If you could choose one of the following, which would you select? (taking into consideration everything except the amount of bandwidth since to start I can get by with 30-40 GB.)

Dialtone Internet March Clearance:
CPU Intel Celeron 633MHz
RAM 256 MB ECC RAM
Hard Drive 9GB SCSI IBM Hard Drive
Mirror N/A
Network Single Ethernet
IPs Free
OS DI Linux 6.2 (RedHat 6.2 based)
Services Web, FTP, DNS, Mail and More
Traffic 30 GB Burstable
$99 setup and $89/month
http://www.dialtone.com/prodandserv/specials/marchclearance.php?category=PRODUCTS+%26+SERVICES


TranxactGlobal Dedicated Server 3
CPU Intel Pentinum III 1 Ghz
RAM 256 MB ECC RAM
Hard Drive 40GB IDE Western Digital
Network Single Ethernet
IPs Free
OS RedHat 7.2
Traffic 300 GB Burstable
$275 setup and $99/month
http://www.tranxactglobal.com/servers.html

I would check on the DV2 server - I don't think it has ECC RAM.

I would go with dialtone all the way

THere bandwidth is going over tier 1 carriers and is much faster then any cogent bandwidth

To me quality is better then quantity

Joe

1.) I like the fact that the dialtone server has a SCSI drive vs. IDE, but the Celeron might be a lot slower than the PIII 1 Ghz.

2.) I also wonder if the difference between RH 6.2 and RH 7.2 might be a big factor, and if it is significant that the Dialtone server comes with what appears to be their customized version of RH 6.2 - does this have the same 'non standard' problems that going with an Ensim server would have - i.e. things would be in strange places?

3.) And does it really matter if the Ram is ECC or not - I didn't even think to ask DV2?

Oh and note that the tranxactglobal server is not cogent - only - most of the traces I did actually went over their aleron connection. I would not consider a cogent-only host.

My suggestion would be Dialtone :)

Originally posted by jkehe
I would check on the DV2 server - I don't think it has ECC RAM.

No - our servers do not have ecc ram - however - I don;t believe that for the web servers that these servers most often turn into that it makes a difference that is noticeable. However - i do think you will find a huge difference in the ext3 file system - this is very important in recovery and data protection- what happens when you reboot because you machine is hung?

Another thing to take a look at is hard disk space and the cost to add the all important backup drive. 9 gigs is small by todays standards and will get eaten up quick with your standard partitions. this will leave very little room for data and archiving.

finally - our bandwidth is not cogent only - it is multihomed and I believe is on par with any one out there.

sailor: how much room is free on your 40 GB drive with the base install of RH 7.2 and webmin?

you will have 23.8 gig free. This includes stgandard 1 gig partiions for root and swap and we throw in 4.5 for program and usr areas. It is a setup that will not run you out of space and have you trying to add partition size on a working machine - yuk.

You probably wanted to say 33.8 GB... right? ;)

Ales

Just for fun last night I sent an email to Dialtone asking a few questions, like how much space would be free on that 9 GB disk, if it would be possible to have them put 7.2 on it, etc. but I have not heard anything back yet. Not so impressive since 24/7 top notch support was supposed to be one of the main advantages to Dialtone, but I suppose sales questions might not represent responsiveness to existing customers.

Did you call them?

I have called them at 2 AM EST and gotten support to answer. I know for tickets entered after business hours, you will get emergency support or reboots, but standard problems will not be handled until business hours.

Originally posted by scott2
If you could choose one of the following, which would you select? (taking into consideration everything except the amount of bandwidth since to start I can get by with 30-40 GB.)
http://www.tranxactglobal.com/servers.html

Depends on who I was, I guess.

If I were you, would I be pushing mostly static (.html/.gif/.jpg) or dynamic content (php/mysql/perl/realserver)?

And would it be for one website, or many (if so, how many)?

Is the special at Dialtone a managed server? Do you need that?

