Had been using Server4you (dedicated server company) for a network of websites hosting needs for a few years (this was up to 2007) and at first it worked fine, but as traffic and the number of sites hosted on the unmanaged Server4you server grew (~150 sites including sub-domains) server hosting problems became a daily event.
Prior to dropping Server4you as a server company there were 25 support tickets within the Server4you control panel and many had been on going for months: not sure how I managed to keep going with this server company so long!
Server4you Unmanaged Dedicated Server Review
Up until 2007 I rented an unmanaged dedicated server with 512MB of RAM and 700GB monthly bandwidth from Server4you.
I never came close to using the monthly bandwidth Server4you supplies (99% of the content was text based so low bandwidth usage) but I later realized the 512MB of RAM was causing a bottleneck, which was apparently causing all the dedicated server problems!
Server4you Support Review
So if something went wrong with the server software it wasn’t because I screwed up. This led me to believe any problems with the server were either hardware, bandwidth, DOS attack (i.e. not me :-) related.
The dedicated server was using under 50GB of bandwidth a month of the 700GB allotted by Server4you and so in my understanding of how dedicated servers work at the time, it shouldn’t have struggled.
The problem as I had to discover on my own with the help of various server forums was the hardware wasn’t up to even 50GB of monthly bandwidth!
I might have had high expectations, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask of experienced server support staff to be able to determine that when RAM usage is max’d out at over 99% all the time it’s going to cause intermittent dedicated server problems: at the time I didn’t realize that could cause problems with Apache, but not other areas of the server which is what I was experiencing
All I got from them is it’s not their problem, it’s an unmanaged server!
Had Server4you staff being actual dedicated server experts they’d have quickly diagnosed the issue as a lack of memory and suggested I upgrade the RAM or the dedicated server: they might have made more money from me.
Server4you Support Staff Quotes
I am sorry, but we are selling unmanaged servers, which means what we do is provide hardware and OS installation, and after that you are on your own. We do take care and support things, such as OS that we have installed and Plesk.
Funny thing about this quote from Server4you is since I hadn’t made any significant changes to the server software, if Apache is part of the issue (the OS they installed) and the other problem is the lack of memory (hardware) doesn’t that mean they have a responsibility to offer support?
I wasn’t asking them to update software which would be part of a managed dedicated server hosting plan, but to determine the dedicated server they supplied was up to the task of hosting my websites!
So, at least the server was running and accessible via the network. This is where our responsibility vanishes. Rest things like proper server management, monitoring and acting upon software failures are up to you as we don’t provide the management service for our servers.
Well with that attitude towards helping paying customers I’d had enough and changed dedicated server companies.
I do NOT recommend Server4you.
David Law
Dedicated Server Reviews
Used a number of companies for dedicated servers between 2005 and 2019, here they are in chronological order. The last link is the review of the company I’m using in 2019.
- Server4you Review
- Hivelocity Hosting Review
- 123-reg Review
- EsecureData Review
- GoDaddy Server Review
- GoDaddy VPS Review
Website - SEO Gold Services
Update on my search for a reliable unmanaged dedicated server.
After a lot of research finally found a dedicated server company that looks trustworthy, so after a friendly live chat I rented the following unmanaged server from them-
2.4 P4 533MHz FSB160 GB SATA HD
2GB RAM
Bandwidth: 1000GB w/10Mbps port
6 IP Addresses
Operating System: CentOS
Fedora, FreeBSD or Debian was also an option for free. And Windows Web 2003, Windows Standard 2003 or Windows 2000 was available for an extra monthly fee.
Control Panel: Webmin (basic control panel)
Could have had cPanel, Direct Admin, Hosting Controller, Helm or Hsphere for an additional monthly cost. Since the server will only hold our sites I only needed a basic control panel so went with Webmin.
All for $95 a month with no setup fee ($99 setup fee was waived). This server is much better than the one I’m currently renting from Server4you. The only thing I’m loosing is Plesk and that was costing me $20 a month extra anyway and was really overkill for what I need in a servers control panel.
Not going to post the name of the server company until I’ve added all the domains to the server (not looking forward to that task!!) and had the server running for a while. Don’t want to recommend a dedicated server company until I’m sure they are good.
Good riddance to Server4you who have really gone down hill.
Wish me luck on a smooth transfer :-(
David Law
Update: The above was regarding a Hivelocity Hosting server, see Hivelocity Dedicated Server Review.
So now can you say the name of the “dedicated server company that looks trustworthy” ?
Now I’m having problems with eNom who do domain registrations.
Basically Registerfly screwed up it’s customer services and 30+ of my domains got transferred to eNom Inc.
Now they are sending me through hoops to gain access to MY own domains that I’ve spent thousands of US$s on!
David Law
My 2 cents on dedicated servers..
Never had a problem with dedicated servers at Hosted DB they have simple rates.. 1 rate for both managed and unmanaged.
Basically, if you want help, or need something setup or installed, then it is free for any of their customers.
If your going to run unmanaged server be prepared to pay out the wazoo for support.
I use Dedicated managed servers, saves me the pain of having to try and fix any server issues. Support is 100% worth every penny you pay, never again will I run unmanaged servers.
In 2014 it is pretty much impossible to run anything but the most trivial web application with just 500 MB of RAM. These days you need an absolute minimum of 2 GB.
That said, Server4You is *atrocious*. Just search for comments about them on Twitter ;p