Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Honest Rackspace Review (11 months)

[filethis]

It was 11 months ago to this day that I first signed up with Rackspace. I can honestly say that while the fee's, some of you may claim to be high (and well, I guess they are more than the average) the service and professionalism provided by Rackspace is unparalleled.

In the 11 months of hosting my server inside Rackspace, I have had my primary hard drive blow out. Now when this happened, the raid configuration switched over to the second / mirror hard drive, meaning absolutely no downtime during this event. It was suggested to me, by Rackspace, to use a raid configuration just in case something like this should occur. Well am I glad I listened! They had the primary raid device (hot swappable, again their suggestion) replaced within an hour – all of this without a second of downtime and without any need (although I did since I am pedantic) to call them – they were on it!

The only other time I experienced any service / availability related problems was when they had some sort of electrical fault and the two backup generators failed to start. This was completely out of the blue and obviously someone messed up big time. The server was down for a good 8 hours or so, and the CEO of Rackspace apologized so many times, I actually felt sorry for him and the entire team... They also credited my account for any downtime, as per the agreement we have together.

Team M8 (the support team assigned to me) and my account manager, Ginger Lee, deserve a big thumbs up! They always make me feel welcome when I call, have always been professional and most importantly, interested to hear what I have to say (and act on it accordingly).

About the only disappointment I have faced with throughout this ordeal, is that I was under the impression that because I have “Platinum” monitoring and support, which as I understand it, unless things have changed, is the best support – that if I needed something installed, that was all a-ok. Initially, it was... and the team always worked with me to install any service a growing business needs.

At some point, not long ago, however, I asked to have a certain PHP module installed to allow compilation / uploading of video files and I was actually charged an hourly fee for this. Normally I would appreciate the time in doing this, and understand a fee... however given they set a precedence and expectation with me from previous encounters and given my understanding there of the “Platinum” support offered, I was somewhat shocked... I did pay the fee for these things to be installed without mentioning this... but am still dumbfounded, I guess, as to why I had to pay (given I pay on an on-going basis for the Platinum support, which ain't exactly cheap).

I have only ever once spoke with someone (a receptionist / level one representative) and received pathetic attitude – this was during the power issues as mentioned above, and as of such have affected the break-down below.

Here is a break-down of the service / support. In fairness to my team, I have graded the teams efforts and Rackspace's as a whole, separately. In my opinion, the team that works with me, including my account manager, deserve recognition. So thank you, guys and girls, for doing a wonderful job.

TEAM:

Willingness: 10/10
Professionalism: 10/10
Duty of Care: 10/10
Expertise: 10/10
Reaction Time: 10/10

RACKSPACE:

Willingness: 10/10
Professionalism: 9/10
Duty of Care: 9/10
Expertise: 10/10
Reaction Time: 10/10
Uptime: 9/10


My primary website (hosted by Rackspace):
www.officedebo.com

[seg fault]

c'mon Anthony! you should know how to compile by now!!

[filethis]

I know how to compile - but I'm not as willing to do so on my production box. If I screw it up (and this is probably more likely to happen, too) then I can only give myself an uppercut...

Thanks for your input though, Mr. "Wagner"

[JDMundo]

Excellent review.

We've hosted servers with Rackspace, and found them really excellent as well, but was continually disappointed about their eagerness to bill for support, despite us doing nearly all management ourselves. Overall Rackspace are great, but there are equal cheaper alternatives.

[seg fault]

I always found rackspace good, but just got sick of their endless bantering that their network has 100% uptime, never has any issues all that crap.

When I was with them, some windows worm brought their network down and the next issue was a 'spanning tree loop' on one of their routers.

But aside from that, they were great - just a bit overpriced for my liking.

[Peter-SexyWing]

They are fully managed and you still need to pay for compile? em.....

[thriller_aus]

very expensive ...

[geckofrog]

With all the problems 37 signals has with Rackspace I would avoid them. (http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/698-downtime-notice) Thanks for the review though.

[filethis]

Originally Posted by Peter-SexyWing

They are fully managed and you still need to pay for compile? em.....

Yeah, that was what I understood also. I pay a boat load of cash for them to "fully" manage the server (so I don't screw up) but find myself still paying for things.

Originally Posted by geckofrog

With all the problems 37 signals has with Rackspace I would avoid them. (http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/698-downtime-notice) Thanks for the review though.

Interesting - I didn't experience this, and I believe I am in the Dallas data center. How strange.

Originally Posted by JDMundo

Excellent review.

We've hosted servers with Rackspace, and found them really excellent as well, but was continually disappointed about their eagerness to bill for support, despite us doing nearly all management ourselves. Overall Rackspace are great, but there are equal cheaper alternatives.

