Server rental experience in Germany with Server4you

In the topic of the German VPS providers, much attention was paid to Hetzner. We can share experience with Server4you , maybe someone will find this information useful.

The history of relations with them began in 2006, when a dedicated server was rented for the needs of the project. The client from Germany assumed all organizational issues, so we stayed away from the subtleties of interaction with the support service of this company. Rented server worked for two and a half years with uptime for half a year. During this time there were only two problems. At first, the monthly rent increased by almost 10%, despite the fact that the more powerful configurations presented on their website at that time were cheaper than our server, which has become tired for a couple of years, the server. And the most unpleasant thing is that once on a Saturday evening the server stopped responding. Attempts to restart the server through the panel did not lead to anything. The ticket with the request to sort out the answer was not received within three hours, and we asked our German client to call the support service. The only contact phone number listed on their website is available only for calls from Germany. It is paid - at that time a minute of conversation was worth 1.86 euros. We were told that we had accepted our application, but none of the adult specialists were in the vicinity, and, therefore, they would deal with our problem only on Monday morning. All Sunday the server was down. On Monday, at 9 am, we received a message that the power supply had burned on our server, and it had to be replaced with a new one. This our communication with the support service and limited. Later the project was closed and the server was abandoned.

A year later, we needed a server for our own projects. Remembering the acceptable price-performance ratio of Server4you, we made a choice in their favor. Immediately a surprise: if you are a resident of Germany, you can pay for the server on a monthly basis, if for any other country, please make a payment immediately a year in advance.
')
At first there was a VPS, and a few months later - a dedicated-server and some more VPS. And then the problems started.

In the case of VPS, it turned out that time on the host machine can take and “jump” into the past or the future by up to an hour, and then smoothly return to the exact value. And the hands on the VPS do not fix it, because always use host time. For our service, it was like death - even a couple seconds of difference are critical for us, so we had to quickly put crutches in scripts especially for this case.

The next serious problem that arose in the course of work was that the server suddenly began to hang up periodically. We sinned on the hard disk. Appealed to the support service with a request to diagnose or replace the server. We were offered to turn off the server for 4 hours from 7 to 20 on workdays and check it. To do this at night or early in the morning, during the minimum load, they did not have the opportunity. Without diagnostics, they refused to replace the server. They offered, however, an alternative option - if the server hangs, then do not overload it, but ask their technician to look into the console. But, unfortunately, the server was hanging just at the time when the staff ended the working day. And one day the reboot did not save. In the evening, a ticket was created, in the morning a message was received that the technicians were working on the problem, and then the result - the hard drive failed. Of course, it was replaced, the data were saved (we were ready for such an outcome), but why was it necessary to bring the problem to such a scale? After this incident, we set a course for leaving Server4you. By the way, this server still stably hangs about once a month, apparently the problems there are not only with hard drives.

A rather annoying trend - VPS hosts occasionally (for one of our VPS for the fall of 2010, we counted a little more than 10 times) are falling (sometimes they are simply transported from one data center to another, forgetting to send a notification, sometimes refer to failures in the equipment operation), and the servers become unavailable for a period of one hour to three (!) days. Yes, yes, an idle time of three days happened just the other day - January 2, 2011, and just no one reacted to the calls to the support service for two days. On the third day, the answer came that the server failed and was replaced, with a proposal to restore the data from the automatic backup for 10 (!) December. Fortunately, by this time the server was no longer used for serious purposes, and all more or less important services were transferred to another provider.

Against the background of the above, such a trifle as debiting funds from an account along with VAT (although all documents clearly indicated the company's VAT-ID registered in one of the EU countries - we even sent a separate paper letter to them) seems irrelevant. After a long trial, they promised to deduct the extra money written off as payment for services, but then they forgot about the promise and continued to write off the money from the account, but without VAT. We applied again and asked to return the money to our account. Two weeks later, the money mistakenly written off was returned.

Story summary

We turn to Hetzner . Already even actually moved, since all projects moved there a few months ago. During this time (pah-pah) there was not a single failure. In Server4you, a paper letter was written (in another way, according to the contract, this cannot be done) about the refusal of their services (for 3 months, again, according to the contract). Today a response was received where they kindly consulted us: “The listed contracts will run another 12 month. 3 month before the 12-month-term starts ” They had to write the letter again, and, highlighting the key points in BIG LETTERS, they repeated our request to cancel the contract. Twice, in different formulations. This worked, and for three of the five servers, contracts will not be extended. Unfortunately, the correspondence took a lot of time and the remaining two VPS will have to be paid for next year. We will try to find their use in projects that are not critical to such disruptions in work. Alas, parting with Server4you is not at all easy.

Now we have to foot Server4you. If you are ready for an unreliable gland, the absence of any sane staff during off-hours (boys who answer that they will deal with your problem tomorrow, do not count), and fascinating conversations on tickets, on paper and by phone - you can take a chance.