims to have several T3 and have a guarantee to upgrade the connectivity at 50% level ... I just asked him to give me the MRTG graphs backing up his claim, and he refused to do this ...
Well, just way too funny.

cheers,
:beer:

HeadSurfer, that's one heck of a story, I like. I never knew about that since I'm from the UK, but I find it very interesting. Don't we all just wish there was more people like Mac? (LOL, of course we'll have to be able to get where he is to be able to do what he's done.)

Alan

More on Mac ....

This has got to be the coolest part ......

He started with nothing. I mean nothing. (OK Almost nothing)

He would take his (or maybe his dad's or uncle's) pickup truck and go buy as much as he could get into it. He would then set up under the tent on the side of the freeway and go to selling. When he had some more money, he would repeat the process ever increasing what he had.

There is a small (if you can call it small) retailer who started in business feeding off of the business that Mac wasn't serving with his higher prices. Side Note: Mac started off selling cheap furniture cheap. The he hit a niche selling awesome solid wood furniture at low prices. The he had such great success he began raising prices on that top quality solid wood name brand furniture. Now he has those same prices on "made for mac" great quality solid wood furniture" so he can make a bigger buck. Many were turned off bu his "high prices". "Turbo" also used to work for Mac. Now, he own BiRite furniture just down the block from Mac and does his own ads and targets the Hispanic market. He started the same way but started out with a small building and has kept adding on to that building and now has a huge warehouse as well.

These guys started with relatively nothing in their businesses. Unfortunately, they are just 2 of the thousands who tried. Most failed .... but a few succeed.

I started out in the paging business with my dad back in 1990 or there abouts. We bought 10 USED pagers from Pagenet when we opened our store. We bought 10 because that was all that we could afford. We did a little advertising. Sold those 10 pagers, bought 20, and repeated the process. Before we sold out, we has as many as three dozen stores with each store stocking hundreds of pagers in dozens of models and every color under the rainbow. That business (Beeper Boutique) gave us an incubator to start Everyones Internet so we had advantages that the guys before us did not. Plus, we were able to learn from their mistakes. Then with Everyones Internet profitable, we had a launching ground and incubator for Rackshack. With Rackshack, we had all of the advantages of positive cash frow from day one and we started with 600 servers. It is sort of like the guy (Ok I really didn;t pay a lot of attention in History Class) who reached the Americas in search of treasure and burned his ships once he got here. (there) If we were that deep in, we had to make it go.

There is inspiration in the American dream. What's cool (to all of you international folks around) is that American's have ingrained in our sould this idea of the "American Dream". The dream being that anyone can own yoru own business, take the risks, and make the reward. The downside is that many fail many times on that road before untimately succeeding.

The American Dream is not limited to Americans. Matt is a prime example. A fairly young guy that turned a hobby into a business and may untimately use that as a launching pad to greater things.

There is much to be learned by looking and analyzing business paterns and successful business people. There is much more to be learned from looking at their failures. When I read Bud's book about the history of himself and Kwik Kopy I just couldn;t put it down.

I don;t necessarily believe the "early to bed, early to rise", but there is incredible potential in the "work like hell and advertise".

One last note. In the Internet age, many lost everything they had and failed miserably by taking a build it and they will come business. These two guys, particularly Bud and Mac, built it brick by brick taking profits to build it bigger. They had sound business models and "worked like hell and advertised."

OK, now I'm off to help the economy!

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Disclaimer: Every stick of furniture I have in my home I bought from Mac. I chose Mac because of two things: Great furniture and immediate gratification a/k/a Instant Delivery. Alas, Mac does not sell baby furniture so I will have to wit six to eight weeks for it to arrive.

Originally posted by headsurfer
Our network is as fast as nearly anyone and we certainly have more capacity that just about anyone including Rackspace which has a reported just over 1 Gig actual capacity. (but less than 1.5 Gig)

I don't quite agree with that. Pinging your network seems slower than, for example, Rackspace, NAC or Burst. Furthermore, I just got a server with you for a customer in Japan, and he can not even upload files larger than about a megabyte before his uploads stall.

Now I'd put this down to his Internet connection, but he can upload fine to other US-based servers, so it must be something to do with your network, and how your traffic is routed to Japan.

And I would never post this here, but the fact of the matter is that your support team has not given me any satisfaction or help at all with this, and if my customer can not access the server, it's about as much use as a 1980's game console. My RS number is RS-12120

Again I really regret that I have to bring this up here.