Yeah, the billing for support I already pay out the nose for was disappointing. Do these cheaper alternatives you speak of come with the same level of service and excellence, though? The main reason I ended up with Rackspace is because I got sick of all the "baggage" other hosts come with. If there really are true, cheaper alternatives to Rackspace I would be interested in a competitive quote - 12 months on my contract to go!

Originally Posted by seg fault

I always found rackspace good, but just got sick of their endless bantering that their network has 100% uptime, never has any issues all that crap.

When I was with them, some windows worm brought their network down and the next issue was a 'spanning tree loop' on one of their routers.

But aside from that, they were great - just a bit overpriced for my liking.

Come to think of it, there was a time or two when there was some issue with a router, cable, or something small like that. Was fixed within minutes and never actually caused downtime though, just slower connections / higher packet loss. Your right though, they do cost a pretty penny.

[JDMundo]

Originally Posted by filethis

Do these cheaper alternatives you speak of come with the same level of service and excellence, though? The main reason I ended up with Rackspace is because I got sick of all the "baggage" other hosts come with. If there really are true, cheaper alternatives to Rackspace I would be interested in a competitive quote - 12 months on my contract to go!

Our servers are Windows, and we found Datapipe to be even better than Rackspace, for a fair bit less. Other great Windows hosts that we've had experience with is Xiolink and Inetu. Those two are as expensive as Rackspace, but in my humble opinion, much better.

[ReliableServers]

Nice review, the billing over the top for small things like that compile is the one complaint we have always heard about them. They are a topnotch company.

[filethis]

Originally Posted by JDMundo

Our servers are Windows, and we found Datapipe to be even better than Rackspace, for a fair bit less. Other great Windows hosts that we've had experience with is Xiolink and Inetu. Those two are as expensive as Rackspace, but in my humble opinion, much better.

Good information! I do use a Redhat environment, though.

Originally Posted by ReliableServers

Nice review, the billing over the top for small things like that compile is the one complaint we have always heard about them. They are a topnotch company.

Yeah - I might ask them about it all... just kind of confuses me, since I already pay for a "fully managed server" on an on-going basis (with 'Platinum' monitoring / support, etc)

[dtg1]

We signed up with rackspace about 2 years ago. It looked good until we signed the contracts. As soon as I logged into the account for the first time something poped up about extra costs for support calls. We decided to drop their service right away. We used the service for less then 10 minutes and never uploaded a file on the server. Within days I was receiving rude emails from some sales jerk called Lester Levine who claimed to be the Accounts Receivable Manager from Rackspace. He claimed we owed them $800 for canceling the contract. I got our lawyer involved but by the time he was able to respond Rackspace had charged my credit card with a $1500 charge. Its been 2 years and im still angry at them over this. Imagine that. $1500 for 10 minutes of service. They weren’t the least bit concerned that a customer was unhappy with their service, they just stiffed us for all they could. Terrible business practice and very bad ethics. I would never recommend them to anyone. If you do decide to go with them pay them by check. Giving those thieves your credit card number is like letting a child run loose in a candy store. In my business if a customer isn’t happy with the service or product you let them go, sometimes you even give a refund just to keep the peace. Not them. In our situation we found hidden charges that we never would have agreed to in the beginning. They ripped us off anyway.

[filethis]

I left this topic and didn't update it with the latest ordeals as I felt it was better off dead - but now that someone else has responded, I thought I should leave an update.

After the latest major outages I experienced months ago, I had dealt with some rather rude people when I called in for assistance during major outages. I was not happy with the way things were dealt with, and that my account manager had not once contacted me about the downtime - probably in an attempt to get away with rectifying an annoyed customers experience / paying for outage time.

With nearly 5 days of downtime experienced from their 100% uptime guarantees, and no contact from my account manager and bad service at the help desk, I decided to ditch Rackspace as it just was not worth the money to me anymore.

Second to this, like the above, I experienced AGAIN having to pay for server management which the "Platinum" (highest?) management, which I was told covered everything, did not cover.

Rackspace has since asked me to pay a $2500 termination fee - which they can recover from them not paying me the 5 days or so worth of downtime as agreed in the contracts, screw them.

It was good while it lasted... I understand all good things must come to an end, and downtime was inevitable. But the lack of contact and rude customer service from the help desk, and the extra billing for things I was paying monthly for already, just is not right and it's not the reason I pay big bucks for.

I am currently hosting with Caro.net where I have experienced difficulties with the billing department not checking up on transaction ID's, but otherwise it has been fantastic. Looks like that transaction ID fiasco is getting sorted out now too.

[macagoraga]

It's true this story???

I think rackspace is the best hosting provider....

I can't beleive your review...

All hosting provider have almost one bad review...

it's possible find 1 good hosting provider???