Hi,

I am looking for a dedicated server and checked out fastserver.
Any reviews on them. THey seem to offer a good bargain as my site is 'bandwidth and hard disk space hungry'.

Is it true that they give you up to 300GB real bandwidth?

Do you really get 160GB HD in the package for only $138 a month?


Any other comments?

Been with them a while now, and I'm assuming you mean one 60gb drive and not 160gb. But yes, other than that, they are excellent. Support is top notch, and though communication with Shane and a few others, my server was online even ahead of schedule.

Make sure they partition your system correctly... i'm currently working on a server that doesn't have a /usr or /tmp partition, it's all under / which is ONLY 2.9gb

yes, fastservers are definitely a class act. they are value priced and deliver more than your 'whitebox cogent' deals.

nice server, nice people, nice price and nice speed, support reply is always under 30 min

yes, 300GB bandwidth...

and 160HDD? where did u see that?

PERFECTIO.

They are creeping out to be my favourite dedicated provider. Only thing that prevents me ordering more servers is monthly fees for ram etc :)

Other than that they answer phone's quickly and support is A+++

Originally posted by clockwork
Make sure they partition your system correctly... i'm currently working on a server that doesn't have a /usr or /tmp partition, it's all under / which is ONLY 2.9gb


I have one server with fastservers and all is going great. The server is ok, badly partitioned like clockwork mentioned (mine is not the server clockwork is talking about), but for the rest all seems great.

I was just wondering if they will ever call all of us with those badly partitioned servers for a correction...I know it's a lot of work..but maybe they should do so sometime in the future. But I guess they will not as those servers are running ok...anyway we'll see.

Hope fastservers continues this way. I'm a happy customer, at least for now.

hmmm, stupid question.
What's the url to their dedicated servers. I keep getting sent to a store. at fastserver.net.

fastservers.net

MikeMc & clockwork --- can you elaborate on the partitioning issue? I would imagine we are talking about CPanel RedHat systems, right? Having /usr tied to root (/) is not really an issue, we symlink the largest and potentially largest directories off to the largest partition (usually /home).

As far as /tmp, I can't imagine why you require a huge amount of space for that particular area, though I've seen stranger things. We can easily symlink /tmp off to a larger partition....

Or, just request the customized partitions when you get your box setup to begin with.

:D

We use a structure that works for 99% of RedHat CPanel users, while providing the absolute largest amount of available space for their user accounts.

Originally posted by isildur
MikeMc & clockwork --- can you elaborate on the partitioning issue? I would imagine we are talking about CPanel RedHat systems, right? Having /usr tied to root (/) is not really an issue, we symlink the largest and potentially largest directories off to the largest partition (usually /home).

As far as /tmp, I can't imagine why you require a huge amount of space for that particular area, though I've seen stranger things. We can easily symlink /tmp off to a larger partition....

Or, just request the customized partitions when you get your box setup to begin with.

:D

We use a structure that works for 99% of RedHat CPanel users, while providing the absolute largest amount of available space for their user accounts.


Are you serious? You use that structure for 99% of your customers?

Are you aware (by default) if you don't put /tmp on a seperate partition, anyone with access to the server can EASILY fill said partition up? CPanel systems will deny access when / is full, which happend to me recently.

I've been working with *nix for, hmm, going on 7 years now, albiet not all "work experience", but I know bad partitioning when I see it.

There are more implications of why it is good to spread your partitions out as well...

Symlinking is just going to address the symptoms of partitions filling up, not create a cure.

A proper system should have partitions for /, /usr. /tmp, /var, /home, and even sometimes /usr/local (good idea for CPanel systems, as apache resides in /usr/local).

It's not like these systems are tight on space, i mean... 40gb for /home and only 2.9gb collectively for / and /usr? That's just not proper.

When I build systems that have a fair sized disk, I give a min. of 3.5gb to /usr (5gb when i can), and while the /var partition on this system is a whopping 8gb, I usually use around 4gb (I do rotate logs elsewhere).


You really should look into how you partition the servers, because they seem to cater to the people who want to sell massive amounts of disk space, while neglecting the system health as a whole.


I will keep in mind if the company I work for decides to get another server with FS that I personally send the partitioning requirements :)

Originally posted by clockwork

I will keep in mind if the company I work for decides to get another server with FS that I personally send the partitioning requirements :)

I strongly suggest that you do this as Fastservers has been EXCELLENT and I mean EXCELLENT whenever we bring another box online. We always request custom partitions and time after time they do it with a smile.

-Steven

clockwork:

we have a multitude of differences in opinion on that particular issue, and it really isn't worth it to hash out the technical details on this forum. The more details I release online in a forum like this, the more the structure of our machines is known to the galaxy and hence the more security goes down the toilet.

I really am not going to entertain this further, as I believe we are truly doing an adequate job keeping all systems of this nature healthy, with the support structure we have in place. And as Steven pointed out, partitions are easily tailored to whatever you require upon the initial setup of your server.

Have a lovely evening !

Ok, what security problems would there be with discussing partitioning details?

If you're going to admit to not having a /tmp partition as a security issue, then why wouldn't you give every server a /tmp partition... we're talking just a couple hundred megs here, not a 5gb /tmp partition. Surely a server can spare 200mb for a /tmp partition.


As a side note, given the fact i've never ordered a server directly from FS, do you clearly state your partioning table? It'd be a shame for others to leave it in the hands of FS, thinking they will be given a proper partition table, and end up with something inferior....

cheers

My intention was not really to create discussions by commenting the partitioning issue. Fastservers has provided me excellent service.

Anyway...maybe we make too much noise for nothing.

Originally posted by MikeMc
My intention was not really to create discussions by commenting the partitioning issue. Fastservers has provided me excellent service.

Anyway...maybe we make too much noise for nothing.

Well, the thread starter wanted comments... I believe the partitioning layout would classify as such :)

Probably good information should he choose them as well.

And I agree that FS provides good service,
my *only* problem is the partitioning layout they use by default. They still get my vote, but perhaps they will take these matters into consideration for the future.

Originally posted by clockwork
Well, the thread starter wanted comments... I believe the partitioning layout would classify as such :)
Agreed 100%. :agree:

The comments about partitioning were based on personal experience by clockwork and IMO are extremely relevant to the performance of the server.

Therefore clockwork answered the question by the thread starter of -
Originally posted by bud111
Any other comments?