Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : OVH/Kimsufi 1 month review, bumpy ride..

[WWS2010]

On 1 february i ordered a Kimsufi 2G. i'd like to share my experience with it, it has been somewhat a bumpy ride

Order
The kimsufi site stated that the server would be online within 1 hour after payment. So i grabbed my credit card and ordered one. It actually took them 90 minutes to deliver. Not 1 hour, but its not that bad.

Control Panel
One of the best things about OVH is the control panel where you can do anything yourself. I ordered 3 extra ips, activated the free FTP backup and installed CentOS 6 x64. This was also very easy to do and with another 30 mins my server was ready to use.

Hardware. 64bit or not?
I got a Celeron 1.2 as CPU, the hardware is different for each kimsufi 2G server. I have seen dual core pentium IV cpu's so my Celeron 1.2 is as advertised.. but nothing special. I still wonder how they get a x64 OS to run on a Celeron 1.2, which i think??) is not a 64bit CPU.

But then to trouble started..
After configuring the server to my needs which took me about 3 hours i did one last thing: Activate netboot. OVH offers a netboot kernel feature to be sure you always have their latest optimal and secure kernel. After activating the netboot kernel my server didn't came back up.

OVH has an internal monitoring system which alerts a tech to look at your server when it is down. In about an hour a tech looked into it and responded "Kernel error, restarting server in rescue mode". So i activated HD boot again, and it was fine.. but this particular server wasn't able to netboot.

To be sure it wasn't my configuration error i installed a clean and default CentOS image to the server and tried netboot again. It was once again failing to come back up after activating the netboot kernel.

Then get me a refund
After messing around with it for some days for myself and founding the techs not helpfull in making their netboot feature work. So i contacted commercial support to get a refund. To get my refund a tech needed to confirm that the netboot failures on this server are a 'bug'. After ticketing around between commercial and tech support for days (this took 12 replies from me in 2 tickets) a supervisor called me on my mobile to say sorry for the long ticketing mess and promised me my refund within 7 days. It actually took 10 days before i got it.

Second try
Since i needed a small server anyway, i let OVH refund the payment as credit in my customer account and tried to order another kimsufi 2G. This one was also delivered in time. First thing i did was making sure that netboot and every other piece of hardware worked on this one. And it did! My 'second try' server is a dualcore atom 1.8ghz. After doing all the configuration work (3 hours of work.. again ) this one runs fine.

After all..
The servers are fine, but when you order one be sure to test everything and be prepared to some ticketing around for non-standard/non-automated requests. Be sure to have knowledge of linux. OVH is not going to help you with anything except replacing failing hardware.

Pro's:
+ Quick reaction from techs to incident tickets if your server is down. Even on kimsufi ones.
+ Great control panel with high level of automation.
+ Ping and network speeds are good. Am able to burst the full 100mbit.
+ 100GB Free FTP backup space with every server.

Cons:
- Slow commercial and non-incident tech support.
- When you have a 'complicated' issue, be prepared for some ticketing around.
- Techs are not very helpful.
- Causing me hours of extra work.

[File1eu]

Good review, can you provide some info on the network speeds you get? I think you nicely sum it up, OVH is quick and cheap but you better not need support

[bhanuprasad1981]

i too want to know same , i am planning to buy a ks24 to host some busy sites.

[WWS2010]

Here are some quick wget network tests. If you want me to wget of ping something else from it, just send me a PM

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://speedtest.sea01.softlayer.com/downloads/test100.zip -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:28:58 (3,65 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104874307/104874307]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://fremont1.linode.com/100MB-fremont.bin -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:31:11 (2,78 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104857600/104857600]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:32:35 (11,0 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104857600/104857600]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://hetzner.de/100MB.iso -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:37:42 (10,9 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104840234/104840234]

[W1H-Lee]

Good review and to be honest good for OVH. For a €14 server you really get more than what you pay for. Ok support could be better on hardware issues however they are not going to prioritse a €14 customer over others.

As you have said, take the server based on the need to do a bit of chasing about if you have any hardware issues. From what I read you still got better responses and results than many others who charge much more.

[WWS2010]

Originally Posted by wisenerl

Good review and to be honest good for OVH. For a €14 server you really get more than what you pay for. Ok support could be better on hardware issues however they are not going to prioritse a €14 customer over others.

As you have said, take the server based on the need to do a bit of chasing about if you have any hardware issues. From what I read you still got better responses and results than many others who charge much more.

Exactly, good value for money. If i didn't like it it would have cost me €20 (17+3 for the extra ips). Since there is no contract OVH Is worth the try.

