[jbyers]

Don't trust any servers to anyone. When we get a new server we check its stats against reality (have had upside and downside surprises on CPUs), run bonnie++ to make sure IO is as expected (it hasn't been due to exotic RAID problems), and run memtester to see if we have bad RAM (had that too). Takes more time, sure, but no surprises later.

[jacquesm]

That's the right attitude.

For extra points do serious burn-ins, especially on network hardware, keep a good eye on those error counters as well as mcelog in case you got a faulty ram in there.

It's all part of commissioning a server, especially if you host at a cheap outlet like rackspace.

[cperciva]

a cheap outlet like rackspace.

I've heard rackspace called lots of things, but this is the first time I've heard someone call them "cheap". Have their prices gone down lately?

[jacquesm]

On a relative scale they're cheap, what they call 'managed hosting' though is not what I'd call managed hosting. I think they call it managed hosting because they will do backups for you or something like that :)

The Planet/EV1, which was my choice when hosting in the US earlier was quite a bit cheaper, but service there was absolutely terrible.

It got to the point where I reprogrammed the DRAC cards to lock out their sys admins.

After The Planet took over we had all kinds of issues, then finally they had an explosion in a transformer in one of their datacenters taking down all of our stuff for days on end. After that we moved out.

They said it had nothing to do with them and we would be credited for the downtime if we stayed for at least another 6 months, but we had by then already signed up elsewhere and restored from backups. I figure if you're willing to run your operation that close to the red line then we should be taking our business elsewhere. They were lucky nobody got hurt.

Right now we're hosting in three places, leaseweb, mojohost and virtual acccess. VXS is by far the best but expensive, leaseweb is somewhere in the middle and for high volume mojohost is absolutely unbeatable.

btw, you have me curious what else you've heard rackspace called :)

[Confusion]

I don't have experience with a wide range of hosting companies, but out of five, VXS is the only one about which I have had nothing to complain. They are very good. The primary difference with other companies is that their staff actually know their stuff.

[cperciva]

btw, you have me curious what else you've heard rackspace called :)

Most of what I've heard about rackspace is that they had a good reputation once, but have been resting on their laurels and now have higher prices and worse service than other hosts -- but this is all 2nd hand and I have no direct experience with them, so I was curious to hear other perspectives.

[jacquesm]

Ok. I think if they worked a bit harder at justifying that 'managed hosting' bit then they would actually be worth it.

With both mojohost and leaseweb I basically only bug them when there are network or hardware issues, for the rest the problems are mine. VXS is a different story, that's where all the web servers are, their operators help with warding off all kinds of attacks, proactively scan for security issues and so on. 24x7 cell phone of the manager of the hosting facility.

It's very addictive, that level of service.

They charge a pretty penny for it, but imo it's worth it, it is still much cheaper than having a full time sysadmin for our stuff, and they probably do a better job of it.

[jacquesm]

Apropos upsides, always do an fdisk /dev/sdX for the drives that are not installed in your machine, sometimes you get more than you paid for.

This happened to me several times at EV1, same with memory and CPU.

It really pays off to check if you can boot a machine with an SMP kernel and another CPU shows up too (don't bother doing that on a celeron box though).