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An obviously rare, positive review of GVH
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An obviously rare, positive review of GVH

I was browsing several of the "low end" sites comparing various VPS deals, and I saw what looked like a great deal for a 1GB RAM VPS with 3 static IPs for $12.00/year provided by Green Value Hosting. For me, this turned out to be an excellent offer.

Background:
I am VERY new to the VPS world, but I am not new to Web hosting. I've been an IT geek for over 25 years, and I have designed and managed several hobby and client Web sites since the late 90's. Yes, I have read the vast number of negative posts about GVH here and elsewhere, and yes, despite that, I took a risk. But I thought, what the Hell, for $12.00, it's a minor write-off if it fails.

Intended use:
My use for these VPS instances is NOT for production use. I want to use these as simple test boxes so that I can become more adept at Linux and Ubuntu system management.

Since purchasing two instances, I have installed and re-installed CentOS and Ubuntu several times, some due to application installation issues, and others because I simply FUBAR'd the instances. In all cases, an OS re-install took just a couple minutes, and I was always back in business quickly.

My experience:
So I signed up for a VPS located in Buffalo under GVH's "June VPS special 4" promo. 9 hours later, I received an information email, and I was logged in with PuTTY. Things seemed peppy, and I was very happy with the performance and responsiveness. (Sorry, no benchmarking, just simple "gut" feelings based on my frequent experiences with SSH to a DreamHost shared hosting node.) Shell and Web access was excellent in comparison.

For fun (simply because I never have done it) I installed Ubuntu desktop with VNC, and within an hour or so, I was able to effectively run a graphical session with very little delay--pretty cool in 1GB. Eventually, I decided to dump that, so I re-installed Ubuntu and installed OpenVPN. Again, in short order, I was connected with my Android phone surfing from one of the VPN's IP.

My second instance:
Being satisfied, I figured that I wouldn't find a much better deal any time soon, so two days later I ordered a second VPS, this time located in Seattle. It was provisioned and available in about 11 hours. Oddly, I could not get any outbound network access, and inbound SSH was flaky and VERY sluggish. Since I live near the East Coast, I attributed it to "across the country lag", so I logged a ticket asking if they could move my instance from Seattle to their Chicago location. I guess I got lucky, because that task was completed it within 10 minutes. Interestingly, I had the same issue at that location as well. On a whim, i went to the Control Panel in Networking and selected one of the other 3 IPs as my "default" IP address. All networking issues went away, and the instance was fast and responsive--as fast as the Buffalo instance.

Service:
Since I ordered these, I have logged three service tickets. The first was answered and resolved in about 6 hours, the second was resolved within 10 minutes, and I closed the third myself because I was able to quickly Google an answer.

Quirks #1: Boots & reboots:
I've had several occasions where each instance was offline and it needed to be booted. I also had a couple cases where an instance had obviously rebooted because a couple services that were not set to auto-start were not running when they previously had. Not sure why this happened, but this has only happened a couple times.

Quirk #2: Possible Ubuntu template inconsistencies:
I went to the Control Panel and initiated a reinstall of Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit on BOTH instances. When completed, I opened two PuTTY windows, one to the Chicago instance, and one to the Buffalo instance. I then updated, upgraded, and installed several applications identically on both. Everything worked well except for the VestaCP install on the Chicago node which seemed to hang and would never complete. This was repeatable, however I have not yet logged a ticket.

Conclusions:
From what I read here and elsewhere, GVH has and continues to have issues. But recently, I can't help but wonder how many of these reported issues are people "testing" them out to see if they will fail. OK, I admit that was perfectly willing to deal with it should GVH fail me, but that was NOT my intent. I REALLY wanted to work with an inexpensive VPS. For me, my experience has been overall very good.

I also admit that I honestly don't know if I would commit to using these kinds of VPS's as production instances for me or for clients. But for my intended purposes of testing, learning, and playing around to discover what VPS's and Linux can do on the cheap, it has been well worth it with little fuss.

Of course, YMMV.

Jim

«13

Comments

  • First post, GVH review. Surprise, surprise.

  • lol a postive review of GVH

  • hmm good

  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @serverian said:
    image

    This MUST be the new LEB/T logo !!!!

    also:

    image

    Thanked by 2Amitz iSidle
  • LinkkingLinkking Member
    edited August 2014

    I have one and Ive had nothing but problems. The biggest problem was IP's being changed without being notified. Ive lost count on how many tickets Ive opened, I would never use it for production only testing scripts etc.

  • Mark_RMark_R Member
    edited August 2014

    Great review(if legit)! but don't be surprised that some people could be a little sceptical when it comes to reviews from members that recently joined with just 1 post that is a positive review about a company that could use some positive reputation.

    Thanked by 1Linkking
  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep
    edited August 2014

    Mark_R said: Great review(if legit)! but don't be surprised that some people could be a little sceptical when it comes to reviews from members that recently joined with just 1 post that is a positive review about a company that could use some positive reputation.

    It seems he had mostly same experience as other people, but unlike others he realized he was only spending a couple dollars a year and probably got what he paid for given that price. If you're just using it for testing, the "several occasions where each instance was offline" aren't a big deal, and acceptable for $12/mo (same for IP change, although he probably registered after that happened).

    Thanked by 2badpatrick hostnoob
  • LeeLee Veteran

    I am not suspicious about this in any way. Is that a G and a V in your picture...

