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  1. #1

    do not use arvixe !!

    Hi
    I'v host my website on Arvixe until today.

    Today I got an email:

    At approximately 1:30PM PST Hazel had a hardware failure where the active RAID became unbootable. We are working with the datacenter to get this issue resolved as fast as possible, however at this point we are involving the RAID card vender to attempt to recover the data. Unfortunately, they are not available until Monday Morning at 8am PST. During this time, we are beginning a bare metal restore as a “worst case scenario”.

    Updates on the status of this process can be found at the following link:

    Please review this link for answers to your questions; it will be updated as we know more.

    Since then all my emails are gone, no websites - while they are not providing any DRP???

    I moved to ipage today

  2. #2
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    So because of a raid failure, everyone should avoid them? You do realize hardware failure is not their fault right? Looking at their site i have a couple of questions for you.

    1. Where you using personal or business class hosting with them?
    2. How long were you a customer?

    If you were using their personal class hosting and have been a customer awhile without much hassle, I think this thread is a little harsh. Due diligence is also on you to make your own backups. Never expect someone else to do this even if they say they do.

  3. #3
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    I respect that you're new to this forum, but hardware failures DO happen, to every single provider. Whilst this is an unfortunate incident, I really do feel this post was uncalled for.

    If you feel this strongly, you could have easily emailed them and asked to be placed on a different server and have your account restored from backups they have off-site, or your own backups (which you will have if you value your data that much).
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  4. #4

    99.9% up-time????

    They offer 99.9% up-time to all plans!!

    Still I would recommend not using Arvixe
    According to the last update from the site will be up in 36 hrs!!!

    And any web hosting should have a DRP ready for every reason!!

    What would you do if you cannot get emails for 72 hrs???? are you serious???

    Please think how would you react in this case.

    thanks

  5. #5
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    They offer 99.9% but most hosts like my company (not affiliated with arvixe) offer an SLA in case we do not meet this standard due to hardware failure.
    As an example. This SLA provides customers with credit for the hassle should we not meet our guarantee.


    so just because a host offers an uptime guarantee, it's what they hope to achieve. Unfortunately circumstances happen. Give the host a break.

    If your emails are of that high of importance, maybe you should have a backup plan of your own?

    To expect a host to be online 100% of the time is absurd and they sure do not deserve a negative mark for something outside of their control.
    They were running raid, that's good. Unfortunately raid failed them. Do expect much, much higher prices if you want what you're looking for.

    Looking for more redundancy to your emails? Maybe cheap web hosting isn't an option for you and you should be looking for more premium solutions.
    Lower your expectations of service providers, after all we're all human beings behind the servers and the servers are not immune to failure.
    Last edited by veedub; 09-29-2013 at 12:02 PM.

  6. #6
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    Don't expect anything better with iPage. They're owned by EIG who have a terrible reputation for buying hosting company's and ruining them.
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  7. #7
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    A RAID card "vender?" :/

  8. #8
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    Anyone from Arvixe?
    Did they provide any better options to customers than just waiting for 36 hours? Like restore option?
    Was bare metal restore completed and live in a few hours?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by HVH - George View Post
    Don't expect anything better with iPage. They're owned by EIG who have a terrible reputation for buying hosting company's and ruining them.
    Ipage isn't all that great. Expect a slow loading site that will turn away visitors.

    Hardware failures happen to every host. It can even happen with Ipage.

    I personally had a great experience with arvixe when I hosted a site with them in the past.

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  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by veedub View Post
    So because of a raid failure, everyone should avoid them? You do realize hardware failure is not their fault right? Looking at their site i have a couple of questions for you.

    1. Where you using personal or business class hosting with them?
    2. How long were you a customer?

    If you were using their personal class hosting and have been a customer awhile without much hassle, I think this thread is a little harsh. Due diligence is also on you to make your own backups. Never expect someone else to do this even if they say they do.
    The server in question (and the only server out of ~300 shared servers having problems) is a Windows PersonalClass server. The customer may wish to divulge how long they've been a customer but as we have not put new customers on this server for a while, it would have to be a while.

    I believe everyone has already outlined the fact that hardware malfunctions do happen and the SLA/uptime concerns.

    In such cases, while we understand that any outage is catstrophic for customers, we do provide an automatic 1-3 month credit (depending on the severity of the outage) once the server is brought back online.

