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  1. #1

    Thumbs down Redstation.com review (Dedicated server)

    Web Hosting company: Redstation.com
    Period of review: 08/2013 - 10/2013
    Server location: England
    Type of server: Dedicated server

    Server Details: D8-100 [VALUE]: Dual Core 2.93Ghz; 16GB RAM; SSD: 2x120GB; 100Mbps (+ £59.99 per month)

    General server info
    ===================
    (must be similar to those I had in Hetzner)
    cPanel Version 11.34.1 (build 7)
    Apache version 2.2.22
    PHP version 5.3.10
    MySQL version 5.1.66-cll
    Operating system linux
    Kernel version 2.6.32-220.13.1.el6.x86_64
    cPanel

    Server status/Resources
    =======================
    (Not available, I have left the company)


    This is a 2 month review of Redstation, a very popular UK Web Hosting company. I joined them due to reading many posts in this forum about reliability etc. I should have stayed there for one month but I stayed two and I will go in details in my review for the reason I was forced to do this. My username was R1133400 for any company employee that wants to check.

    Support
    I can confirm that Redstation's support department has the fastest support I've ever seen. Server setup within 3-6 hours, instant reply to my tickets etc. You can setup your server by choosing with the biggest variety of options including operating systems, hard drives, software raids, remove management, firewall management, backup options etc. This is way faster than asking the support department about extras, which (in other companies) will forward you to sales department etc.

    The setup of new hardware is also fast with no problems. What was pissing me off however is the tickets system Redstation uses.
    To summarize:
    1)The biggest problem is that after a couple of replies between me and the technical support, you can't figure out what is the date of messages you are replying to! Replies are messed to each other, you miss the date and you can hardly find the latest message you need to read.

    2)Tickets close within 24 hours. Very fast. Support department doesn't even warn you. You then have to filter closed tickets to see them. If you do so, after opening the ticket and clicking back, then you lose the list of closed tickets and you have to refresh the page and re-click "Closed tickets".

    3) (Following No.2) you have to open a new ticket in a new window, which means copy-paste the whole dialogue you had and re-quoting it. This will also end up in having tons of tickets.

    4)Their system disconnects you after being inactive for a couple of minutes.

    B]Performance[/B]
    My site is running in Joomla 2.6 (latest version) with JomSocial (2.5 version back then, today they have released 3.0) and phpbb forum. The performance was mediocre. I had almost 99,99% uptime but the speed in high traffic hours was causing the MySQL database to reach CPU in it's limits, even through I had 2 SSD hard drives.

    Let me note than using Joomla-Jomsocial-Phpbb I have experienced good speed only in QHoster and Stagnom so far, while Redstation and (worst of all) Hetzner had my site reaching 100% usage of the CPU. In Redstation the situtation was passable.

    The biggest problem is the 500 email limit. For some reason, Redstation is charging this money for larger email packages:

    We offer the following upgrade options;

    50,000 emails per month = £19 per month
    250,000 emails per month = £49 per month
    500,000 emails per month = £79 per month
    1,000,000 emails per month = £149 per month

    I have a community, not a business site, and whis means new registrations, PMs (=emails for those that like to get notified through email) and of course emails between 10 editors that we work in the site, plus external emails to companies. The 500 email limit was ending in a few hours and after that our emails were forced to a queue! It's like moving from one country to another using a low budget air company which charges lots of money for your luggage. You will end paying
    much more than you could imagine. Of course we rejected paying for extra emails and that's the most important reason which we left Redstation.

    For any site owner which has a site with registration, going to Redstation is simply the wrong move, unless he wants to pay and be nervous with every email he sends.

    Prices
    In general, server prices are ok. There are many low budget Dedicated servers in Redstation which is good. But if we keep in mind that extra services like backup or email limits are paid a little more, then the final amount which will allow you to do your job properly is more than you can imagine.

    Furthermore, support department will try to charge you for every single issue you ask for help to them. For instance, I was insisting that my disk was running out of space while in SSH I was seeing that I have lot of free space.

    When I asked for help, that is what I got for reply:

    http://www.image-share.com/upload/2411/65.jpg

    Paying 75 pounds for knowing the correct amount of free space? Seriously Redstation?

