Thread: Looking for a new Dedicated Server Provider

Greetings Web Hosting Talk Community,

I am looking to find new dedicated server provider. Feel free to share your Ideas, thoughts or opinions.

Currently, I have two servers (both Hypervisors) the two machines share a /26 IP block which is provided by the data center.

Server #1

• Windows Server 2019 Standard (on one VM)
• 10 TB HDD RAID-1 Spin Drives
• Intel Processor 2 x 2.4GHz Octa-Core E5-2630 v3 Haswell Xeon
• 256 GB RAM

Server #2

• 4GB HDD RAID-1
• 96 GB RAM
• Intel Processor

Can anyone suggest other data centers without breaking the bank? I really don’t care where they are in the United States or Canada. Right now, I spend about $325 USD per month for the two bare metal servers. It’s important to me that we have a DC that is staffed 24/7/365 and has telephone support (I hate going back and forth in emails or a ticket systems)

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply! Happy 2025 to all!

Hi Do you want SSD drives instead of HDD? as you will get much better performance out of SSD drives.
Also do you need load balancing between the two servers.?
Also do you need the servers in different DataCentres.?

SSD would be nice, but gets pricey when you have large drives.
Load Balancing is not required
Different Data Centers would be nice! In case of any downtime issues!

We have multiple Windows servers with Hyper-V on Tailormadeservers for over 10 years, excellent service.

Their budget is enough for 2 good servers.

I've only been using dedicated servers for a little while, but PureVoltage is my go-to as their support has been excellent. The prices on their website seem higher than what you're paying now, but they had offers for Black Friday and Christmas recently and they might still be available.

Originally Posted by Thimal

I've only been using dedicated servers for a little while, but PureVoltage is my go-to as their support has been excellent. The prices on their website seem higher than what you're paying now, but they had offers for Black Friday and Christmas recently and they might still be available.

Thanks for the mention, that sale is still available. We also have a lot of other options not listed on our current site. New site will be done sometime #soon

Please note however we don't provide support over the phone any longer, we started to phase that out a few years ago. However, our ticket replies are quick if all information is provided you shouldn't have a bunch of back and forth. We found it's far easier to track and ensure customers get a better and more secure level of support. DC's all have someone 24/7/365.

Originally Posted by RandyM

It’s important to me that we have a DC that is staffed 24/7/365 and has telephone support (I hate going back and forth in emails or a ticket systems)

That is quite an interesting topic! For instance, many hosting providers will prefer to offer support via ticket as the main reason why is that we are able to trace what as been done for any specific cases. Having 24/7 staff, it's making things easier for the support team and most of the time, we can offer faster resolution for the client's as we have all the information's that we need within the customer's account. Though, we do understand that being able to reach out to a support by phone, may, in some cases be faster mostly for specific or general questions.

For OP, I think your budget is decent for what you are asking for. There might be hosting providers that will offer vlan, backup solutions or any other options that will also fit your needs. Best of luck in your search!

Hosting providers prefer to fulfill requests in the Tweet system not only because it is convenient in terms of tracking the work performed, but also because the entire history of correspondence can act as a reliable source of information in the event of disputes and misunderstandings between the client and the provider.

Another aspect is that it is safe in terms of client identification. That is, the request for work is received only from your personal account.

As for the response time, everything depends on the company's support policy, that is, the response time to the request is regulated within the support team. And usually a well-established support accepts a ticket for work within 1-2 minutes. Therefore, when searching for a provider, pay attention not only to the price but also to how the support is organized.

Interserver, InMotion, Metanet, HostDime all have phone support and fairly affordable servers they are all in business for many years.

In case a host here is considering working with RandyM, I would recommend against it.

For what I had thought was a reasonable enough exchange, where it became clear that what we offer didn't meet the client's needs, I opted to not be considered for the business, rather than try to convince him that I could offer things that I don't actually offer:

Hi Randy,

I apologize for the miscommunication on this. Looking over the ticket history,
it doesn't feel like we would be a good fit for your needs and expectations. I
would like to politely withdraw ourselves from consideration for your hosting
needs.

I certainly wish you the best in your search for a hosting provider.

Sincerely,
--
Gabriel Ramuglia
President - Input Output Flood, LLC
We Love Servers

web: https://ioflood.com
email: gabe@ioflood.com

The response was unhinged to say the least:

Gabe,

WOW! Okay. You win this one. However, you are going to get a lesson in Customer
Service and Ethics. You and I are close in age. I find it funny that you have an
area code 702 efax and use The UPS Store at Sahara and Fort Apache. Not far from
my house. If you want to learn "The Power of a Person" in Customer
Service, come spend a week with me. I can have you accommodated at Red Rock.
Anyone who has worked for me in the last 28 years will tell you that if it took
them 3-4 days to respond to an email or a ticket, they would get that same 3-4
days of unplanned, unpaid vacation to understand what they did wrong. I've
canned people for less and paid their unemployment for 6 months! In todays
business world, you have to be at the top of your game and after [name1] convinced
me that you were the right provider yesterday morning, [name2] undid what [name1]
worked on in probably less than 5-10 minutes time. In one of my MBA classes, one
of my professors said 'it takes weeks if not months to get a new customer, but
only minutes to lose them. Not to mention advertising dollars! IOFLOOD loves
their servers, but not their customers? Hmmm? Customers are only as good as the
check they write. Without customers, you'd be in trouble and if I treated my
customers the way you guys did me, I would probably be homeless and hungry!

