Switching to Colo'ing
 

I've recently become fed up enough with the logjam known as OVH's network and purchased my own server, now I'm looking for a reasonable place to colocate it. Its just a personal server hosting a few personal sites/email and my VMware playground, so its not mission essential or anything.

I'm currently considering locations in Dallas, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Memphis due to relative closeness to my physical location; I'd like to not to have to rely on remote hands if possible, especially if they're pricey.

One provider that's jumped out at it is Datashack.net in KC. They seem to be well favored around here for what they offer.. If someone who currently is hosted there would be willing to run a traceroute or two for me, it would be greatly appreciated. Let me know and I'll PM an IP address.

One other place that looks interesting is FDC Servers in Denver, although it is out of my distance range. The Colo Package 4 has 4U of space, does anyone know if I were to pay for a 2nd power drop and send in a rackmount switch, would they hook up the network drop to the switch and the 2 NICs and IPMI port to the switch?

Thanks in advance for any input

Send me a PM and I'll run you traceroutes from Datashack's colo facility.

I'd steer clear of FDC. Their network either works well (based on peering with your provider) or is terrible. This is for instance true with Comcast (great) but not good experience with Verizon. Their bandwidth is all shared and non guaranteed unless you pay more.

As for colo'ing other gear, you are going to pay per U rates for each additional piece of gear. So a 1U server + switch means being charged rate for 1U x 2. Some providers can/will put something together for you custom.

You likely are just best using the facilities own switches and paying for additional network drops, which are much cheaper than additional 1U colo cost.

What are you trying to accomplish with a second switch? I recommend going with a secondary network drop rather than paying for extra space and power required for an additional device.

I understand Joe's Data Center in KC is extremely inexpensive. I don't know much more about them then that.

Well the switch/FDC idea is out, so that's a moot point now. I've done a few speed tests from their Denver looking glass with varying results, so I don't intend on pursing them further.

I've sent out an contact inquiry to Datashack via their website contact form but haven't heard back yet, which is semi-concerning. I suppose website contact forms can be finicky though, so if I don't hear anything back by tomorrow I'll email them directly.

Give Aaron at Wholesale Internet (WII) a try. Datashack I believe uses WII's datacenter.

I just recently wrote a 2 year review of WII:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1114245

Check colounlimited.com .

We have cabinets with them and we are very satisfied with their network.

Joe's, Wholesale and Datashack are nearly the same. You won't go wrong with any of them.

Fair to note (I think) that Joe's and Datashack are smaller operations staff wise. Both from time to time have been slow with inquiries. But they do catch up typically.

Their networks look the same. Run some traceroutes inside and out and compare. They are very Cogent-dependent, all three. So beware of that. Cogent routing can be a tad odd for some folks.

BTW: Datashack does colo at their own facility, not at Wholesale. Although, it's my understanding that their bandwidth for the new facility heads over to Wholesale to out to the world.

Wholesale internet good Kansas location.

+1 for ColoU. We have been there over a year and very satisfied.

Just an update.. I received a response to my Datashack inquiry not long after this message, so maybe I jumped the gun there a bit.

I do believe I'm going to go with Datashack however and am going to start readying a migration strategy from current server to the new colocated one. I'll post back later on once I've got things in motion on my thoughts on things.

Thanks again to all to those who provided input and suggestions here.

datashack is a bit slow response but works great ( at least dedi boxes)

I have a colo server at Joe's. For the last month I've had 100% uptime, that's fairly good :)

Sounds like you should colo in your own town or city. You have not described anything other then you want better support and if you're going colo then colo'ing in your city would give you the support you're looking for (from yourself) hosting that server across the country could end up just like your ovh dedicated server in France

I believe Wholesale does the support for datashack, as many of the people have the same name.

Datashack has their own facility, as well as racks at Wholesale, and their facility gets it's internet from wholesale internet.

The only difference between Joes, Wholesale and Datashack is that Joes does not have a backup generator, not really a bad thing for non mission critical system.

+1 for Datashack or Wholesale, I have systems with both of them, and have no complaints.