    No refund: Many companies don't offer refund and that's acceptable. What I can't accept is that I mistakenly made a payment to Redstation while I had informed them that I will leave. They replied me this:

    Your server will remain active until the 8/11 no 11/10. I am afraid we will be unable to issue a refund on this occasion however as stated we can transfer the credit to another product.
    I asked for other products like "Cpanel services" for example. I could renew Cpanel for a couple of months. The answer was NO!

    I am unable to refund the money as requested as you renewed the product manually; if this was renewed by Redstation by accident then I could provide a refund. I can raise this issue with my supervisor to see if a refund can be issued on this occasion however as it is now the weekend here in the UK I may not get a response until Monday.
    (and finally...)

    I have had a response from my supervisor and unfortunately we will be unable to process a refund to your card. We can however transfer the credit to another Redstation product if the server is cancelled immediately.

    Thank you for your understanding.
    So once again "Are you leaving? Ok, let's charge you". It wasn't that bad like Hetzner. In Redstation I asked a cancellation 3 days before and they accepted it. If I hadn't made the false payment I would leave easily. On the contrary I remember that in Hetzner I had to completelly change my details to avoid being charge because those guys wanted a 1,5-month warning before leaving!

    Summary
    After 2 months in Redstation I was dissapointed because their prices, ticket system and server performance was not what I wanted. If I hadn't a good experience in QHoster (review soon) and Stagnom I would hear what some people say that "My server needs optimization" and I wouldn't blame Redstation. But the fact is that my server was slow all the time, which is something they need to investigate in Joomla-Phpbb sites (and high mysql traffic in general).

    The extra costs for services are also something you have to keep in mind. You buy a low budget server but afterwards you realize that you need:
    - £19 for 5.000 email limit as 500 emails/day are nothing.
    - £15 for 2TB backup server. They don't offer less!
    So you end up paying more.

    If you own a community with forum or you have many registrations per day and generally if you want good prices in a dedicated server to do your job I would encourage you to look elsewhere. Joomla enthusiasts which use settings similar to mine (JomSocial or phpbb) should be worried about server speed. Finally, for those that own a business site and want fast support, fast setup and in-depth purchases for their server with just a mouse click, yes go ahead and join them. The fact that Redstation was not for me doesn't mean that it's a bad company. At least this honest review from a games journalist will help them get better in the future.


    Rating
    Performance: 7
    Speed: 6
    Support: 7 (Response: 10/System: 4)
    Uptime: 10
    Prices: 7
    Overall: 7.4

    Positives:
    - Quick server setup
    - Fast support response
    - Offers every aspect of upgrading your server

    Negatives:
    - Strict email limit
    - High prices of minor upgrades/Can charge you even for support issues
    - Poor ticket system
    - Slow performance in Joomla sites
    - Doesn't offer refund even if the payment is done before the start of service.
    Last edited by Kotsolis; 01-23-2014 at 01:15 PM. Reason: tried to add image but failed

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2013
    Location
    US; UK/EU; Asia/Australia
    Posts
    895
    Thanks for the extensive review.
    Seems like a bad experience to me.
    It is unacceptable to ask to charge money for a simple question like that.
    If you asked them to reconfigure your server, then ok, but that is too much.
    Also you stated you will cancel and they billed you for the next month either way?
    Seems like they are chasing hard after every penny.
    Move on, you will find a provider with proper attitude.

  3. #3
    They didn't auto bill my account. The payment was done manually.

    Actually I paid the 2nd month by myself because i thought that my server was offline due to the invoice pending. But the server was offline because the transfer to the new server QHoster.com wasn't completed (the DNS servers were still "showing" the old site). So I did the mistake to pay them and within 12 hours I told them that "Sorry I paid you by mistake". When they told me "No refund but you can pay any another service" then I easily thought that paying a Cpanel licence would be proper.

    NNNope! Not a chance. Re-selling software is not that profitable. Selling a dedicated server gives you more profit. So no refund for anyone even if you are 3 days before the charge starts (like in my case), even if you make mistake. So I just had to stay on the server and pay it for one month even if I was not using it. I delayed the transfer to QHoster, I used the old server at Redstation for 10 days, then I saw the slowdowns being continued and I moved on to QHoster. And I'm more than happy there. Review soon.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    London
    Posts
    4,931
    You pay a rock bottom server price for decent hardware (Dell, and decent processors and lots of memory). You can easily check what that server costs at www.Dell.co.uk. So its inevitable that they have to make some money somewhere which obviously they do on all the miscellaneous items and support.