The devil's in the details, and so is heaven, if you look just right.

Did you call themI didn't call them; just sent an email with three numbered questions at 5:57 AM and still have not received any response as of 11:00 PM from Dialtone. One of the major advantages I thought Dialtone would have was responsiveness and lots of people there to answer questions, etc. but it appears Sailor was quicker to answer a sales question. When I emailed tranxactglobal I got a response in 11 hours which I thought was slow (sent a question at 9:45 AM and got a response at 9:00 PM), and I was a little nervous that it is just Sailor answering the email there rather than what I thought would be a support staff at Dialtone ready and willing to quickly answer questions. But it looks like that's not an advantage of Dialtone over DV2 after all since Dialtone has taken even longer. Right now I'm used to 15 minute replies 24/7 from my current host, so I may just be spoiled to really really great service and not be giving other hosts a fair chance.

You bring up an interesting point, panopticon...

you asked Dialtone about the $89 server, right?

Well, since Dialtone packages that cost MEGA DOLLARS more, maybe they don't see someone interested in an $89 a month server as important. Maybe they see them as some punk ass turd, in fact -- some wretched little kid with a piggy bank. Wheras, since sailor lowered his prices, every $99 or $139 customer is just as important and vital to his business as the next.

The bottom line being that even if you ARE some punky "floater" with a hundred bucks in your pocket, you get treated with modicum of respect and service with guys like sailor.

just a theory

Reminds me of a story Jon Chu told me when he was an IT guy at the Denver Capital in, well, er... Denver. You know how that works... places being named after where they are and all. Very common concept. Enough said.

Anyway, previous to that job, he was ... he was a few things... like a very tall man who got to appear in a Jackie Chan film because of his insane tallness, and his membership in Los Angele's "Tall Club". But that's another surreal & hilarious story... :) Previous to his IT job, he was a jewelry salesman on comission at Sears.

He noticed that unless people looked "just right" that other salespeople had no interest in servicing, or even talking to many potential customers. They didn't 'qualify' in their eyes. Well, where other people saw only a dirty 'gringo' through their racist colored perceptual filters, he saw a hard working man... and above all a human... and he made the larger sales to these people -- people who often had a nice little nest egg sheltered away to invest in their special someone -- than to the many flocks of clean, well dressed, underworked people, who spent more of their time pretending they were rich than actually having any money to spend. Many of those people are socialite timewasters.

I think he commented that he outearned every other salesperson by merely engaging those who the other salespeople didn't even see fit to live, never mind buy anything -- and, in fact, earned more than he did in IT. All while the other salesfolk sometimes found it hard just to earn ends meet.

Jon is a great guy, though. A great man -- someone anyone would be proud to call a friend. It takes a great man to see a great man within another, as much as it takes a real loser to see other people as losers.

Makes you wonder... how do places like Dialtone view YOU when you ask about an $89 server, huh? And what's that say about THEM?

And, you, panopticon. We all know that you are the "endless river" of questions about low-cost servers. :) When someone continues to answer these questions, what's that say about them?

(remember, this a metaphorical story here -- i have no experience with dialtone. just a modern day parable to share)

