RamNode is one of the newer budget VPS providers who have stormed the scene by offering quality equipment at rock-bottom prices. They have three locations you can choose from: Netherlands, Seattle and Atlanta.
The reason I was interested in RamNode is because they offer pure SSD and SSD cached hard drives which are supposed to be faster than conventional hard drives.
According to a study conducted by Wired Tree, pure SSD disks perform 33% faster than conventional hard disks.
Anyway, when RamNode offered a heavy discount (35%) in WHT, I decided it was time to bite.
I took a 1GB Ram VPS in Netherlands with the following specifications:
1024MB SVZ
• RAM: 1024MB
• VSwap: 1024MB
• Cores: 4 @ 3.3GHz+
• 30GB RAID10 SSD Space
• 1 IPv4 Address (+1 FREE)
• 16 IPv6 Addresses
• 3000GB Bandwidth
The price: $9.75 per month.
As advertised, the set-up of the VPS was instant. As soon as I paid with paypal, I received an email with information about my VPS.
The Control Panel is based on Solus VM but has a refreshing new design.
DNS Option: RamNode offers the option of hosting your DNS. For this you have to go to your domain registrar (e.g. Namecheap, ENOM etc) and point the domain to RamNode’s name servers. However, there is no point in this because you can as well set up virtual hosts on the VPS (see Guide) and directly point the domain to your I. P. address.
Performance: Here’s what the performance of the VPS is:
Checking the processor used for the VPS
root@vps:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 58
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
stepping : 9
cpu MHz : 3300.161
cache size : 8192 KB
cpu cores : 4
root@vps:~#
As you can see, the CPU is a 3.30Ghz with 4 cores.
Checking the I/O (Input Output ratio) of the VPS
root@vps:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.14471 s, 938 MB/s
root@vps:~#
As you can see, the Input Output ratio is very high nearly touching 1GB/sec.
Checking the download speed of the VPS using wget:
root@vps:~# wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2013-09-28 10:43:18-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: '100mb.test.3'
100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 24.3MB/s in 4.2s
2013-09-28 10:43:22 (24.0 MB/s) - '100mb.test.3' saved [104857600/104857600]
root@vps:~#
The speed is good at 24.3 MB/sec
Checking the Upload & Download Speeds using the python tool:
root@vps:~# python speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from RouteLabel V.O.F. (176.56.236.46)...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Elite Game Servers (Dronten) [4.33 km]: 11.047 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 209.27 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 130.86 Mbit/s
root@vps:~#
The upload and download speeds are very high.
Support: I noticed that as per the offer I was entitled to an additional I. P. address which wasn’t allotted to me. So I shot off a support ticket marked “Medium” and received a response 5 hours later from “Nick” allotting the I. P. address. Apparently, you have to choose it while paying for the VPS which makes it automatic.
I shot off another ticket about an upgrade option and this was responded instantly.
It would be fair to say that one should expect the response to be slow and sluggish. If you do run into problems and don’t know how to resolve it, it could take several hours before you get help. However, this is mostly true of all budget hosts and so should not be held against RamNode.
Conclusion: All in all, if you look at the speed of the SSD disks and the upload and download speeds and compare it with the price you are getting a great deal. Highly recommended.
Ramnode has slipped a lot. The SEA location is slow to Asia, better to buy from one of the reliable providers like Hostigation in Los Angeles.
I had issues with their support as well. Also sent a threatening "abuse" message but when I checked cpu load it was quiet, sleeping. Think they have internal issues.
Additionally, they have discontinued the value-added service of weekly or monthly backups so they are just another average provider now, no real perks beyond the most basic of services.
I wish I knew that before I signed up with them, that all my personal info was at stake, I signed up with them months ago, for a very short time, as my server repeatedly went down 3-4 times a week from anywhere to 15 minutes to 4 hours at a time.
RamNode blame their own customers for their mistakes. Personal experience warning: Do not trust this business.
I'm a former customer who left their service months ago, because they couldn't provide what I needed, there was lag, poor customer service, spam, and my server was under attack by other servers in the warehouse which would drop my service and then actions it took to restore my server were way too slow, the service was very unreliable.
The service they offered didn't meet up to the actual expectations of what they advertise for me any way.
So months after I discontinued the service they contacted me and are blaming me!!! for errors in their own servers, saying that my server was causing "panic" in their server warehouse.
When I CUT OFF their services MONTHS AGO, I don't own a server in their warehouse any more. (I never received an apology for the rudeness or for flaming me)
Then they e-mailed me again about some non-sense and garbage as if I didn't know what I was talking about, not only were they rude, their employees are poorly educated.
Because then the error was found and guess what it wasn't me, I had nothing to do with it, they we're in the wrong, STILL no apology for being so incredibly rude to me.
"The employee working for RamNode" didn't even sign their name at the bottom of the e-mail.
Some lessons RamNode should learn today.
1. Don't contact people who no longer use your service. PERIOD.
2. Sign your name at the bottom of the e-mail, it makes you look like unprofessional if you don't.
3. Don't use offensive language or be rude to past customers unless you want it to bite you back.
4. You might want to learn to apologise when your wrong for blaming someone who dons't even have a server on your warehouse which is the cause of all the chaos.
5. I did warn them this was going on Social Media. Enjoy.
And only then did they stop with the harassing e-mails.
I ended my service on good terms, I had no contact with the company for months, and then all of a sudden I receive a threatening e-mail from RamNode.
They are the biggest joke of a service provider.
You're wrong the site threatens to release personal information of client in the case of a charge back. I wouldn't trust them with a gun.
Very interesting. I am in the process of getting the most basic of the KVM SSD options.
Thanks!!
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