Been shopping for mission critical managed dedicated hosting provider. Rackspace seems to have the corner on the market. We have several websites, need 24x7 level 3 support (we do not resell).

Got a quote from Rackspace for there lowest powered server (1 GHz AMD/256 RAM) and 2 18GB Hard Drives with RAID controller and Plesk administrator. $650/month!!!

No wonder they can afford 'fanatical support'. Are they high balling me waiting for me to haggle or am I not going about this the right way to get the best quote out of them?

Who would be everyone's second choice for a managed dedicated hosting service with EXCELLENT 24x7 support? We want a company that if we ask them to install (and support) 3rd party software (for a fee of course) they can do it. We want a company that has experience, is financially solid, and has good security (firewall options, etc.) Who is second to Rackspace but cheaper?

Pegasus are pretty good, and are certainly not lacking experience. I'm not sure about their financials, but I believe they can offer firewall options.

Contact Jay at jason@pwebtech.com

Matt

Well it ended up that the RAID option was adding something like $300+/month to the cost!! So we switched to a backup hard drive solution and now it is down to $385/month. Still not cheap but our business is big enough and the site is important enough where we aren't going to go with someone else to save $50-$75/month and not get quite as good of support.

You might want to check out Verio.com or Pair.com as well.

You should still do some more haggling, tell them $350 or you walk, you can always go back and get the $385 option, albeit looking a bit silly (who cares though?)

You might want to check out Rackfast.com, they are a new addition to the game, and they are the sister company of host rocket.

Pair.com is excellent (my experience and that of many others) - truly - provided that your application and use of their machine fits within terms of use. Starting at 299 per month for a ded server.

DataPipe.com is another large vendor with good references as well.

There may be others but those are two larger, reasonably priced options with sterling histories.

Cheers
Mike

If you think you can afford the $385/month, then I would suggest that you stick with Rackspace.com. I've been with Rackspace.com for over 8 months now and I'm very happy with their service and support. It's really not worth paying less, as you get what you pay for.

Alan

I too would suggest that PWEBTECH is the next best available managed provider. Email jason@pwebtech.com for a quote.