I can relate actually. My own story - 2 years ago for my anniversary - 13th and my wifes graduation from college - we went on a trip to an island in the caribbean. I had save up enough money to buy my wife her consolation prize for putting up with me for so long and thought I would surprise her (we always go to the islands an window shop a lot and daydream - and usually never buy anything because we can;t afford it - but we always know we would buy something eventually). Well this was the time - and not only were we going to buy something - but some lucky merchant was going to get a big hit - budget was 15K. So we went in a shop and were looking around for the right thing (this shop we had been to on multiple past trips and could never buy anything). We were dressed as typical young cruise ship tourists and no one would help us, in fact we heard one of the managers tell a salesperson (who must have been new) "don;t spend time with them - they can afford anything and will waist your time looking". This completely soured our expereience and in fact we left and went back to the ship and had a grand time partying and did not buy anything on the whole cruise. I mentally checked off that I would wait till the 15th anniversary and do something bigger. Any way - that winter - we were skiing at Lake Tahoe and decided to stop by a jewelery store at the Boathouse after skiing one day - you can imagine we were looking really great (NOT - LOL)after a day on the slopes. We were simply looking around - but they treated us as though we had the biggest bank account around and were the most important people on the planet. We left afterlloking - but this one necklace my wife fell in love with. We came back on another day when we were cleaned up and out goofing around and got the same treatment again - the red carpet!! We bought the necklace for $$$$$ and she was happy and they were happy and we all live happily ever after (except the store in the carribean that has no clue that someone in tahoe got their 15K because they were inattnetive to us "poor people". Any way - you never know who wil be in what purchasing capacity when - the person who is broke today - I might be working for tomorrow - or could be my largest customer in a year through turn of fortuune - going to work for a company with lots of $$ and wanting to buy from me- who knows. but I was once told that you should try to be nice to everyone - because you see the same people on your way up that you see on your way down - and someone might just give you some help on your way down if you were nice to them on your way up. :)

Originally posted by sailor
but I was once told that you should try to be nice to everyone - because you see the same people on your way up that you see on your way down - and someone might just give you some help on your way down if you were nice to them on your way up. :)

If you practiced what you preached, I might actually believe this statement coming out of your mouth.

Originally posted by sailor
I was once told that you should try to be nice to everyone - because you see the same people on your way up that you see on your way down - and someone might just give you some help on your way down if you were nice to them on your way up. :)

This is a really nice business attitude Sailor! Just keep doing that and you will be surprised to see the result in the long term. I've been doing business in the Internet for over 4 years and I've experienced that good and responsive customer service is very important to build a successful long-term online presence.

This thread is sureal.

I finally received a reply from Dialtone today and here's what they had to say:1.) Summarize the main points why your server would be a better choice.
-We do have an excellent Customer Support.
-We have dual OC 12 coming from two different parts of the building; withing
-those we have 3 OC 3's and 2 DS 3's.
-Our providers are: AT&T, Bell SOuth, UUNet, and Global Crossing
-What does all this mean for your business? Dialtone's state-of-the-art network
guarantees
faster and more reliable service. And our commitment to adopting the best
technologies
available means that we'll continue to provide unbeatable speed and
reliability.
- We are on the top three best companies.
-We have around 2500 servers online.
-With a data center in Mexico and London, we are not just a simple company.

2.) tell me how much additional bandwidth would cost beyond the included 30 GB.
($2/GB?)


$3.00 per GB or you can prepaid bandwidth in blocks starting from 20GB at $2.50

3.) tell me how much room is free on the 9 GB disk.

around 6.5 or 7

SOftwares installed on the server:

Software features
RedHat 6.2 - Kernel 2.4.x
BIND 8.2.4
Chili!Soft ASP
Apache web server 1.3.22
MySQL version 3.23.x
ModSSL 2.8.5
IP Tables version 1.1.2
Microcode Update utility 1.05
ModGZip version 1.3.19.x
ModPerl version 1.25
OpenSSH version 3.0.x
OpenSSL version 0.9.6c
Quota Support
PHP version 4.1.2
PostgreSQL version 7.1
ProFTPD version 1.2.4
QPopper version 4.0.3
XNTP3 version 5.93
Update POP
Extreme Modularity Driver
Pico, gunzip, utilities, tcsh
Top (Proccess Watcher), Traceroute
FTP Server with Virtual FTP support
Perl 5.6.0, Procmail, PHP - ready

We can't not be compared with a company like the one you mentioned, they
are small and just look up the website and you will see the difference
immediately.

I don't know if I should post their reply, but I think it's probably OK. I was disappointed that they didn't provide much solid information on how their network was better, performance wise... it seems everyone just expects that I know that a cadillac is better than a ford, and so no one likes to provide facts and numbers or data any more. I was surprised though to see that Sailor's config takes so much more space for the RH installation than Dialtone's 6.2 install.

