We're currently looking for a new dedicated server. We were with ezzi.net for a while and they were good, but recently we had a truly horrible experience with them (server was down for DAYS) and so we're looking into another host.

I've looked at cari.net and i'm not that happy with their pricing structure. They basically charge you for every little thing, sometimes with both a monthly fee and setup fee. They even charge you more monthly if you want hyper-threading. I'm not really sure what the justification of that is.

Anyhow, the pricing we got from cari and zerolag for comparatively the same service is $259/month + $539 setup from cari, vs $300/month from zerolag, with no setup. The differences are cari is offering 25gb of backup, and zerolag is offering 60gb plus 50 email boxes.

There probably would be an additional $300 setup fee with zerolag to get bigger hard drivers in raid 1.

So price wise they are almost the same.

Has anyone had any experience with either of them? I've met and spoken with the head of zerolag and he seemed like a nice enough guy. I havent spoken with anyone at cari yet.

I would go with Zerolag. They're in a nice datacenter (a savvis dc in LA I believe) use good hardware and the owner seems to know what he's doing. The only downside is that they're singlehomed to savvis however, savvis isn't a bad network to be singlehomed to.

Cari.net is what most would consider a low-end provider. Their support techs are, in my experience, not too swift. The network is a Cogent/Wiltel/Cox blend which, when I was there, wasn't too solid and their dedicated server hardware looked to be pretty low end. Maybe things have changed but that's how they were a couple of years ago.

Ok, thanks.

how long ago did you deal with cari.net?

about two years ago.

well a possible change in plans. We're considering staying with our current host, ezzi.net. We had that one horrible experience with them recently. Other then that though they have been great. I think we pay about $140/mo for each server. What we're considering doing now is pulling one server and setting it up at another host to act as a backup. So if ezzi has another horrible incident, we just update the DNS and can move away from them.

So right now we're looking for something cheap that we probably wont be using (hopefully). I know 1and1.com has been getting really bad reviews lately, but i'm suggesting we try them anyhow. Since this machine will be a backup that probably wont get used much, i dont think we'll have too much customer service issues and since I'll be the sysadmin i dont think we'll need their tech support either. We'll just mainly need them to keep the power and network access on for the machine. And their server uptime seems to be good. They just seem to get poor marks in customer service/tech support

I'll concur with the assessment on Cari. They're a decent provider, but are somewhat low end.

just an update:

we went with cari and i've discovered one thing about them that they basically lie about.

They claim to have 24/7 support. Its more like 24/7 phone receptionist. So far anytime we've had a problem and we called outside of normal business hours, we always have to wait until the next day when the people who really know how to do the support are available.

They cant even check network settings since just now we have a problem where one of our IP addresses have stopped working for some reason and no one there can do anything about it until the morning.

lucky for us we only moved some small internal test sites on that IP address, none of our main sites were on there. So its only a minor annoyance instead of a major problem.

my opinion of cari.net is going down. Tuesday we reported a problem that one of our IP's stopped working. Today, wednesday, i called them up again and they said they'd have someone look into it. Well after a 2nd call today who ever it was that was supposed to look into it has left for the day and wont be able to do anything about it until tomorrow at least.

2 days for an IP not to work for what is probably something misconfigured on their firewall is pretty crappy in my book.

well at least you discovered what is important as well: customer service. Imagine if you went with 1and1....it would be several days before you got a half witted response

customer service is always important no matter what it is for

I feel like theres some sort of weird disconnect in this thread... the op asked for opinions, everyone trashed cari and he went with them... then, he says hes got problems. Then, he says that they're going down in his opinion (why were they ever up?)

I'm confused.

I feel like theres some sort of weird disconnect in this thread... the op asked for opinions, everyone trashed cari and he went with them... then, he says hes got problems. Then, he says that they're going down in his opinion (why were they ever up?)

I'm confused.

You are absolutely right. I caught that. Not sure why he went with them based on the feedback and then was surprised. I am not saying cari.net is bad just based on the feedback its weird he went with them.

how is network on cari.net? any downtime or outage?... expect support and hardware quality.. how are they?

Thanks

I feel like theres some sort of weird disconnect in this thread... the op asked for opinions, everyone trashed cari and he went with them... then, he says hes got problems. Then, he says that they're going down in his opinion (why were they ever up?)

I'm confused.

we went with them because the cost was an issue. To me, no one trashed cari. they just said cari was ok but not great. Budget was an issue which is why we went with cari.

how is network on cari.net? any downtime or outage?... expect support and hardware quality.. how are they?

