Linode.com == decent provider
Folks (both the staff and other customers) are clued in and helpful.
When problems do happen, things are communicated – both on the web site and in the IRC channel.
The policies are reasonably written, and without an itchy trigger finger which is good.
The availability is pretty good (somewhere between 97-99%).
The price is right.
The network bandwidth limits is pretty generous.
Just as important as all of the above; the Linode.com folks generally don't promise the moon -- they generally deliver what they say they can deliver.
That's a big plus because it doesn't set up folks with unrealistic expectations and then a big disappointment when things don't go according to expectations.
Only issue that I've noticed is that they can sometimes be pretty slow in dealing with support tickets. Some really fast, some extremely slowly. I understand this one is due to the RFC mandating only 24 hours in a day.
On a more serious note, Linode.com has hired an additional support engineer, with possible plans for more as needs grows… so I am hopeful this will be less of an issue over time.
All in all, a pretty decent place.
25 Replies
-tiz
Sure, for my primary e-commerce sites that get thousands of unique visitors every hour I need my clusters, my san, and my Big IP's. But for our secondary hosting, and now as I move some content hosting (mostly video) over - the linodes have been stellar.
Great service, pricing, and support. Highly recommended.
Since everyone seems to be in the mood to compliment Linode, I'll add to that by pointing out that during the 8 months that I've been a customer, I've never had ANY downtime except the ones that I intentionally caused. There was one incident where the node was rather sluggish, but the issue was resolved within 15 minutes. That translates into 99.999+% uptime!
By the way, isn't it about time for another free disk/RAM increase or something like that? Folks who have been here for a couple of years seems to have enjoyed a lot of those freebies in the past… but I haven't seen one in the last 8 months
Where it would be nice to have much more real estate on the disks I'm more than content to split my resources as I have them now. The other provider may offer much more space but they in no way even come close to Linode.
I'm running Drupal on Gentoo, it's lean and mean in a way only Linode can provide.
@marcus0263:
Yeah disk space is the reason why I still have my account with another hosting provider, disk space.
Same here, the only thing that's missing with Linode is the abundant disk space that some of its competitors are offering. Otherwise, Linode.com >> decent provider.
A few weeks ago, I wrote something along the lines of a suggestion for different pricing on disk space. But nobody seems to be interested that much:
@hybinet:
@marcus0263:Yeah disk space is the reason why I still have my account with another hosting provider, disk space.
Same here, the only thing that's missing with Linode is the abundant disk space that some of its competitors are offering. Otherwise, Linode.com >> decent provider.
A few weeks ago, I wrote something along the lines of a suggestion for different pricing on disk space. But nobody seems to be interested that much:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3692
You realise other hosting places with "abundant disk space" are probably overselling and praying that you don't use that much space.
@cherring:
@hybinet:
@marcus0263:Yeah disk space is the reason why I still have my account with another hosting provider, disk space.
Same here, the only thing that's missing with Linode is the abundant disk space that some of its competitors are offering. Otherwise, Linode.com >> decent provider.
A few weeks ago, I wrote something along the lines of a suggestion for different pricing on disk space. But nobody seems to be interested that much:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3692 You realise other hosting places with "abundant disk space" are probably overselling and praying that you don't use that much space.
Yep, well aware of that but I've got tons of disk space I'm already using. Also something to think about, the price of diskspace is damn cheap these days. So for them offering the amount that they offer it doesn't cost much to provide it
@marcus0263:
@cherring:
@hybinet:Same here, the only thing that's missing with Linode is the abundant disk space that some of its competitors are offering. Otherwise, Linode.com >> decent provider.
A few weeks ago, I wrote something along the lines of a suggestion for different pricing on disk space. But nobody seems to be interested that much:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3692 You realise other hosting places with "abundant disk space" are probably overselling and praying that you don't use that much space.
Yep, well aware of that but I've got tons of disk space I'm already using. Also something to think about, the price of diskspace is damn cheap these days. So for them offering the amount that they offer it doesn't cost much to provide it
I'm sure considering the redundancy and added complexity of Network storage for their kind of setup it's more complex than you would think. It's not like they can pop down the shop and grab a couple of 1TB drives and it's dealt with. Everyone would love more disk space, but I don't mind too much, they kick the competitions arse in their overall package.
@cherring:
I'm sure considering the redundancy and added complexity of Network storage for their kind of setup it's more complex than you would think. It's not like they can pop down the shop and grab a couple of 1TB drives and it's dealt with. Everyone would love more disk space, but I don't mind too much, they kick the competitions arse in their overall package.