Hmmmm.....the old size matters argument. Let us slip into the "sureal" -to plagarize from above - and bizarre world of relativity.

"We can't not be compared with a company like the one you mentioned, they are small and just look up the website and you will see the difference immediately."

What does this mean? How big are they? I bet they are not as big as ATT or someone like that - where is the cutoff line - do you get "better" as you get bigger? I have found many times that the opposite is true. So what is the perfect size?

What about the website? I don;t know - who thinks our website affects our service?

If that is the case - will someone make me a flash website that is really slick so that our great servcie will automatically get better!!!! LOL

Any way - I am sure that "they" are a great company and will do a fine job. But doing a great job is not mutually exclusive to the other company and I am sure that size does not matter - I have heard it is how you use it (your technical and sales skills).

I have customer of mine that do a great job for their clients and they are smaller than us and my website is better than them - but they are awesome anyway!

Oh well - they are good and their offer is a good one - but so are we and so is ours :)

Originally posted by jkehe


If you practiced what you preached, I might actually believe this statement coming out of your mouth.

I believe I do - but will not comment further on your comment - I think people can do their own search on your company here and figure things out for themselves. :)

panopticon: since I believe this is important to you, I'll chip in again. In regards do disk size - sailor made a mistake in one of his previous posts, most likely just a typo.

RedHat install would leave 33 GB out of 40 GB HDD free to host sites, data bases, etc., not 23 GB. Atleast that is the case with our standard installs. I already told you this but perhaps you didn't see it...

There is more free space in that remaining 7 GB, but that is used for other purposes.

My sincere advice to you would be to set up a test machine at home and get thoroughly acustomed to the basic peculiarities of a linux environment. It will make your server experience much more enjoyable. Good luck!

Ales

acutlly our leaves 23.8 with the way we partition things - we put 4.5 in usr and var since thisi s where program files go - we also assign a 1 gig swap.

Thanks Ales,

Still a big big difference between the 7 GB RH 7.2 OS DV2 installs and the 2 or 2.5 GB RH 6.2 OS Dialtone installs. I don't know if there is a big difference (just in terms of size - I do know I want 7.2 for the file system) but I was shocked by the big difference. Even at 7 GB, the DV2 install of RH makes any version of Windows down right compact. I did install RH 7.1 on a local 1 GB drive but it was pretty tight.

sailor: I did read your original post a bit too fast, but still:
1 GB swap
1 GB /
4.5 GB /var
4.5 GB /usr
assuming 39 GB of usable space, this leaves 28 GB. So, additional 4.2 GB goes to...?

panopticon: all space is not taken, just assigned to different partitions. These partitions still have free space...

/ - 2
/boot - 1
/usr - 4.5
/var - 4.5
/home - 23.8
/temp - 2
swap - 1

we have a server a dv2/transx.. everything has been great so far.. Something really impressive is that they keep adding new upgrades/services for free.. for example I paid for Cogent only connection but ended up getting multiple bandwidth providers and bgp4 for nothing extra..

Originally posted by sailor
/ - 2
/boot - 1
/usr - 4.5
/var - 4.5
/home - 23.8
/temp - 2
swap - 1
I'm not trying to cause trouble, because I think you offer some great deals, and have been considering ordering some servers from you myself. However, this does not seem to make much sense. Why so much space devoted to /boot & /tmp? /boot only needs like 50MB. /tmp shouldn't need nearly that much either. I think you would be better off leaving that space in /, and if people want to allocate it to something else specifically, they can add partitions for them. I know personally I would not be happy to have 3GB of space wasted.

-Dan

Yes, this partitions seem a bit odd. I couldn't think of a purpose for a 1 GB /boot...

