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Thread: ServerPronto -- 3 month review
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06-07-2005, 04:48 PM #1Aspiring Evangelist
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ServerPronto -- 3 month review
Since today marks 3 months since I got my server, I thought Id write up a review on my provider Serverpronto. Enjoy
Intro
About 3 months ago, I was in the market for a dedicated server to host a few low traffic sites of mine. I was (and still am) currently a student, with not much money so i needed somthing in the inexpensive range ($50 - $70/mth). After compairing prices I found Serverpronto.com and noticed their $30/mth dedicated server. The specs on the server looked fine for my needs (AMD 2000+, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive).
Pre-Sales
I was still a little bit suspisious about the price, so I called their offices (Telephone # is on their website) and asked them how soon they would be able to get a server up and the person I was talking to said 24 hours. After getting off the phone with them, I decided to "take a dive" and try it, since I diddnt really have anything to loose since they offered a money back guarentee. One hour later I recieved my login details to the support desk and about 22 hours later I recieved my server's IP and login details.
9/10
The Service
As soon as I logged in, I checked to make sure everything that I ordered was on my current server with simple commands like "cat /proc/cpuinfo" , "cat /proc/meminfo" and "ifconfig". From the output of those commands, I could confirm that really did give me a dedicated server and not just a VDS, as most people might suspect for the price.
The server that I recieved has been pretty stable (You can ping my main IP: 64.251.30.17). I havnt experienced any problems like Hard Drive failures, memory problems etc. My server does get a bit sluggish at times (once a month) so I do a shell reboot when I notice problems. Their network is pretty good too (they use Cogent and Global Crossing). I can only remember one occasion where my server was down due to a routing issue, which was promptly fixed in about 20 miniutes. They even called me to make sure my server was accessible after the outage!
7.5/10
Customer Service/Support
Serverpronto is an Un-Managed provider (obviously). However they offer 2 support tickets per month. A billing or customer service issue doesnt count toward that allotment. As for their actual support, I havnt needed it much since I do all that myself. I have been in touch with their customer service on two diffrent occasions, once to order 2 IP's (which were added 30 miniutes after I ordered them) to use as nameservers and another inqury about a memory upgrade. All communication between them has been fast and efficiant.
9/10
Billing
Serverpronto uses ModernBill to manage their billing. Every month I recieve an invoice via email for the $30 I owe them each month. They charge my Visa card automatically and send a payment recipt. One thing that I would like to comment with billing is that there is no way to see your bandwith usage. It would be nice if there was an MRTG that customers could access to check their bandwith.
8/10
Overall
If your tight on cash, and looking for a fully functional dedicated server. Serverpronto is the way to go
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Next review: EV1servers.net
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06-07-2005, 07:39 PM #2Newbie
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Nice review.
I've had a $30 box there for about 7 months, and it has been good for it's needs and great for the budget.
I've had no problems except they had 2 network outages (one was like 12 hours! even infolink.com was down and they weren't answering their phones). I've never seen a route there that didn't use cogent, so I don't know how "redundant" they are as they claim, but it would be nice to see providers and such, being as how, on a 100mbit port I've never been able to get over about 250 KB/s in any direction (though this is fine for my needs there). Besides that though, there are never any mysterious reboots or anything, which is good:
19:32:17 up 91 days, 3:10, 1 user, load average: 0.80, 0.76, 0.73
Overall I would agree with you, they are excellent for $30 a month if you can manage your own box.
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06-07-2005, 09:50 PM #3Web Hosting Guru
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Re: ServerPronto -- 3 month review
Originally posted by datruesurfer
One thing that I would like to comment with billing is that there is no way to see your bandwith usage. It would be nice if there was an MRTG that customers could access to check their bandwith.
One thing though. The bandwidth measurement is highly unreliable. The data collection process crashes once a couple of days and is not restarted automagically. Therefore you can be stuck at 1 Mbps for two days (happened to me). That brought my usage to 690 kbps (~220 GB per month). We shall see if they bill me for that.
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06-07-2005, 10:24 PM #4WHT Addict
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- Mar 2004
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You could also install MRTG on your server and have it monitor eth0, or install bwbar and let that do the job for ya.
Bwbar is available here: http://www.mythica.org/bwbar/
Nice review, incidentally. I'd agree on most points regarding serverpronto. I've had a box there for a little over a year, and it's been pretty smooth for $30/mo. I dont think I'd do any mission critical stuff on it, but it suits my purpose.
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06-08-2005, 02:06 AM #5Web Hosting Guru
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I use vnStat. It is very lightweight and works quite well.
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06-08-2005, 02:25 AM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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$30?
Anybody can explain to me what's a $30 box please?
I understand it as a server!!
Do you build your server and shipped it to DC? And you only pay for the service?
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06-08-2005, 03:02 PM #7Aspiring Evangelist
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Originally posted by mohdjumah
$30?
Anybody can explain to me what's a $30 box please?
I understand it as a server!!
Do you build your server and shipped it to DC? And you only pay for the service?
Its just like any other dedicated provider, you are rented a server with access to their network. You pay them monthly, its just alot cheaper
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06-08-2005, 03:13 PM #8WHT Addict
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AMD 2000+, 256 MB RAM
what about load ?
how many sites can i host in this server?
thanks
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06-08-2005, 03:17 PM #9Owner of the net for a day
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You can host quite a few really.
I know the serverpronto datacenter pretty well, they are nice little tower servers, and the staff is a very friendly group of people.