    The issue is with a bug in the 3ware/LSI firmware that's running on this RAID card where the configuration of the RAID is lost in some rare cases. LSI has been aware of this and were working on a firmware update so we can roll it out to our servers. Unfortunately this server was affected by the RAID configuration lost in the mean time.

    In a case where the configuration of RAID is lost, as most technically savvy individuals can confirm, the options are to either work with the vendor or attempt to restore from backups. We did have up to date backups as of 8 AM of the same day the failure happened (yesterday) and we started the restore of the 1.5 TB of data on to an identical server. The server was set aside so we could communicate with LSI Monday morning to get the RAID working.

    1.5 TB of data is a good amount of data and using R1Soft BMR does take 24-48 hours to restore at the earliest. The BMR is expected to finish Monday morning at this time.

    To the customer: I'm very sorry for your issues. As the email and our timely updates suggest, we are doing everything possible. To have a service that actually provides the level of redundancy you are expecting here with the ease of use that accompanies shared hosting, you should be expecting to pay a lot more.

    Some concerns here -

    - As others have noted, hardware failure happens. The value in a company comes in how they respond to the disaster. We are using virtually all available venues and actually have backups (would another provider have backups in such a case and attempt a restore this quickly on a weekend?).

    - You are moving to iPage. Yet you were on a Windows plan... I don't believe iPage has Windows plans...

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by qtriangle View Post
    Anyone from Arvixe?
    Did they provide any better options to customers than just waiting for 36 hours? Like restore option?
    Was bare metal restore completed and live in a few hours?
    We can restore a single customer's data to another server however the customer needs to have the technical ability to re-assemble the data. As has been outlined, this is a Windows plan. So on another server, the customer needs to re-setup the MSSQL databases, connection strings, email accounts, etc. And also wait for the DNS update. If a customer were to take this route, we can restore their files to a different account for them without them having to pay for that account.

    This is a bare metal of 1.5 TB of data, it will take more than just a few hours.

  12. #12
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    [QUOTE What would you do if you cannot get emails for 72 hrs?[/QUOTE]

    I'd feel like I had a breath of fresh air if I didn't have to read emails for 72 hours.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by speedycrow chad View Post
    Ipage isn't all that great. Expect a slow loading site that will turn away visitors.
    Do you have an account with them?

    Specially 4 U
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arvand View Post
    We can restore a single customer's data to another server however the customer needs to have the technical ability to re-assemble the data. As has been outlined, this is a Windows plan. So on another server, the customer needs to re-setup the MSSQL databases, connection strings, email accounts, etc. And also wait for the DNS update. If a customer were to take this route, we can restore their files to a different account for them without them having to pay for that account.

    This is a bare metal of 1.5 TB of data, it will take more than just a few hours.
    Thanks for the clarification Arvand.
    I have myself used Arvixe in past. I can say that they handle issues, once they arise, pretty well. Frequency of issues is another thing. In this case that also does not seem to be bad.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by lirons View Post
    They offer 99.9% up-time to all plans!!

    Still I would recommend not using Arvixe
    According to the last update from the site will be up in 36 hrs!!!

    And any web hosting should have a DRP ready for every reason!!

    What would you do if you cannot get emails for 72 hrs???? are you serious???

    Please think how would you react in this case.

    thanks

    You pay $4 per month for "unlimited" space and bandwidth and you complain because they don't have a replacement server just online? you have no idea of what you are talking about.

  16. #16
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    By what I see, I really can't fault Arvixe here!

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by lirons View Post
    Hi
    I'v host my website on Arvixe until today.

    Today I got an email:

    At approximately 1:30PM PST Hazel had a hardware failure where the active RAID became unbootable. We are working with the datacenter to get this issue resolved as fast as possible, however at this point we are involving the RAID card vender to attempt to recover the data. Unfortunately, they are not available until Monday Morning at 8am PST. During this time, we are beginning a bare metal restore as a “worst case scenario”.

    Updates on the status of this process can be found at the following link:

    Please review this link for answers to your questions; it will be updated as we know more.

    Since then all my emails are gone, no websites - while they are not providing any DRP???

    I moved to ipage today

    I dosent happen you really choose ipage over arvixe !!!

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arvand View Post
    The value in a company comes in how they respond to the disaster. We are using virtually all available venues and actually have backups
    Yes it does, and you're doing fine. (And you know I'm critical.)

    @OP: This situation sucks, but just handle it as best you can. With your own backups -- you DO have your own backups, right? -- you can also just have Arvixe put you on a new server. All you lose is a few hours from re-uploading the site(s), redoing permissions on files/folders, and changing a few IP-based settings as needed.
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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    Yes it does, and you're doing fine. (And you know I'm critical.)

