anyone host with leaseweb or softlayer?
 

your thoughts?

Soft Layer is the shit! I love them.

I was at ReliableHosting for a long time but they just got too expensive compared to everything else. In the past year I have been searching and went through Webair, HostGator, ThePlanet and Caro before I finally settled on Soft Layer.

Their support is awesome. I've NEVER waited for more than 1 ring to get through to their support (1 ring from dialing, there are no menus or automated dispatch messages). If you host with them they use your phone number and your caller id gets priority support.

Prices are good, especially if they have a special. They will have the server within 2-4 hours too. Their control panel for the servers kicks ass too.

Their bandwidth is fast too. All the above hosts with the exception of ThePlanet/HostGator had slow bandwidth. Most of them only let me download on a single HTTP connection between 200 KB/s to 800 KB/s max. ThePlanet around 1200 KB/s. I was getting 1500 KB/s from Soft Layer (the cap for my connection), I suspect they can serve faster. I don't know why the whole server can serve faster but it can only serve a single HTTP connection so slow on all the other hosts. It makes a huge difference in load time and especially when having to transfer files back and forth from your server.

I'm looking at a nice unmetered promo with leaseweb right now and will probably get it next week. I have a good friend who has been with them for years and raves about their network and uptime. Hit me up icq 15819167 and i'll tell you the pricing im looking at and maybe you can give me an idea of what kind of bandwidth your tevs site is pushing to help me out with my own projections.

Are you looking for bandwidth in the US or in Europe?

Leaseweb is good for Europe, I've got a 100Mbit unmetered there and I'm happy so far, except that they route through Cogent to DTAG (German Telecom) which means serious performance issues for these surfers (30kB/s average speed) - otherwise they are good.

They are having specials right now I guess, as I'm paying 199 EUR for my small 100Mbit unmetered there per month (only if you pre-pay 3 months, monthly payment is some % on-top) line is dedicated, not shared.

Can't comment on SoftLayer as my main market is in the EU - so I never tried them.

I'm looking at the same deal only with the upgraded server and I'm the USA, with a broad mix of traffic. Couldn't tell by your post, are you saying there are performance issues for those in Germany?

Although the Leaseweb network is very fine compared to the monthly rate they charge, there is only one thing to keep in mind before signing up with them: they aren't flexible if you want to change things (fast) after using them for a while. I've heared bad stories from a Dutch webmaster who used their services that got charged penalty fees for growing too fast with his online bizz (because his servers were using too much electrical power per month). It was too much hastle for Leaseweb to help the guy balance the load before the month was over. They preferred to cash the penalty fee because "there are so many webmasters that want to do balances at the end of the month and we don't want to invest the time of our technicians in that". So, if you have a very steady bandwidth stream Leaseweb can be a good choice. It is not suitable for sudden massive growth.

Only for those in Germany with DTAG / Deutsche Telekom AG as their ISP.

Leaseweb's Unmetered Series isn't exactly premium bandwidth, at least that was the answer that I've gotten from them after asking if it's possible to re-route the traffic for DTAG users, and they said on the unmetered plans this is Cogent and cannot be changed, if I wanted premium bandwidth for them I'd have to use another plan / server.

The issue between DTAG and Cogent has been going on since 2005 - as DTAG wants Cogent to pay, but in reality it's DTAG who should pay Cogent, as Cogent has the Content on the Network and DTAG users want to access that content... anyways, as this is not going to be fixed anytime soon - personally I'm using the Maxmind ISP Database to serve DTAG users from a different server of mine, which works well.

Hope this clears it up.

Steve

Clears it up fine, exactly what I was looking for and also helps me understand why their rates were so low for these unmetered plans they launched recently.

leaseweb has some expensive support packages.. if you dont purchase a support package and your server goes down it may take years before its up again.

I picked up a softlayer dedicated for $279 with 10tb bandwidth a month roughly 30mbps, just setting the box up now, speeds are sexcellent so far