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Ask HN: Managed bare-metal hosting recommendation

10 points by karterk 12y ago

Looking for recommendations for bare-metal hosting providers in the USA. We're currently on the EC2, but the cost is becoming prohibitive and we're also not really using any of the benefits of cloud (elasticity etc.). We're not ready to buy/manage own hardware yet. Who would you recommend?

phantom_oracle 12y ago
Do you want your own rented hardware and not just virtual machines? I'd recommend looking into data-centres then. I'm not sure what you mean by "managed" though. "Managed" (to me) normally means that they take care of the SysAdmin stuff for you. As far as up-time and making sure the hardware works, that should be included in your rental price.
kfullert 12y ago
If you were UK I'd plug Bytemark - they provide bare-metal servers where they look after the hardware, you look after the OS/software (https://www.bytemark.co.uk/hosting/dedicated/ https://www.bytemark.co.uk/hosting/dedicated/) I've been a customer of Bytemark for 10+ years now with different products over time, and I'm continually impressed with the service (and what they give back to the community) time after time
Someone1234 12y ago
EC2 becomes more competitive when you do reserved instances. You're mostly paying for redundancy, which is something you lose with bare metal servers.
dangrossman 12y ago
Softlayer. http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers They are the most used hosting service behind EC2/PaaS/Linode for startups. It's not managed, but neither was EC2. You order servers, they build and put them online, then you are given the IP and root password and the rest is up to you.
dholowiski 12y ago
I've been using a dedicated server from liquidweb for about 3 years to serve several high traffic Web sites at work. The only problems I've ever had with it are ones I've caused. You can pretty much get any level of 'managed' that you want, which is nice. They are not a 'cheap' host though. My server is about $230 a month. But it's worth every penny, and more.
kunstmord 12y ago
Rackspace OnMetal? http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/servers/onmetal/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/servers/onmetal/ I remember reading some not-so-nice things about Rackspace downtime recently though.
callmeed 12y ago
I currently have 6 bare-metal boxes on SoftLayer and 4 managed boxes with Rackspace. I think both are great but both have their pros and cons. You're mainly looking at a cost vs support trade-off. COST My 6 SoftLayer servers cost half of my 4 RS servers. So SoftLayer wins on cost. Also, Rackspace prefers contracts so keep that in mind. Don't be afraid to negotiate with them either. SUPPORT Rackspace on the other hand, excels with regards to support. You can call Rackspace at any time if you have an issue. They also seem to be more proactive with monitoring and preventative stuff (they will call you and say "Hey, this thing was failing so I fixed it"), whereas SoftLayer's monitoring is robotic and they don't do anything unless you file a ticket. RS also provides managed backup and it's been great for us (keep in mind we do traditional hosting, not a multi-tenant app). I've only had one major incident with SoftLayer (swapping out a RAID controller went bad and resulted in 6ish hours of downtime). No major incidents with Rackspace. So, Rackspace wins on support. OTHER Both have multiple data centers and performance seems great (though I don't have actual benchmarks to prove that). Most of our servers are in Dallas. One thing I like about SoftLayer is you can get things up faster. A new server is setup real quick (within hour(s)) whereas Rackspace can take a couple days. SWAG I have 2 Rackspace t-shirts and 2 SoftLayer t-shirts. So, that's a toss up :)
ohashi 12y ago
I track a bunch of data on many of the providers mentioned here if you're still unsure. http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare There's data on LiquidWeb, SoftLayer, RackSpace, Linode and many more.
chatmasta 12y ago
I would recommend checking out the marketplace section of WebHostingTalk [1]. You can find good deals and user reviews. [1] www.webhostingtalk.com
RealGeek 12y ago
I have had great experience with LiquidWeb. They offer fully managed dedicated / cloud / vps servers. They will even manage all software stack for you. They will even do things like "install Nginx with php-fpm and optimize mysql". If there is any problem, they will usually fix it before you notice it. They usually post specials on WebHostingTalk deals forum.
kogir 12y ago
HN runs on SoftLayer and I've been happy with them so far.

