Atomicorp

Hey guys.. anyone had experience with both 1and1 and theplanet.. that can offer a comparison??
Looking at the 1and1 servers.. they seem to be cheaper than theplanet and offer a better machine. But does that come at the cost of poor support??
Just trying to keep my options open.. been with the one provider long enough to see the evolution from Rackshack to EV1servers to ThePlanet.

I have been with 1and1 for years, and I would say that their product is great, their prices are great, but their support leaves something to be desired. Fortunately, I only have to call support about once every couple of years.

Example: just last week I had a problem where I and several of my clients were unable to reach my server at all. I called their support line, and got a message simply saying "we are experiencing a high call volume - please call back later". No option to leave a message or even wait on the line.

Although I was perturbed at this, there were two things that made it easier to take. First, their serial console access allowed me to actually log into my box and see that everything was working, and basically confirm that it was a network issue. Second, the issue (whatever it was - never actually found out) was resolved within an hour or so. And I'll reiterate that this is not a frequent occurrence - it's been years since anything happened that caused me to call support.

So, although I think their support is a bit lacking, it's a good product overall. You just need to know what you're getting into. You are mostly on your own unless the hardware actually dies. Well, not on your own - you have ART! This website has been infinitely more valuable than 1and1 support...

Pros:
1and1 has the best rescue system Ive seen in the hosting industry. Hardware failures aside, you never need to even talk to their support about fixing something on the system.

Cons:
They do very very very bad things to the OS. They meddle with things they shouldnt (like the kernel), and partition the file system in the worst kind of way. This is why I wrote AOOI, so its easy to overcome this shortcoming.

Last but not least, the French 1and1 support team has been invaluable in supporting ART with test equipment, and hosting ISO's used in AOOI.

1and1

Pros
Hard to beat the value. They give you FTP backup, remote reboot and remote reimaging from your control panel. They're much cheaper than other hosts.

Cons
Where to start...

1. The FTP backup goes down a LOT. Part of this is probably due to the fact that they give you FTP space equal to your HDD. At one point, their FTP was down for a solid month AND they lost all the data that had been put there. I'm thankful I have an offsite rsync of the backup or I'd have been screwed if hardware had died. Don't trust the FTP with everything, do an offsite backup to somewhere local once a week.

2. At least as far as the US stuff goes, there's no support outside 8am to 5pm ET Mon - Fri. I had their reimager lock up a production server on a Friday evening (something had become corrupt). Nobody dealt with it until Monday morning, 60 hours later.

3. Phone Center - their phone center is in the Phillipines. Nice, courteous people who generally can't do anything to help you beyond unlocking ports on a new server. If all you want is empathy, they've got it in spades.

4. No official channels for communication - There's no forums or trouble tickets. At best, they may email you if something big happens but that's it. The only support forum was started by a guy who wanted to help his fellow 1and1 customers.

5. No real SLA. If they go down, tough. You can always try their accounting dept (one of their few bright spots) to try and get a credit but that's it.

6. No hardware RAID. Everything is software.

The Planet

Pros

1. US tech support 24/7. I've never had anyone outside the country take a call and I seldom have to wait long for an answer. I had a guy stay on the phone with me for 90 mins while we determined the problem we were having was with something in the network on the rack in the datacenter. I've even had to call at odd hours and gotten someone immediately.

2. Communication - A week ago Saturday, one of their data centers was taken down by an explosion in their power room. They had to completely shut off power and servers were offline from 32-75 hours. There was consistent communication through all official channels.

3. Low (or no) setup fees. You can walk away from the contract at any time.

4. Build your own server - You pick the hardware, OS, etc. I got a hardware RAID controller, the RAM I needed and all the software installed directly.

Cons

1. Price - Far more than a comparable 1and1 server but you get what you pay for. Nothing is bundled either.

2. No direct recovery console. You submit a ticket and they will power cycle your box for you. Same for reimaging. And reimaging takes a lot longer since it's done manually.