It's not that difficult nor expensive, I work with them every day
I just picked this one up for under $180
Plus I'm seeing 6 TB Dell NAS servers starting at around $6k, then you've got HP, Sun, etc. etc.
@cherring:
Sounds like you should be building your own and not worrying about linode at all
:roll:
Mighty Intelligent response:roll:
Take a pair of servers… with as much space as possible, throw in the largest drive you can into a raid 10, setup DRBD on them, and use one of the various linux HA's for failing over between nodes (I'm familiar with ucarp for this.)
I will say that they could use a bump in disk space. Marcus is correct about disk space not being that expensive. I can't speak for the Linode crew about how complex their environment is given they aren't located in one data center. That does add some complexity to just adding disk space whether by NAS, SAN, etc.
@Deviation:
I will say that they could use a bump in disk space. Marcus is correct about disk space not being that expensive. I can't speak for the Linode crew about how complex their environment is given they aren't located in one data center. That does add some complexity to just adding disk space whether by NAS, SAN, etc.
I do believe that each host server just uses internal disk. That keeps things simple from their perspective because they can just configure a box locally and ship it to the colo and have them plug it in. If you add NAS or SAN disk then the hardware install procedure for adding new servers goes up quite a bit.
At least that is my guess as to why it's not that simple.
Now down the road what would probably be cool is using a storage array that does data deduplication. How many duplicated blocks are sitting out there in a data center? Then they could easily and safely over-commit disk space.
Remember for that $20 they need servers, colo space, bandwidth, power, staff, office space, etc. I think they are very reasonably priced. If you need more space upgrade your linode.
I'm using CentOS+tomcat+mysql+struts+Java, great job Linode!!
@RossH:
Guys…..for $20/month you get 360 mb ram and 12 gb disk space with 200 gb of transfer…..lets not be greedy here. That is less than a dollar a day. You can spend $20 at starbucks for a family of four in a single trip.
Remember for that $20 they need servers, colo space, bandwidth, power, staff, office space, etc. I think they are very reasonably priced. If you need more space upgrade your linode.
Looks like I'm the one who started to hijack this thread, about 10 posts ago, into a discussion about storage space. The point I was trying to make was not that the space offered by Linode is insufficient. 12GB for $20 is more than plenty compared to the prices charged by many of Linode's competitors, and most of those competitors don't even come close to Linode's service and reliability!
Rather, my "complaint" is that the 1:34.133 RAM:HDD ratio doesn't necessarily work for everyone. Some people need much more RAM (e.g. small website with lots of visitors), others need much more HDD. But Linode doesn't seem to like the idea of custom-sized plans, so we have this strange pricing scheme where extras cost a lot more than upgrades. (e.g. Linode 360 + 6GB HDD = $31.95, but Linode 540 with same amount of HDD and 50% more RAM = $29.95)
I know of a European domain registrar who recently started to sell Xen VPS's. Their customer service is rather lousy so I have no intention to encourage anyone to check them out, but one thing I like about their plans is that pretty much everything is customizable. You only need to pay for what you need. "Four chicken strips with small fries and extra large diet coke, please!" and nobody tells you that you can't have a small fry with a combo. Looks to me like a nice business model, and there obviously exists technology to manage such a system. I'd love to see something like this come from Linode – maybe not immediately but sometime down the road -- because it would be so much cooler when backed by Linode service and reliability.
@hybinet:
@RossH:Guys…..for $20/month you get 360 mb ram and 12 gb disk space with 200 gb of transfer…..lets not be greedy here. That is less than a dollar a day. You can spend $20 at starbucks for a family of four in a single trip.
Remember for that $20 they need servers, colo space, bandwidth, power, staff, office space, etc. I think they are very reasonably priced. If you need more space upgrade your linode.
Looks like I'm the one who started to hijack this thread, about 10 posts ago, into a discussion about storage space. The point I was trying to make was not that the space offered by Linode is insufficient. 12GB for $20 is more than plenty compared to the prices charged by many of Linode's competitors, and most of those competitors don't even come close to Linode's service and reliability!
Rather, my "complaint" is that the 1:34.133 RAM:HDD ratio doesn't necessarily work for everyone. Some people need much more RAM (e.g. small website with lots of visitors), others need much more HDD. But Linode doesn't seem to like the idea of custom-sized plans, so we have this strange pricing scheme where extras cost a lot more than upgrades. (e.g. Linode 360 + 6GB HDD = $31.95, but Linode 540 with same amount of HDD and 50% more RAM = $29.95)
I know of a European domain registrar who recently started to sell Xen VPS's. Their customer service is rather lousy so I have no intention to encourage anyone to check them out, but one thing I like about their plans is that pretty much everything is customizable. You only need to pay for what you need. "Four chicken strips with small fries and extra large diet coke, please!" and nobody tells you that you can't have a small fry with a combo. Looks to me like a nice business model, and there obviously exists technology to manage such a system. I'd love to see something like this come from Linode – maybe not immediately but sometime down the road -- because it would be so much cooler when backed by Linode service and reliability.