I'll certainly stand by my comments about our network. Just for kicks, I asked our VP Operations to take a look at this particular server. He gets to our data center through Road Runner. His Comments in a recent email to me:

I uploaded a 6mb file from home and it went up at about 400kb/s (rr is throttled at 384kb up) downloaded from the server at 2.8mb/s. Traced and pinged from the server to the ips that have been logging into the server and all is good, no packet loss and response time is not bad considering it is from Japan and some other place in the far east, generally less then 150ms. Still waiting on additional traceroutes from customer to machine.

Jeff

It certainly looks like this one is on the customers end in their connection. It rules out the server and our network as Jeff gets to the server through the public internet.

The traceroute that the customer references in his trouble ticket indicates no packet loss at all anywhere along the route from his customer in Japan to his server at Rackshack.

A trace from the customer to his server at Rackshack also appears normal.

Our support team has responded to EVERY ticket that he has opened with us. It is the customers responsibility to provide traceroutes and performance statistics when submitting a trouble ticket. Only one traceroute (from Japan) has been provided (in addition to a non-Japan trace)and it does not show packet loss anywhere along the public Internet route or in our network.

Interestingly enough, there has been no update or new ticket opened by the customer for two days on our system and no comments posted to the Rackshack forum where customers are requested to post performance related issues. Out top managers scan that forum several times a day in an effort to catch any potential network issues that have not been caught by our NOC.

If a customer does not provide the required information to troubleshoot a problem or stops providing that information or is slow in providing that information, it is very difficult to track where any issue might be if there is one at all.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

Just to clarify, I never complained that tickets weren't responded to. I complained about the way they were looked into. For instance, when I was asked to do a traceroute from the server itself, I said that the commend could not be found. I was then told to su to root. This is fair enough -- you couldn't know that I had already tried it as root myself. However when I said that even under root the command traceroute could not be found (I had been using the root again all along!), I was informed YET AGAIN how to su to root. By the way, traceroute does not seem to be available under Ensim at all. And I do not wish to install it myself, as I don't want to mess up my warranty.

And also I myself can access the server fine, it's my customer who is having the difficulty, and he is blaming it on your network.

Edit: I also had my customer troubleshoot the problem before contacting you at all, like using a different FTP program, and so on. And I believed him that it might be your network because I know that traffic can take different routes.

I wish to apologize for bringing this up here. I guess I am just frustrated at the way my support tickets were resolved. At the end of the day, I really admire your business, and think a lot of the complaints are because people sign up who have absolutely no clue about administaring a Linux server.

I continually have a slow down at Rackshacks router:
3 12.244.72.98 (12.244.72.98) 14.753 ms 15.784 ms 21.282 ms
4 gbr2-p30.dtrmi.ip.att.net (12.123.139.34) 16.503 ms 19.614 ms 75.870 ms
5 tbr2-p012701.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.122.2.194) 28.316 ms 64.663 ms 27.799 m
s
6 ggr1-p3100.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.122.11.210) 23.141 ms 22.365 ms 20.754 ms
7 p4-0.att.chcgil01.us.bb.verio.net (192.205.32.70) 20.650 ms 37.270 ms 43.
177 ms
8 p16-3-0-0.r00.chcgil06.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.5.114) 25.199 ms 57.964 ms
27.331 ms
9 p16-1-0-0.r01.chcgil06.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.5.77) 21.066 ms 24.203 ms
21.913 ms
10 p16-3-0-0.r01.dllstx01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.5.85) 43.935 ms 66.076 ms
62.706 ms
11 p4-0-0-0.r00.hstntx01.us.bb.verio.net (129.250.3.194) 76.524 ms 49.715 ms
51.973 ms
12 ge-1-1-0.a03.hstntx01.us.ra.verio.net (129.250.30.216) 50.354 ms 86.710 ms
74.073 ms
13 p1-1-0-0.a03.hstntx01.us.ce.verio.net (128.241.9.246) 61.717 ms 61.424 ms
62.445 ms
14 tayhou-223-36.ev1.net (207.218.223.36) 97.425 ms 107.602 ms 136.017 ms
15 64.246.XX.XX (64.246.XX.XX) 118.789 ms 141.363 ms 109.344 ms

I post it in thier notwork thread and sometimes they log into my server and ping a few things. Somethimes they fix it for a while

Right now

02 /23 /02 - 18:40:03 4 106.6 111.602 119.917 4.996
02 /23 /02 - 18:55:03 4 109.952 123.912 145.804 13.286
02 /23 /02 - 19:10:03 4 99.709 117.715 131.729 13.498
02 /23 /02 - 19:25:03 4 100.349 112.493 119.944 8.099


I like it when they look like this better;

02 /23 /02 - 03:55:03 4 42.311 50.513 59.899 6.248
02 /23 /02 - 04:10:03 4 49.583 50.458 52.691 1.32
02 /23 /02 - 04:25:03 4 39.577 47.295 50.018 4.465


I do think that they need a few upgrades.

