Server4you server rental experience in Germany

In the topic about 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. All organizational issues were taken over by a client from Germany, so we stayed away from the intricacies of interaction with the support service of this company. The leased server worked for two and a half years with uptime for six months. There were only two problems during this time. At first, suddenly 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the more powerful configurations presented on their website at that time were cheaper than our server, which had been outdated in a couple of years. And, the most unpleasant thing - one day on Saturday night the server stopped responding. Attempts to restart the server through the panel failed. There was no response to the ticket with a request to sort out within three hours, and we asked our German customer to call support. The only contact phone number indicated on their website is available only for calls from Germany. It is paid - at that time a minute of conversation cost 1.86 euros. We were told that our application was accepted, but none ofThere are no adult specialists nearby, and, therefore, they will deal with our problem only on Monday morning. All Sunday the server was down. On Monday, at 9 am, we received a message saying that the power supply on our server was burned out, and it had to be replaced with a new one. Our communication with the support service was limited to this. Later, the project was closed and the server was abandoned.

After a year, we needed a server for our own projects. Remembering the acceptable price-performance ratio at Server4you, we made a choice in their favor. Immediately a surprise: if you are a resident of Germany, you can pay for the server monthly, if in any other country - be so kind as to pay immediately one year in advance.

First there was a VPS, and a few months later - a dedicated server and a few more VPS. And then the problems started.

In the case of VPS, it turned out that the time on the host machine can take and “jump” into the past or the future by up to an hour, and then gradually return to the exact value. And on VPS, you can’t fix the time with your hands, because host time is always used. It was like death for our service - even a couple of seconds of difference is critical for us, so we had to hurry to place crutches in scripts especially for this case.

The next serious problem that arose in the process - the server suddenly began to hang periodically. Sin on the hard drive. Contacted the support service with a request to diagnose or replace the server. We were offered from 7 to 20 on business days to disconnect the server for 4 hours 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. True, they suggested an alternative option - if the server freezes, then do not overload it, but ask their technician to look into the console. But, unfortunately, the server crashed just when the staff was running out of work. And once 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 disk failed. He was, of course, replaced we managed to save the data (we were already ready for such an outcome), but why was it necessary to bring the problem to such a scale? After this incident, they took a course towards leaving Server4you. By the way, this server still hangs stably about once a month, apparently there are problems not only with hard drives.

A very annoying trend is that VPS hosts occasionally (for one of our VPS in the fall of 2010 we counted a little more than 10 times) fall (sometimes they are simply transported from one data center to another, forgetting to send a notification, sometimes they cite failures in the operation of the equipment), and the server becomes unavailable for a time from one hour to three (!) days. Yes, yes, a downtime of three days happened just the other day - January 2, 2011, and no one simply reacted to the support calls for two days. On the third day, the answer came that the server was out of order and was replaced, with a proposal to restore data from an automatic backup for December 10 (!). 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 the account together with VAT (although all documents clearly indicated the VAT-ID of a company registered in one of the EU countries - we even sent a separate paper letter to them) seems insignificant. After a lengthy trial, they promised to credit the excess debited money as payment for services, but then they forgot about the promise and continued to stubbornly write off money from the account, albeit without VAT. We appealed again and asked for a refund to our account. Two weeks later, the erroneously debited money was nevertheless returned.

Summary of the story

We move on to Hetzner. Already even actually moved, since all the projects moved there a few months ago. During this time (pah-pah) there was not a single failure. Server4you wrote a paper letter (in another way, according to the contract, it is impossible to do this) about the refusal of their services (for 3 months, again according to the contract). An answer was received today, where they kindly advised us: “The listed contracts will run another 12 month. You have to cancel them 3 Month before the next 12-Month-Term starts. " They had to write a letter again, and, highlighting the key points in BIG LETTERS, they repeated our request to cancel the contract. Two times, in different formulations. This worked, and for three out of five servers, contracts would not be renewed. Unfortunately, the correspondence took a lot of time and the remaining two VPS will have to be paid for next year. Let's try to find them application in projects that are not critical to such interruptions in work. Alas, breaking up with Server4you is not easy at all.

Now we are to Server4you - not a foot. If you are ready for unreliable hardware, the absence of any sane personnel during non-working hours (boys who answer that they will deal with your problem tomorrow, it doesn’t count), and fascinating communication in tickets, on paper and by phone - you can take a chance.