I know of which provider you speak of, have you looked at the results of a benchmark of their vps? I have used them and it is quite poor (scott got a 20), here is his results.
This while I have seen scores of over 300 on a linode vps. Resource allocation on machines would be very difficult with people buying different cpu/ram/space/transit allocations. With static packages it is much easier.
@RossH:
I know of which provider you speak of, have you looked at the results of a benchmark of their vps? I have used them and it is quite poor (scott got a 20)…
They did email me quite a few times after my review that they are scoring ~90 on their own 512MB VPS, which is still quite poor from what you have expected from a recognised name. All I can conclude is that there are some things seriously wrong with their setup.
Sorry for taking the discussion off-topic. As for storage, I thought NAS has been planned?
And is Linode.com a decent provider? No doubt. Pretty much the BEST provider that I have used this year. Currently hosting a 2M page views/month community forum here, and my Linode VPS has never broke a swear. I just need to worry about software crashing due to my OWN bug, and the rest is taken cared of.
@RossH:
I know of which provider you speak of, have you looked at the results of a benchmark of their vps? I have used them and it is quite poor (scott got a 20), here is his results.
http://hostingfu.com/article/gandi-net-xen-vps-review This while I have seen scores of over 300 on a linode vps. Resource allocation on machines would be very difficult with people buying different cpu/ram/space/transit allocations. With static packages it is much easier.
Exactly why I said I have no intention to encourage anyone to check them out. I mean, this is a thread where we praise Linode (and optionally bash Linode's competitors), not where we introduce decent competitors. By the way, I've used the other company too, and there are two reasons why they're so slow. One, they don't give you any burst CPU, so you're capped at something like 0.5GHz per share. Two, all your data needs to be accessed over the network.
But none of this needs to be the case with Linode! The ridiculously poor performance of the other company has more to do with the way they decided to manage their resources rather than with limitations of the technology itself. I don't care if adding RAM or HDD requires a reboot and/or migration; I'm just looking for a bit more flexibility in the Linode plans.
Having said that, Linode still is and probably will continue to be the BEST VPS Provider I've ever used. I ain't switching to another company just because someone else has cheaper plans. Despite the fact that the falling Canadian Dollar makes Linode 25% more expensive for me in Ontario than it used to be.
@hybinet:
@RossH:I know of which provider you speak of, have you looked at the results of a benchmark of their vps? I have used them and it is quite poor (scott got a 20), here is his results.
http://hostingfu.com/article/gandi-net-xen-vps-review This while I have seen scores of over 300 on a linode vps. Resource allocation on machines would be very difficult with people buying different cpu/ram/space/transit allocations. With static packages it is much easier.
Exactly why I said I have no intention to encourage anyone to check them out. I mean, this is a thread where we praise Linode (and optionally bash Linode's competitors), not where we introduce decent competitors. By the way, I've used the other company too, and there are two reasons why they're so slow. One, they don't give you any burst CPU, so you're capped at something like 0.5GHz per share. Two, all your data needs to be accessed over the network.
But none of this needs to be the case with Linode! The ridiculously poor performance of the other company has more to do with the way they decided to manage their resources rather than with limitations of the technology itself. I don't care if adding RAM or HDD requires a reboot and/or migration; I'm just looking for a bit more flexibility in the Linode plans.
Having said that, Linode still is and probably will continue to be the BEST VPS Provider I've ever used. I ain't switching to another company just because someone else has cheaper plans. Despite the fact that the falling Canadian Dollar makes Linode 25% more expensive for me in Ontario than it used to be.
I don't consider them a competitor to Linode. As scott said above Linode is the best provider most people have used and I haven't seen any competitor that can match their setup.
I'm just trying to state that you are comparing apples to oranges here, sure this provider launched a more customized setup but they can't match what linode gives you for the price. We also have to remember how complex this all really is and how time consuming it would be to re-write a system to give people the options for ram/hd customization.
I think we'll see Linode introduce some new features soon (CakeFS anyone?). Maybe a feature suggestion should be a Canadian DC billed in Canadian Dollars? A EU DC billed in euros?