The server I had could only download around 10 KB/s from most places, with traceroutes failing in random locations, and even had problems with pinging rackshack.net. I'm talking about from the server, not from my computer. From my computer, I was only able to download at 160 KB/s at best, with many lag bursts. I live smack in the middle between the Dallas and Austin POPs and have Road Runner through Time Warner, which is even one of their upstreams, so the results should have been way better than that. This was obviously a problem on their end. I only contacted support through chat, and they wanted me to open a trouble ticket. I didn't want to go through the hassle of opening a trouble ticket and waiting for them to tell me they're unable to reproduce the problem. I know. I'm stupid for not opening a trouble ticket, but I also had other reasons for not wanting the service anymore, which is why I wanted to close my account and get a refund.

Like any host out there and any ISP for that manner there are places on the route to the network that may slowdown, but one has to realize that there will ALWAYS be a problem when uploading from continent to continent even with loads of bandwidth.

Fish if you notice on your tracert there is a slowdown in the middle of the verio routing network, this latency is close to the upper threshold of latency spikes that are allowed on a contract with most ISP to host contracts.

In reality if there is slow throughput to the server and it starts again there may well possibly be a problem with the server andthe network behind it, but if there is a consistent problem with uploading from your system, without testing it from other systems on other ISP's then there is a potential problem with the att ISP.

I used to work for a hosting company (not being mentioned due to confidentiality contract, but they were ok nonetheless) I had the same issues with varying customers who called in, and even if our routers were working properly there would be people who had problems, and even if the servers that they were on were working properly and other people on the same sever had good throughput, there was the occasional customer who would call in complaining of slow upload speed.


Check your system and network stack, and please check your ISP first when trying to test for slowed throughput, because nine times out of ten it is the client system causing the problem... or it's ISP... not the server or the network hosting the server.

I am glad to see that there are good competing hosts out there like rackshack who are willing to put everything on the line to make the customer happy and still contribute to society. Cheers!


Thanks


Believe in reality, then see everything around you, for reality is nothing more than an illusion of the masses

14 tayhou-223-36.ev1.net (207.218.223.36) 97.425 ms 107.602 ms 136.017 ms

Is where the problems occur and is a Rackshack Router. (Everyones Internet)

I had to call in a couple of times to have the server rebooted, their response time is quite good, better than what I experienced before at other providers.

One thing I hope we can get from rackshack is some discount on server setup fees.

Rackshack are good IF your server has a good run, untill yesterday i had a raq at rackshack that only went down when they changed data centre, but once you have a problem thats where rackshack arnt the greatest, my server had a corrupt harddisk, it took me almost 1week to proove this and i accepted this, but then to change a harddisk and mount the old one back so i could copy data over , WHAT A JOKE , the whole process was a joke, what should of taken 1hour or 2 has taken 9hours and i still cant see my old harddisk with my customers data on it, support is very very slow, with tickets having to be forwarded here and there slowing the whole process down. If you have a good run rackshack will be good for you , but once you have a problem beware, 9hours gone and still i have a empty rack and losta customers complaining at me :|

trza

My views on rackshack....

Personally, I actually like the company as a whole. I have had endless problems with faulty hardware in the past, and though this may have taken a long time to get resolved (and alot of hard work) it is resolved now, and my server has been running for over 34 days, and kicks up aload of bandwidth, and they are generally swell.

So 7/10 for rackshack, im generally happy now, no problems, my only curse is how much hard work it was for me to get the problems sorted, and I really had to go to some lengths to get heard by the rite people and get the problems allivated.

But alls well that ends well, I know how a lovely box, running a plain version of Redhat (if only it was Freebsd) with all the crappy cpanel software fully uninstalled :P

One thing I will say is ive never been so close to buying a plane ticket just to go to another country to sort things out !