[continuation]

Originally Posted by WWS2010

Here are some quick wget network tests. If you want me to wget of ping something else from it, just send me a PM

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://speedtest.sea01.softlayer.com/downloads/test100.zip -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:28:58 (3,65 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104874307/104874307]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://fremont1.linode.com/100MB-fremont.bin -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:31:11 (2,78 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104857600/104857600]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:32:35 (11,0 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104857600/104857600]

[root@b1 ~]# wget http://hetzner.de/100MB.iso -O /dev/null

2012-02-29 14:37:42 (10,9 MB/s) - '`/dev/null'' opgeslagen [104840234/104840234]

Anyway you could test the speed of downloading from your kimsufi server (preferably to a US location if possible)? Thanks.

[breeeville]

how much did you pay for the servers?
were they ordered direct or through third party suppliers?

[F-DNS]

Originally Posted by continuation

Anyway you could test the speed of downloading from your kimsufi server (preferably to a US location if possible)? Thanks.

The top 2 he posted are Softlayer in Seattle and Linode in Fremont

To be fair, the download speeds achieved now are only temporary. OVH are doing very nicely with the roll-out of their new USA network, and are already pulling some traffic from Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Newark and San Jose onto the new setup - Mostly Level3, GBLX and TATA up to now, I can't wait to see what happens when they get all their peering in place too.

Already you can get from San Jose to Roubaix on OVH - Once they get the rest set up this should be pretty awesome!

6 xe-8-1-0.edge1.Sanjose3.level3.net (4.68.110.249) 72.035 ms 68.711 ms 68.695 ms
7 * * 178.32.135.21 (178.32.135.21) 72.155 ms
8 dal-1-6k.tx.us (178.32.135.151) 72.071 ms * *
9 nwk-1-6k.nj.us (178.32.135.222) 71.997 ms * *
10 ldn-1-6k.uk.eu (178.33.100.235) 143.128 ms * *
11 rbx-g1-a9.fr.eu (94.23.122.66) 144.021 ms 144.587 ms 144.562 ms

@WWS2010 - Good review! Glad you got there in the end

[continuation]

Originally Posted by F-DNS

The top 2 he posted are Softlayer in Seattle and Linode in Fremont

Right. But those are inbound traffic into the kimsufi server. Inbound traffic tends to be less congested. I'd like to see the speed for outbound traffic.

[WWS2010]

Originally Posted by breeeville

how much did you pay for the servers?
were they ordered direct or through third party suppliers?

I ordered direct from OVH. Since i'm from the Netherlands i pay in Euro and must pay VAT. The server was €17.84 Incl. VAT and the 3 extra ips €1.19 incl. VAT. Which makes it €21,41/month incl. VAT.

Originally Posted by continuation

Right. But those are inbound traffic into the kimsufi server. Inbound traffic tends to be less congested. I'd like to see the speed for outbound traffic.

See what F-DNS posted right underneath this post.

[F-DNS]

Originally Posted by continuation

Right. But those are inbound traffic into the kimsufi server. Inbound traffic tends to be less congested. I'd like to see the speed for outbound traffic.

Choose from these: http://proof.ovh.net/files/

[WWS2010]

Quick update:

Today my server went down. OVH Monitoring noticed this within 10 minutes and i got an e-mail at 16:20 telling me there was an intervention scheduled.

On 19:06 i got another message stating this:

Intervention Report:

Motherboard replacement
Date 2012-10-30 16:29:48, christophe.dickschat made
Motherboard replacement:
Diagnosis:
HS motherboard

Actions:
Replacing the motherboard.
Launch install.
Updating the MAC address for DHCP.
Server restart.

result:
Install OK, code send.
DHCP OK. Boot OK. Server on login screen. Ping OK, services
started.

3 hours for a hardware replacement on a €20/month server without me having to do anything. Very nice. I'm impressed.

[luma]

They use Celeron 220's which is a fairly modern 1.2Ghz Celeron similar to the Atoms.

This is not your celeron of the late 90's.

They actually perform rather well for the price.

They are 64bit.

http://ark.intel.com/products/33102/...Hz-533-MHz-FSB

Originally Posted by WWS2010

Hardware. 64bit or not?
I got a Celeron 1.2 as CPU, the hardware is different for each kimsufi 2G server. I have seen dual core pentium IV cpu's so my Celeron 1.2 is as advertised.. but nothing special. I still wonder how they get a x64 OS to run on a Celeron 1.2, which i think??) is not a 64bit CPU.