It's all there in the ticket. The only thing I said to [name1] was if you have to
license the whole server for Windows, that won't work. [name1] was successful in
selling one server as long as my IP Allocation needs could have been met Either
[name2] isn't that bright (which I don't think is the case) if he does anything
with Linux, or was probably rushing or trying to multi-task and has proven that
he can't walk and chew gum at the same time. My gut is usually not wrong. Thank
you for showing me that I can not trust any company that won't offer phone sales
or support and hides behind emails or a ticket system!

I'll sum it up this way... Had I been able to talk to a Human when I first made
the inquiry, we would have known probably in thirty minutes or less whether you
were going to check all the boxes; however, your way of doing things wasted not
only your time and that of two of your employees. Not to mention the time I
spent waiting to hear back from you. You were going to get a sale out of it, but
[name2] opened his mouth and inserted his foot so badly that he would probably
needed a shoehorn to help him get his foot out of his mouth! I don't know if you
just don't care enough about your business and your current and or potential
customers or if you come from money, but I would never treat any potential or
current customer the way you did this morning. Some of my staff will tell you
that I have affectionately gotten the nickname of "The General" as it
relates to Stormin' Norman AKA Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. My dad was Army and yes I
run am equally as straight and narrow, very tight ship.

Today, you got an "F" from me, which most certainly does not stand for
fabulous. If I were you, I would hope that you didn't provide services to any of
the Telephone Answering Service industry. I plan to put a nice little missive
together which will go out on a lot of the list serves. It's a shame, you don't
know the importance of clients and customer service. Hopefully, someone that I
know will be using you and even if I have to pay their server costs for a month
or two. You'll learn a very important lesson. Have fun with your servers fella.
You will never hear from me again after I click send on this. Have a nice life!
:-)

It's been a while since I got one of these but I felt I should warn the community of what to expect.

Hello WHT Community

If we are going to start a mud slinging campaign, why don't we put all of the exchange out there from start to finish and let folks make up their own mind. I have every email from my first contact with them and every back-and-forth we had from the beginning. Days between responses and a very silly reply to my saying, I will buy one server, but I can't get the larger machine from you if you can't license just one VM as Windows. When I called his employees response silly, and he threw his two cents in, I told him what I thought of both his customer service and ethics. He didn't appreciate candid customer feedback. So, here we are. If I am permitted and anyone cares to see it, I will PDF everything and upload it here.

Originally Posted by funkywizard

In case a host here is considering working with RandyM, I would recommend against it.

For what I had thought was a reasonable enough exchange, where it became clear that what we offer didn't meet the client's needs, I opted to not be considered for the business, rather than try to convince him that I could offer things that I don't actually offer:



The response was unhinged to say the least:



It's been a while since I got one of these but I felt I should warn the community of what to expect.

I am going to second this.
I also got some fairly unhinged responses from the OP as well.
Oh and actually just for the record technically we also prefer support by email as that way issues can be tracked far easier and things like screenshots can be sent to demonstrate the issue.
So while we do offer phone support 95% of the time clients will be asked to email support@cpkws.com.au with screenshots or error codes etc as its far easier to track.

Wow. What an unhinged response from RandyM to funkywizard. Mark me third after Chaddy. Personally, I find phone support less desirable than by email. To each their own though.

Originally Posted by SenseiSteve

Wow. What an unhinged response from RandyM to funkywizard. Mark me third after Chaddy. Personally, I find phone support less desirable than by email. To each their own though.

100% I enjoy doing some sales over the phone or personally teams calls so it's more in person you can actually see the person talking with and get a feeling for everything.
It's just a lot easier to do support over ticketing systems. Honestly even half of the sales requests are easier to do via email or tickets and then can hash out finer details or provider a better understanding with a phone call to follow up.

Looking at it from both sides (provider and customer) you can see how telephone support is important, especially in the case of "my service is down", as raising a support ticket may sometimes not feel like it will be given the urgency it needs (from a customers point of view).

I'd happily accept a telephone support call from a customer but if it's more than a "my service is down" then it's going to need investigating and details will need to be exchanged and I feel that is better done via a support ticket that both parties can refer back to, especially if it's not a " 5 minute fix".

I'd be a little hesitant if the provider did not offer any kind of telephone support, as a customer this would be a bit of a red flag (though I understand why some do not).

For sales, absolutely there should be a telephone option, as PureVoltage says, talking to customers and getting to know them is very valuable.

Ticket support has an audit trail of communications. Phone just doesn't have that unless you record - which a lot do. However, posting recordings is a lot different than emails which can redact sensitive information (not impossible just easier). Plus changing the voice on the other end of the line would be even harder.
Sure, all relevant and pertinent facts can be passed on to whoever may be working on fixing your problem.
It's just easier with tickets.

Anyway, just my 2c on tickets. Not really relevant, but I had a problem who only spoke Portuguese and wanted phone support. I refunded him after he said he "no English" on the phone.
Google Translate jumble things when translating

Originally Posted by Localnode

Ticket support has an audit trail of communications. Phone just doesn't have that unless you record - which a lot do. However, posting recordings is a lot different than emails which can redact sensitive information (not impossible just easier). Plus changing the voice on the other end of the line would be even harder.
Sure, all relevant and pertinent facts can be passed on to whoever may be working on fixing your problem.
It's just easier with tickets.


Anyway, just my 2c on tickets. Not really relevant, but I had a problem who only spoke Portuguese and wanted phone support. I refunded him after he said he "no English" on the phone.
Google Translate jumble things when translating

Have to agree about providing phone support to prospects from around the globe. Language barriers can be difficult at times.