    Remember - you get what you pay for.
    Matthew Russell | Namecheap
    Twitter: @mattdrussell

    www.easywp.com - True Managed WordPress, made easy

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Posts
    332
    Quote Originally Posted by mdrussell View Post
    You pay a rock bottom server price for decent hardware (Dell, and decent processors and lots of memory). You can easily check what that server costs at www.Dell.co.uk. So its inevitable that they have to make some money somewhere which obviously they do on all the miscellaneous items and support.

    Remember - you get what you pay for.
    +1 on this. They need to be profitable in order to run, therefore they're going to get their margin somewhere. Sorry to hear about the negative experience though and thanks for sharing.
    InfoRelay Online Systems, Inc.
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    536
    Quote Originally Posted by Kotsolis View Post

    Paying 75 pounds for knowing the correct amount of free space? Seriously Redstation?
    In fairness, it IS an unmanaged server, correct?
    If so, software and sys admin work falls on the customer, not the hoster, they only normally cover hardware failure and network issues.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    England
    Posts
    553
    So they limit emails sent from there dedicated servers?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Posts
    1,764
    Quote Originally Posted by parky1 View Post
    So they limit emails sent from there dedicated servers?
    if you need to send bulk mails you should order additional mail package with them

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    localhost
    Posts
    3,771
    Paying 75 pounds for knowing the correct amount of free space? Seriously Redstation?

    This is not what happened judging by the picture. Redstation offered to investigate it at the software level, but noted they would only waive the fees if it turned out to be a hardware issue, you can't say fairer than that for unmanaged, that's awesome service imho, most would charge even in the event it was hardware if the customer couldnt pinpoint the issue themselves.
    MattF - Since the start..

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    localhost
    Posts
    3,771
    Also the email relay is a premium courtesy service, it is a smart relay judging by the FAQ, one can run their own mail server (and deal with the headaches of such, abuse feedback loops, rdns, rate-limit to major providers) by the looks of it. So I see absolutely no issue there.

    You could always use Postmark (I use them), Mandrill (next project), SES, Jetmail or the handful of other 3421 premium relays.

    This sounds like a typical case of a user best suit to a fully managed server selecting best-bang-for-buck unmanaged and having unreal expectations
    MattF - Since the start..

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 2000
    Location
    localhost
    Posts
    3,771
    - £15 for 2TB backup server. They don't offer less!
    That's a pretty awesome price for 2TB, but you I'll let some else chime in with why its a bad idea (tm) anyway..

    On the general performance issue, unless you can pinpoint a hardware issue, then on those specs it's all software, you were out of your depth perhaps?
    MattF - Since the start..

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    This is not what happened judging by the picture. Redstation offered to investigate it at the software level, but noted they would only waive the fees if it turned out to be a hardware issue, you can't say fairer than that for unmanaged, that's awesome service imho, most would charge even in the event it was hardware if the customer couldnt pinpoint the issue themselves.
    As I said in my review, it's like paying a low budget air company for a flight and they charge you for anything. Prices in unmanaged servers for these issues usually range 30-50 (dollars/euros/pounds etc.) 75 pounds as extremelly high.

    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    You could always use Postmark (I use them), Mandrill (next project), SES, Jetmail or the handful of other 3421 premium relays.

    This sounds like a typical case of a user best suit to a fully managed server selecting best-bang-for-buck unmanaged and having unreal expectations
    In which hosting company do you pay for a Dedicated server (!) and end up in paying extra to raise your email limit? Because you are suggesting extra payment here. Dedicated server is No.1 solution and Redstation feels like trying to gain more money from facts like this. If you have a Dedicated server you should be able to manage it as you wish. What's the point in having email limit to someone who pays so much money every month?

    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    That's a pretty awesome price for 2TB, but you I'll let some else chime in with why its a bad idea (tm) anyway..

    On the general performance issue, unless you can pinpoint a hardware issue, then on those specs it's all software, you were out of your depth perhaps?
    BudgetVM and Backupsy charge 5 euros/month for 250GB or 500GB, can't remember exactly. Not even IGN and Gamespot would consume 2TB of backup space. Even for their videos they use YouTube! So no point in having it as minimum.

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