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  1. #1

    Best VPS Host with Texas Datacenters?

    Hi, just wanted to see if there are other people from TX here familiar with the major hosts in the state who can maybe run down some choices with me.

    I know of: (and their datacenter)
    Hostgator (The Planet)
    KnownHost (Colo4)
    Unixy (Quasar)
    Slicehost (Rackspace)

    I'm sure there are more...What others are there? And who is solid but still affordable?

    I've been disappointed with KnownHost's Dallas/Colo4 hosting especially after the lack of communication and accountability shown by both companies with today's outage so I'm now thinking about options. Any info appreciated. Thanks.

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    4,740
    What type of outage was there? Im not sure, if any data was lost or anything. Is there a thread? What are your full requirements? Control Panel? RAM? Location? Once we have this information we will be able to assist you.

    - Daniel

  3. #3
    Do you have a datacenter in Texas?

    EDIT: Ok your datacenter is in Orlando FL.

    Thanks for the response. I am unfortunately looking ONLY for hosting physically located in Texas.

  4. #4
    Linode. I think they are at SoftLayer in Dallas. Unmanaged though, not sure if you want managed.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by SamBarrow View Post
    Linode. I think they are at SoftLayer in Dallas. Unmanaged though, not sure if you want managed.
    Thanks, yeah they seem pretty good... except I really do want managed if possible..

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Arclight View Post
    Thanks, yeah they seem pretty good... except I really do want managed if possible..
    Yes unfortunately they don't have that. They are a very good provider though, best I've ever had.

  7. #7
    Adding to the list:

    QualityHostOnline (SoftLayer Dallas)
    FutureHosting (Colo4)
    Last edited by Arclight; 08-10-2011 at 07:02 PM.

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    If you think Colo4 is bad, then stay away from The Planet / Softlayer datacenters. They're at least as bad, if not worse. I suggest you do diligent research on this, and look at how they've handled downtimes in the past 5 years. For example, the Houston explosions at The Planet. I'm honestly not a big fan of the current Texas datacenters.

    Look in the WHT outage forum, browse back as far as you can.
    Last edited by kpmedia; 08-11-2011 at 03:13 AM. Reason: added more
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    If you think Colo4 is bad, then stay away from The Planet / Softlayer. I suggest you do diligent research on this.
    I long ago came to the conclusion that many Texas datacenters are crappy.
    Out of curiosity, have you had firsthand experience with any of these companies to propose such valiant claims? The reason I ask is, we have a few servers that reside within the SoftLayer facility within their Dallas, Texas Data Center. To date, we have never experienced any network issues over the course of the past 3 years.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by LevelHosting Inc View Post
    Out of curiosity, have you had firsthand experience with any of these companies to propose such valiant claims?
    Yes. I've been doing this since the 1990s.
    If you don't want to believe my negative comments, the internet has plenty more to be read.
    And it's not just issues with outages.


    ..

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    Yes. I've been doing this since the 1990s.
    If you don't want to believe my negative comments, the internet has plenty more to be read.
    And it's not just issues with outages.


    ..
    Are there any that you would recommend based on your experience, that are not Colo4?

    Thanks

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    We use colo4, other than yesterdays power issues, we've found them responsive, professional, and the facilities rock solid.

  13. #13
    Like other Knownhost customers with accounts hosted at Colo4, I've had a couple outages and periods of weirdness and low availability over the past year or so. With the latest event, particularly given how the situation was handled and the fact it revealed that Colo4 was never as redundant in reality as everyone had been led to believe in their promotional material, my confidence in continuing there is not high.

    kpmedia- Except for the explosion at the Planet are there other catastrophic issues at SoftLayer or the Planet you can cite in the past couple years?

    Has anyone had experience hosting with Unixy or other hosting companies using the Quasar or Rackspace datacenters in Houston?
    Last edited by Arclight; 08-11-2011 at 01:15 PM.

  14. #14
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arclight View Post
    Except for the explosion at the Planet are there other catastrophic issues at SoftLayer or the Planet you can cite in the past couple years?
    ThePlanet has had large issues in the past, other than the explosion.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ight=theplanet

    Rackspace has had an issue where they lost all data for some cloud server customers.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ight=rackspace

    Rackspace experienced a 4 hour 40 minute outage due to a fiber cut, despite claims of redundant fiber to the facility.

