I thought I would take a few minutes and write about my disastrous trip though VPS Provider territory. About four years ago, about the time I started coming up with more ideas for sites as well as acquiring hosting accounts, I realized that the slow reseller hosting account I had was no longer going to cut it. Since I had my business, I decided I would pick up a couple servers off eBay and host them on my business line located at my grandpas house; smart move (not really). Things went well for a while, using some open source control panel on the boxes, but as it turns out home-office internet just can’t hang in terms of the quality and speed of data center.

After a year of struggling with modem issues, router lockups, a couple DoS attacks, I decided to look for alternatives. The issue was that my business was not making enough money to justify some $150-250/month hosting cost with a dedicated server. Well, behold the almighty VPS; cheaper, less management overhead (compared to hosting servers myself), and generally easier to work with.

The first VPS provider I hooked up with was VPSLink; they had prices that I could fit into my budget especially if I paid for the year upfront. So I took a stab in the dark and went for it. Throughout the year, I had a couple small issues; issues you would expect from time to time, no complaints. Everything was peachy until VPSLink slyly announced they had been acquired; I mean they were cryptic; I didn’t even get the email until a week after it initially went out. So there was supposed to be some sort of pre-planned and announced transition. Well, that didn’t really work out too well for quite a few people, me included. I once again never got an email until the transition was finished, with my new username and password. It is lucky I didn’t have any mission critical sites at that point.

I did quite a bit of research on the acquiring party and noticed a trend of VPS provider acquisitions and the looming loss of customers due to poor support and lack of professionalism. To clarify, I read horror stories about them. I decided it was time to move somewhere else, and I still wanted a bargain.

The second provider I found was IntoVPS, their prices were a tad higher but I decided you do get what you pay for. I signed up, this time on a month-to-month basis, just in case my luck followed me. To shorten the story a bit, I used IntoVPS for about 3 or 4 months. The server performance was sub-par, as if one of the nodes was just screwing it up for the rest of us. After trying to battle with their support about constant load issues, (1-minute average was at 12.0+ every night, I didn’t know that was possible), I decided to move somewhere else.

After those trials/tribulations, I ended up at VPS.NET (Affiliate Link), I now pay about double what I was with the above two providers, but the quality of service is at a minimum 200% better. I think I have had one small issue in the 8 or so months I have been there, but small issues are expected from time to time, their support is quick and helpful. There interface and scalability impressed me from the beginning, I think it is pretty cool that you can in-place upgrade your VPS without having to contact sales or support.

Oh, and apparently you do get what you pay for.