    @OP: This situation sucks, but just handle it as best you can. With your own backups -- you DO have your own backups, right? -- you can also just have Arvixe put you on a new server. All you lose is a few hours from re-uploading the site(s), redoing permissions on files/folders, and changing a few IP-based settings as needed.
    It's a pretty common angle on WHT to blame the customer for not maintaining their own backup... However we must also consider attributing some fault to the provider. 1.5TB (yes TB) is tiny tiny amount of data in 2013, and 48hrs+ for BMR is just comical, almost JPC territory. Hosts should provide testing of their recovery plans to ensure they can recover faster than a C64 tape drive. Whilst the client should indeed maintain their own backups, the host is also at fault, and blaming some third party vendor such as R1Soft just isn't on (your suppliers your fault), if R1soft truly is a slow turtle then why plaster it all over the plans as if it's something of value.

    "We use R1Soft - So awesome - restoration in just days (tm)."

    If hosts cant provide a sensible backup solution then dont headline advertise it, bury it in the TOS "we provide backup as a courtesy, via TurtleSoft, but make no ETAs for restoration"
    Last edited by MattF; 09-30-2013 at 01:56 AM.
    MattF - Since the start..

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    we must also consider attributing some fault to the provider.
    Nicely put.
    I always see "have you own backup" as a weird sentence. If a provider is claiming he has multiple backups then client should not be required to bother about it.
    But our host friends always say "have your own backups".
    It is like saying "why didn't you wear bulletproof jacket" after some frustrated con pumps bullet in your chest.

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by qtriangle View Post
    Nicely put.
    I always see "have you own backup" as a weird sentence. If a provider is claiming he has multiple backups then client should not be required to bother about it.
    But our host friends always say "have your own backups".
    It is like saying "why didn't you wear bulletproof jacket" after some frustrated con pumps bullet in your chest.
    I do see a value in this advise tho. Indeed a lot of providers, if not most of them, do keep backups of customer accounts. However many charge for the actual backup restore and as you can see, sometimes it can take too much time and hassle, so the suggestion is simply to have a Plan B. If you see that the host handles the situation unsatisfactory, you can take things into your own hands to get back online and after that decide if you wish to continue business with them
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  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    It's a pretty common angle on WHT to blame the customer for not maintaining their own backup... However we must also consider attributing some fault to the provider. 1.5TB (yes TB) is tiny tiny amount of data in 2013, and 48hrs+ for BMR is just comical, almost JPC territory.
    Seeing as this is an older server with personal plans, like they say, chances are it's on 100 Mbit. The best-case scenario to pull a 1.5 TB restore going at a steady 100 Mbit, accounting for overhead, would be at least 36 hours.

  23. #23
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    we are doing everything possible.
    We are using virtually all available venues
    @aeris, they mention they are restoring to replacement server. Unless they went to a local museum they would struggle to find a server with NIC only capable of 100mbit, in addition any primitive/non-taxing stream compression would bring the amount flowing over the network down considerably to a fraction of that (presumably R1Soft is a little more intelligent than booting say something like parted magic and `netcat | dd`) . It sounds like they're singing the song but not doing the dance.. Some pretty low expectations if that counts for all available venues, it particularly annoying when hosts try to blame technical limitations for not being able to deliver an optimal solution. Lets have some straight talking honesty "you're on pleb package, so we cant really pull out the stops out on this one"
    Last edited by MattF; 09-30-2013 at 04:40 AM.
    MattF - Since the start..

  24. #24
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    I suffered 3+ days of waiting time for HDD copy at JPC. Looks something similar.

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by MattF View Post
    Unless they went to a local museum they would struggle to find a server with NIC only capable of 100mbit
    I said the server was on 100 Mbit, not that the server's NIC was only capable of 100 Mbit. Presumably the replacement server, which would have to be identical to do a bare-metal restore, was already racked in the existing infrastructure - which may well only have 100 Mbit available due to the previously mentioned age. It's not that long since providers deployed 100 Mbit switches with one or two 1 Gbit uplinks as a rule.

    While they might have been capable of pulling in a gigabit line or unrack the server to do the job, if they are at ~300 servers total, odds are they would have to hire a third party to do that job, on a Saturday. So yeah, it could possibly be done faster, but as you imply, for a handful of personal $4/mth accounts it probably makes more sense financially to credit them for the downtime.

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