10 points by karterk 12y ago

phantom_oracle 12y ago

Do you want your own rented hardware and not just virtual machines? I'd recommend looking into data-centres then. I'm not sure what you mean by "managed" though. "Managed" (to me) normally means that they take care of the SysAdmin stuff for you. As far as up-time and making sure the hardware works, that should be included in your rental price.

kfullert 12y ago

If you were UK I'd plug Bytemark - they provide bare-metal servers where they look after the hardware, you look after the OS/software (https://www.bytemark.co.uk/hosting/dedicated/ https://www.bytemark.co.uk/hosting/dedicated/) I've been a customer of Bytemark for 10+ years now with different products over time, and I'm continually impressed with the service (and what they give back to the community) time after time

Someone1234 12y ago

EC2 becomes more competitive when you do reserved instances. You're mostly paying for redundancy, which is something you lose with bare metal servers.

dangrossman 12y ago

Softlayer. http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers They are the most used hosting service behind EC2/PaaS/Linode for startups. It's not managed, but neither was EC2. You order servers, they build and put them online, then you are given the IP and root password and the rest is up to you.

dholowiski 12y ago

I've been using a dedicated server from liquidweb for about 3 years to serve several high traffic Web sites at work. The only problems I've ever had with it are ones I've caused. You can pretty much get any level of 'managed' that you want, which is nice. They are not a 'cheap' host though. My server is about $230 a month. But it's worth every penny, and more.

kunstmord 12y ago

Rackspace OnMetal? http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/servers/onmetal/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/servers/onmetal/ I remember reading some not-so-nice things about Rackspace downtime recently though.

callmeed 12y ago

I currently have 6 bare-metal boxes on SoftLayer and 4 managed boxes with Rackspace. I think both are great but both have their pros and cons. You're mainly looking at a cost vs support trade-off. COST My 6 SoftLayer servers cost half of my 4 RS servers. So SoftLayer wins on cost. Also, Rackspace prefers contracts so keep that in mind. Don't be afraid to negotiate with them either. SUPPORT Rackspace on the other hand, excels with regards to support. You can call Rackspace at any time if you have an issue. They also seem to be more proactive with monitoring and preventative stuff (they will call you and say "Hey, this thing was failing so I fixed it"), whereas SoftLayer's monitoring is robotic and they don't do anything unless you file a ticket. RS also provides managed backup and it's been great for us (keep in mind we do traditional hosting, not a multi-tenant app). I've only had one major incident with SoftLayer (swapping out a RAID controller went bad and resulted in 6ish hours of downtime). No major incidents with Rackspace. So, Rackspace wins on support. OTHER Both have multiple data centers and performance seems great (though I don't have actual benchmarks to prove that). Most of our servers are in Dallas. One thing I like about SoftLayer is you can get things up faster. A new server is setup real quick (within hour(s)) whereas Rackspace can take a couple days. SWAG I have 2 Rackspace t-shirts and 2 SoftLayer t-shirts. So, that's a toss up :)

ohashi 12y ago

I track a bunch of data on many of the providers mentioned here if you're still unsure. http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/compare There's data on LiquidWeb, SoftLayer, RackSpace, Linode and many more.

chatmasta 12y ago

I would recommend checking out the marketplace section of WebHostingTalk [1]. You can find good deals and user reviews. [1] www.webhostingtalk.com

RealGeek 12y ago

I have had great experience with LiquidWeb. They offer fully managed dedicated / cloud / vps servers. They will even manage all software stack for you. They will even do things like "install Nginx with php-fpm and optimize mysql". If there is any problem, they will usually fix it before you notice it. They usually post specials on WebHostingTalk deals forum.

kogir 12y ago

HN runs on SoftLayer and I've been happy with them so far.