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  1. #1

    * VPS experience: FSCKVPS ==> Slicehost

    Here's me: I'm 14; and a computer wiz. I love helping out with website based things. I recently dived into Linux, which is really easy and much more reliable than Windows. It's incredibly fun to learn. I'm currently only in the CentOS flavor, as it's great for webservers.

    Now, here is my situation: I was a victim of the FSCKVPS hacking. My VPS was compromised. I actually just moved over a fairly large [almost] 200,000 posts IPB forum over to the dedicated 1GB FSCKVPS slice, 2 weeks after experimenting with VPSes. After that long night of getting everything working, I went to bed, and when I woke up... Everything was gone! The hack happened and everything was lost! Because I just got everything working, I didn't think about creating a stable working VPS image backup.

    This is a popular forum I'm talking about. Many people come on per day. There is very little tolerance for downtime.

    So, in all of the chaos I followed the huge topic in the downtime section here [which is actually how I found WHT! ], helping and talking to the other victims. I was also looking for a new, unmanaged linux-based host, this time with its own control panel so it coun't be hacked as easily. This is when I found the wonderful host, Slicehost.

    I immediately received my 512MB slice at a whopping 40(!) dollars a month, but I knew my VPS would be safe here because of many different reasons, particularly raid-10, their own control panel, and this time I would set a cron job for incremental backups via rsync every 12 hours.

    I did this by using the 200% SLA from FSCKVPS to recently buy a backup VPS there; 4 free months from the SLA guarantee. It's a really good deal for me!

    But I digress. Back on topic; after I ordered the Slicehost account I got everything set up + secured [SSH secured, firewall etc]. Compared to FSCKVPS, their servers seemed to have about the same amount of responsiveness [which is really good, btw... and also FSCKVPS was running OpenVZ, and Slicehost is running Zen] but I noticed a real increase in the bandwidth speed, because it seemed faster even though the slicehost datacenter is farther away from me than the LA FSCKVPS datacenter! This was a huge plus to me, especially with a forum.

    After I got everything smoothly tied-up and secured, I migrated the users of my forum over. It was a good transition [from an InvisionFree board; which cost us about 300 dollars to invest in getting the IPB license, InvisionFree database dump, etc!].

    And I have to say so far everything is running smoothly. I really love their articles on their website which go in depth, and their live public chat. I also have to admit that the control panel is very well done, as it's clean and to the point.

    Since I don't have a rep here at all xD, here's the forum for proof:
    http://idreamofjimmy.info
    It's basically a Jimmy Neutron Fansite website since '06 [even though the show is cancelled; our forum is expanding rapidly, and the JN spinoff will make the forums grow even faster]. You have to register to see everything, but you can see the stats at the bottom of the page without registering.

    [and our mainsite, at idreamofjimmy.com is hosted on a regular shared server, at Canaca which works fine...]

    So, questions? Comments? Feedback?

    Thanks for reading,
    Alex

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Nice write-up and pretty impressive for 14 years old :-)

    I think you'll like Slicehost. I had a VPS there a while ago and the forum, chat and docs are great.

    Tough luck you had with fsckvps, but that's definitely jsut the way it goes sometimes!
    SysAdminMan - Asterisk PBX hosting - FreePBX, A2Billing and Elastix

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Glad to hear you are happy with your new provider! Also, I am very impressed by your age
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  4. #4
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    Solid review and kudos on being so young and jumping into this.

  5. #5
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    Thanks for the review. I see a bunch of articles posted by them all over the net.
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  6. #6
    How times have changed! When I was 14 I was doing MajorBBS installs as a hobby lol.

    A good time to be learning this stuff! I have a very similar experience with FSCKVPS except I had my forum there for a week and a half before it went down.

    Keep learning - you're doing great!
    USNYR Hosting

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
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    3,816
    Great review.

    Also, Jimmy Neutron is cancelled? I loved that show.

  8. #8
    LOL me too... I really love that show. Nick practically stabbed themselves in the back cancelling it, but they can't just change their decision. That's why they are making a spin off.

    As far as I'm concerned, we're the biggest Jimmy Neutron fansite on the web [not bragging, of course... ].

    And thanks to those of you regarding my age with this stuff. I am so good at computers for my age because I enjoy learning more about them... And enjoy troubleshooting! The only thing bad about it is a 14 year old's budget isn't the biggest thing around. xD

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Posts
    1,112
    I wish that my English skills were in line with yours, and I'm 19 in a couple of weeks

    Anyway nice write up and good to see you're happy with the new provider (plus presumably you're now happy with FsckVPS as your backup provider?)

    Whilst we're sort of on the topic of offsite backups, give BQBackup a whirl if you ever get stuck for some good space that you can rsync to (search "bqbackup" here for plenty of recommendations).

    Are there many jimmy neutron fan communities out there? Was a great show anyway

    Keep doing what your doing!