Thanks

their network seems fine. There have been some small glicthes but they have been due to them messing something up with their internal network settings, not with their connection to the outside world. They have had a few small glitches over all but they usually resolve them. We only had one instance (which i posted about already) where it took them 2 days to fix it. And as i also said, their support really isnt 24/7...its really just a 9 to 5 thing.

They've had a few too many small glitches to call them super reliable. But i would say you probably get your money's worth

I see. Thanks merkk..:)

I am trying to find DC near by my place... do you think will hosting service matter with their network? since I have decide to go down DC when there is problem, so I don't think 24/7 will not be matter...(like 30 min away)
(newbie on colocaiton, so like to hear some advise...)

Thanks

I see. Thanks merkk..:)

I am trying to find DC near by my place... do you think will hosting service matter with their network? since I have decide to go down DC when there is problem, so I don't think 24/7 will not be matter...(like 30 min away)
(newbie on colocaiton, so like to hear some advise...)

Thanks

what do you mean by 'DC' ?

datacenter.

ahh ok. well like i said their network to the outside world seems stable. They did have an issue recently where some servers went down because one of their a/c units failed and things started to overheat. So i dont know how robust their DC is. Or if they'll let you go there to get physical access to your machine.

if you dont mind some minor glitches, i'd say cari is ok. If you dont mind spending a little bit more money, i'd try zerolag since their DC seemed impressive to me when i visited it.

i was with cari about 6mos ago, every night (5pm to 1am PST) pings to their edge router was in the 300's for me. i live in california and normally ping in the 20's (it was in the 20's right up until their interface and then hit 300). this was reported via their ticketing system and all i got was it was escalated to the appropriate people. about 2 weeks (could be longer could be shorter i didn't keep track) after that i cancelled. cancelling was easy enough and i had no issues with any extra charges. i did get an email about 3 weeks AFTER my cancel that my ticket was being closed, no message on what was going on.

Hi Merkk,
I don't know who you are, can you email me your name or company name so I can find out what exactly happened to you, and at least I would like to post our side even if it was our fault.
From reading your past post you have indicated a problem with the IP.
I also think LowAsYou has been looking for a Colocation and your problems were with a dedicated server.

Hi fqdn,
Do you mind emailing me your info too? I would like to know what has happend there too.

Yeah, I don't worry about hardware because I am going to do colocation... and that's why I asked merkk about network and support...

merkk, have you ever tried any DCs in LA area? How many Dcs(colocation) did you try?

and fqdn, thanks for info.

Thanks

Hi Merkk,
I don't know who you are, can you email me your name or company name so I can find out what exactly happened to you, and at least I would like to post our side even if it was our fault.
From reading your past post you have indicated a problem with the IP.
I also think LowAsYou has been looking for a Colocation and your problems were with a dedicated server.

Yes, i have a dedicated server. Sorry if there was any confusion on that. The server we have is provided by cari. I have no complaints as far as that goes. the machine runs very well.

unfortunately i cant seem to pull up the case #...i cant seem to pull up any case numbers at all in the control panel. Do they expire after a certain amount of time?

all i remember is that i think it was just a single ip (might have been a few but i dont remember) stopped working. It took 2 days to get it resolved and it turned out to be some sort of configuration issue with cari's network setup. Thats what we were told anyhow.

Yeah, I don't worry about hardware because I am going to do colocation... and that's why I asked merkk about network and support...

merkk, have you ever tried any DCs in LA area? How many Dcs(colocation) did you try?

and fqdn, thanks for info.

Thanks

as far as LA goes i've had experience with 3 companies so far:

labridge - we were with them for a while and i dont really remember having any problems with them. The only thing i would say though is that their setup didnt seem very professional. They had everything crammed into what appeared to be just a regular office building and they seemed to share the space with other workers from another company. Even though their setup looked bad, i dont remember having any major problems with them.

zerolag - i havent actually hosted anything with them. But i've met the guy who runs the company as well as getting a tour of their datacenter and it looked impressive to me. They actually have an airlock to get in and out of the center. Felt like i was on star trek :)

cari - i've already discussed them. 24/7 support isnt really 24/7 and a few small glitches although they seem to have them a bit too often. I havent tested ping times as fqdn has, but just from a usability standpoint their network seems fine. and i just ran a trace now and the ping times seem to average about 30ms

cari - i've already discussed them. 24/7 support isnt really 24/7 and a few small glitches although they seem to have them a bit too often. I havent tested ping times as fqdn has, but just from a usability standpoint their network seems fine. and i just ran a trace now and the ping times seem to average about 30ms

Complexdrive, what do you say about this?