    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...ight=rackspace

    This happened in London, but it's the same company and it just shows as as an example that it can happen in one of their facilities.

    At the end of the day, outages happen essentially everywhere. If you leave every time the first time there's a significant issue, you'll be moving hosts pretty frequently.

  15. #15
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    I don't really have anything against Colo4.

    While I am disappointed in what happened yesterday, I want to see if this is a one-off issue which they'll learn from. Though not perfect, their communication is nowhere near as bad as what I've seen in the past from others. Refer back to my first post in this thread -- if you think Colo4 is bad, then you'll be disappointed by the others. That wasn't stating Colo4 is bad, but simply that the others being suggested are worse. I've not seen anything from Colo4 that would make me want to flee their DC just yet.
    Last edited by kpmedia; 08-11-2011 at 02:18 PM.
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  16. #16
    Join Date
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    Here is some info on the Colo4 issue:

    August 11th, 2011 : Rich Miller

    Colocation provider Colo4 experienced a power outage at one of its Dallas data centers Wednesday after an automatic transfer switch failed on one of the facility’s utility feeds. The incident resulted in approximately six hours of downtime for affected customers.

    Colo4 was able to restore power by about 6:30 p.m., the company said in a status update on its web site. The automatic transfer switch (ATS) switches a facility’s electric power source from the utility grid to backup power, usually supplied by a diesel backup generator. It’s a crucial piece of equipment in helping data centers remain online during utility outages.

    Problems with automatic transfer switches were cited in at least four data center outages in 2010. The Colo4 team restored power by installing a backup ATS that it had on-site for emergencies.

  17. #17
    KH's vz66-tx , where my site is hosted, and located at Colo4 has been down today for about 2hrs + now. Some people with Critical support tix on KH for this issue have waited about an hour and a half for answers with support finally directing them to read a thread on KH's support forum instead of giving a straight up sitrep directly.

    Also I believe Colo4 on their updates about the incident yesterday posted something about A/B switchover not happening because something was incorrectly plugged into A instead of B? I dont remember exactly.

    Again, a lot of things together combined with several noticeable (e.g. several hours to half day) unexpected/unscheduled downtimes or virtual downtimes with low availability and timeouts in the last year... I am not looking to keep putting my trust in Colo4 at this point.
    Last edited by Arclight; 08-11-2011 at 03:59 PM.

  18. #18
    "At the end of the day, outages happen essentially everywhere. If you leave every time the first time there's a significant issue, you'll be moving hosts pretty frequently."

    I agree.

    However that's completely separate from simple business aspects like communication during crisis. Which is vital to those hosts whose clients are barraging them when their sites are down seeking an answer.

    It's hard to sympathize with a colo company whose response behavior to crisis is to clam up for a while and not give substantive or regular updates until much later.

    When KH support has no answers for its clients other than "Hmm we're not sure exactly what's going on, Colo4 hasnt responded to us with any answers for a while now" ... And when KH is posting more info on WHT about the complete outage of a datacenter than it is delivering via its own support forums, twitter, or helpdesk ticket system - this is not good at all.

    Outages happen. But how companies handle it is the deal. KH can only be as proactive with information as Colo4 allows them to be, and as such again it doesnt matter who or what KH is like, they are at the mercy of Colo4.

    So now a lot of people whose KH accounts are hosted in the Colo4 datacenter have two days of several-hour-long outages. To go along with a sprinkling of the same the last year or so. All with very slow communication, my guess mostly because of Colo4 being the weak link in that process. So I am just fine with moving hosts to see if the overall experience will improve. I am sure there will be a crisis here and there too with whoever I go with, too. It's the handling of it that matters. So far I've spent enough time and chances with colo4, my sympathy for them is used up at this point.

  19. #19
    My colo4 rant aside, so far here is the list, any others anyone can think of by chance?

    FutureHosting (Colo4)
    HawkHost (SoftLayer)
    Hostgator (The Planet)
    KnownHost (Colo4)
    Linode (SoftLayer)
    QualityHostOnline (SoftLayer)
    Site5 (The Planet)
    Slicehost (Rackspace)
    Unixy (Quasar)

  20. #20
    I forgot. Quasar now offers hosting as well right from their own datacenter.

  21. #21
    Join Date
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    HawkHost uses SoftLayer in Dallas.
    Site5 uses The Planet in Dallas.
    Hosting is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get.

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