FWIW, I've been with Dialtone for nearly three years. My first server was in their 200 block. From way before they got to be a "bigger" company. I "currently" have three servers with them. ("Currently" because the reason I'm here today is to find alternatives.)

At any rate, the reason for my response is to make a distinction between DT's technical support and their customer service (and for that matter, their Billing) departments.

But first, a couple of minor points that were mentioned.

Their "custom" version of Red Hat is pretty much standard Red Hat. They've really just loaded a few extra modules (like mod_gzip) and added their own control panel (which ain't a bad one). They have proFTP (don't like) and Qpopper with update_pop (a real kludge). At any rate, there's nothing real strange, and you won't find any problems with their configuration beyond any other 6.2 load.

Their partitions seem to work well, too. I've only one instance of /var overflowing, and that was my own fault. /temp is cleared in cron, so you don't need a big one. My first server included a 9G SCSI and took nearly two years to outgrow, and then only because my forums exploded. Warning - if you even THINK 9G won't be enough, start with a larger drive and don't even think about adding a second drive later. Putting web sites anywhere except /home will require bypassing their control panel and doing everything by hand. Not fun.

Back to support …

Technical support is excellent! Their people generally are very well schooled, at least on Linux, and they've managed to build up a fairly comprehensive FAQ over the past few years. I haven't had a lot of problems, most were small (with the largest being a DOS attack just a few months ago), but I've never been at all dissatisfied with either their response time or the results. In three years, I've paid them exactly $37.50 for uncovered support (for the DOS attack, too). I would particularly recommend Dialtone for newbies because even their unmanaged servers come with 2 hours of "free" tech time during the first 30 days of your contract. They'll do a good job of holding your hand if you need it, and they do a good job even after the honeymoon is over.

Their CS and Billing, on the other hand, suck big time. I don't get an invoice until it's already due, then they threaten to shut down my server 5 days later (with a weekend in between) (actually, they only made that threat once, and my response resulted in a slightly friendlier attitude since then). They most recently "lost" some paperwork, costing me about $600 in additional fees.

Their customer service reps are irritating with their lack of knowledge, and as you discovered, slow to respond. My last order included 256M and 9Gig SCSI, and I wanted to upgrade the hardware. Give me 1M memory and add a second 18G SCSI. Nope, she said. The most memory the machine can handle is 768M and you can't have two drives unless they're the same size. I had to explain about pulling memory chips to make room for 2 512M chips, and why identical drives don't apply if you're not configuring for RAID. It took me about six emails and I think the only reason I was eventually successful is because I CC'd my technical contact. I really don't mind uneducated, but I have a low tolerance for stubborn. :)

I've lived with poor CS for a long time and probably would continue for quite a while longer. I just don't have that much contact with them. Billing, however, has become much more of a serious issue and is the reason I'm seriously considering a move. I was looking at Rackspace, at least until I spend several hours reading through this forum. Looking seriously at Superb, too. I'm strongly partial to SCSI, but it seems like they're hard to find except in a RAID configuration? My biggest cost is bandwidth, so that's obviously my biggest concern. Still looking, and certainly open to suggestions …

:)

Sailor - After reading your story, I suddenly feel a lot better about your company knowing that you feel that way. :)

To answer the original question: Choose Dialtone and respectfully, I have no experience with the other company but all I can give you is my first hand experience with DI as a customer for over a year.

Not perfect but one of the best and the Billing dept needs a bit of work and the first quote folks might need to hold hands with the geeks to give better first quotes and answers. Just like the other fellow said. which is my same experience.

"Is their something you don't understand when I say I wan't a 10K SCSI and not a 7600 RPM SCSI drive ?" <chuckle>

Like the other fellow said, generally great support and Iv'e even had a SCSI HD failure and a Power Supply blow out and these issues were both resolved in a timely manner.

A final thought, is the support department of a given dedicated server host inherintly better because they need to keep $2000/mon customers happy verses a "low priced" dedicated server host?

I say yes, but you may see the issue differently. :)