  10. #10
    I might consider them after my 4 free months is up! But yes, FSCK is so far great for my backup server [especially because it is free!].

    Slicehost is great for hosting. Even though you can only max at 10mb/s, you can truly max out at the speed, even during peaks. So I do recommend them. I also recommend fsckvps, once they get their own control panel up and are stabilized again.

    Another thing: I was thinking about VPSSpeed, but they are not as well known. They do look promising however, because they are developing their own in-house control panel!
    Last edited by aeharding; 06-22-2009 at 09:54 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by bucasia View Post
    Nice write-up and pretty impressive for 14 years old :-)

    I think you'll like Slicehost. I had a VPS there a while ago and the forum, chat and docs are great.

    Tough luck you had with fsckvps, but that's definitely jsut the way it goes sometimes!
    agree

    Great review and keep up the good work aeharding! ..and as you grow up, even if you're smart, keep a child-like mind and don't take yourself too seriously

    Slicehost is good but a tad expensive :/. Linode is also pretty good too from what I read and they're cheaper. They also use a proprietary control panel.

    Cheers~

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
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    48
    Really nice write up there bud, thats quite impressive for your age wish my English was as good as yours and I am a fair few years older than you.

  13. #13
    Join Date
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    Great review there....especially for someone of your age!

    Slicehost have a great control panel. It's built around Radar, a well known Xen control panel. Like VPS.Net, they use its admin infrastructure and the integrate into it via API calls. Its a fantastic setup with some great features.

    Be sure to update us as your time with them progresses!
    WHSuite - Billing, Automation and Client Management Software.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rick-RikeMedia View Post
    Slicehost have a great control panel. It's built around Radar, a well known Xen control panel.
    Hmm. That's one pretty uninformed comment. Radar from aTech has only launched 1.0, whereas SliceHost has been coding their own panel for the last 3 years (yeah I've been their customer for almost that long). There are many good in-house built Xen control panels (Linode, Gandi.net, etc) and not everyone has to buy canned solutions to wrap pretty UI around them.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
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    Heh, nice review. Makes me feel old (I'm 19 ), although I don't really act my age, if that counts . I remember when I was 14, I was kinda like you, I was just starting to learn Linux stuff. I'm glad you're happy with SliceHost, they seem pretty reliable. I think I might stay with FSCKVPS, I'm relatively happy with how VAserv have handled everything. My VPS is just a backup VPS, anyways . And haha, I didn't know Jimmy Neutron was cancelled. I don't have cable TV here. I used to love watching Fairly OddParents, I wonder if that's still on. xD

    Deciding to learn Linux stuff is a great idea. I suggest to you to try Debian one day, I think you'll like it (I do, anyways). IMO, its package management is a lot better than that of CentOS, and it has a lot more packages available for it. And, the basic install CD (netinstall) is 180 MB . If you have a spare computer, try it one day. If you don't have a spare computer, download VirtualBox (free) or the trial of VMWare Workstation and try it inside a VM

  16. #16
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by ylsy View Post
    Hmm. That's one pretty uninformed comment. Radar from aTech has only launched 1.0, whereas SliceHost has been coding their own panel for the last 3 years (yeah I've been their customer for almost that long). There are many good in-house built Xen control panels (Linode, Gandi.net, etc) and not everyone has to buy canned solutions to wrap pretty UI around them.
    Actually if you contact the Radar developers, they will confirm it.

    We were in discussions with them about using their control panel, and they said that VPS.Net, Brightbox and Slicehost have used it, and that we could look at them for examples as to how its being utilized.

    So no, its not uninformed at all really.
    WHSuite - Billing, Automation and Client Management Software.

  17. #17
    Hi Rick,

    Sorry, you seem to have misunderstood what I said. I've copied our reply to you below:

    We've been working on developing a new implementation of Radar which is designed as a complete VPS hosting solution for companies wishing to start hosting virtual machines with Xen. The new version of Radar integrates directly with a customer front-end and creates a product experience similar to that provided by Slicehost, Brightbox or VPS.net.
    We simply commented that Radar can provide a similar experience to those provided by other VPS providers and gave a couple of examples.

    We do not disclose the details of the customers using Radar.

    Apologies for the confusion.

    Thanks,

    Adam
    aTech Media

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by atechmediauk View Post
    Hi Rick,

    Sorry, you seem to have misunderstood what I said. I've copied our reply to you below:



    We simply commented that Radar can provide a similar experience to those provided by other VPS providers and gave a couple of examples.

    We do not disclose the details of the customers using Radar.

    Apologies for the confusion.

    Thanks,

    Adam
    aTech Media

    /pokes

    I saw Radar, looks great.


    Emailed but no answer yet.
    Senior System Administrator / DevOp - LinkedIn / MailChannels Director of Sales, Europe
    MyW - Shared/Reseller Hosting & Server Management (cPanel/DA/Virtualization Servers)

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Posts
    76
    Good write up! Good Luck with your website :-)

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