    Thanked by 1darkshire
  • Lies, damn lies and statistics

  • So how much did they pay you?

    Thanked by 2darkshire W3Host
  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran

    You dont even need to pay people for that, just give them a free month or upgrade. Somtimes it that simple.

  • I have about the same to say, it's great for the pricing, but if you want a vps for production use, you should look for another host.

    Also, a question to all the people who commented with something bad: How many of you really use or have used GVH? I'm having the idea very much people just write something to be cool

  • @W1V_Lee said:
    I am not suspicious about this in any way. Is that a G and a V in your picture...

    No...! That's just the Illuminati...! chuckles nervously

  • eddynetweb said: Illuminati

    I lol'd IRL.

  • Actually it looks like the Freemason's symbol..

    Thanked by 1badpatrick
  • @0xdragon said:
    Actually it looks like the Freemason's symbol..

    Looks like something the Illuminati would use as a decoy!

    Thanked by 1orak
  • @0xdragon said:
    Actually it looks like the Freemason's symbol..

    It is.

    :o

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited August 2014

    C'mon people. Why if someone post a bad review for GVH, all here saying "I told ya" and "damn you Jon", but when a guy is posting a positive review "this is all lies"?

    OK, it is a little suspicious the fact that this guy joined LET community a month ago , and this is his first post/comment, but, hey, Jon's boxes are not the worst here. In fact, for this price, they are much better than a lot of others... They had failures, as a lot of other providers here that do not receive so much attack.
    Those things that OP describes in his post, are not far away from the experience of a lot of members here from GVH.

    I am a GVH customer with three boxes and I use them for almost production staff: a mail server mirror backup, a box for restreaming video and a backup box in a cluster of backup boxes for my production sites. For 50$ a whole year, those three boxes are doing their job with ups and downs and with a very large amount of features and bandwidth (network connections are also real good for the price). They answer my tickets no longer than 3-4 hours mostly, and they have been helpful most of the times (OK, some other times I was knocking my head to the wall...)

    There is place in the market for all "fruits". It depends on what you want to do with what expectations. If I want to run a production site or a dns server, I will buy IWstack, RAMnode, Inception Hosting, DR.Server and Crissic. For my primary backups I use VPSdime and Fliphost. For supporting purposes like secondary backups, cluster of restreamers, testing etc., I use CVPS, GVH and BlueVM. Their price fits those needs and do their job, most of the time.

    It's not all black and white. Hold your feelings about Jon, besides he is giving us the opportunity several times each month to bash him and criticize him...

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member
    edited August 2014

    nm

  • Thank you for the kind words. I'm delighted to hear that you are satisfied with our services, we very much appreciate your feedback.

  • @GVH_Jon Now continue working on improving your services and your company's public image :=)

  • @serverian said:
    image

    holy hell;
    is that John 'Bilbo' Baggins getting the tatt ?

  • Well that was fun!

    A few points...

    Responses in this thread: Honestly, the responses to my were very predictable based on what I've seen in many other threads here. It is obvious that many providers have had and continue to have issues, GVH included. I just find it sad that so many responses are so negative and childish. Many of the negative posts DO provide useful information, and they are certainly warranted in many cases. It's just that the overall feel of many of the posts drag down LET as being not really that professional, particularly those responses coming from what appear to be owners of competing services.

    Skepticism & Payment: I can certainly understand your skepticism with me having only posted once. Honestly, I just haven't had the desire to post because most of the threads seem to be "service bashing" threads, and I didn't see the point since I haven't worked with most of the services mentioned here. But ALL threads here do provide at least SOME useful and relevant information when deciding on a VPS host. As for me being paid to review GVH, sorry, but I don't get paid for writing reviews. Never have, and I never will. I've reviewed a ton of stuff over at my JimsTips.com site over the years, and I never get paid. I use a product/service/program, and I relate my experiences. Your experiences may differ.

    That symbol in my picture: Yep, that is a Masonic "Square and Compasses" in my picture. My involvement in Freemasonry is received in many ways around the world from being fervently hated to passionately embraced. Do some research about it, and draw your own conclusions. I am proud to be a Freemason, and I am proud to represent an organization that promotes integrity. Conspiracy theories abound, and everyone has his own opinion, and not all Freemasons have been "on the level". So all I can really say is that I believe in and follow the good, solid morals and ethics that it teaches, so you won't see lies or misrepresentations here from me!

    Thanked by 1geekalot
  • LeeLee Veteran

    jbarr said: I just find it sad that so many responses are so negative and childish.

    It's the LET way, however that said GVH bring it on themselves, it's all more of a dig at them than you but there is always going to suspicion. It appears this is genuine so good for you in giving the review and equally well done to GVH for at least having something better than the usual poor reviews.

  • @jbarr
    aka, Jeff Barr, is S3 that bad ????

    http://jeff-barr.com/

    :P

  • Nope, that's not me. I'm not Jeff.

  • Have to agree what @jbarr said.

    When you intend to play with it, GVH is not bad at all. I mean, you could have setup a virtual machine on your PC and play with that, but having a dirty cheap box outside is not bad at all.

    But I guess that's all it's about. If you use it as production, it will explode.

    Thanked by 2hostnoob howardsl2
  • @msg7086 said:
    Have to agree what jbarr said.

    When you intend to play with it, GVH is not bad at all. I mean, you could have setup a virtual machine on your PC and play with that, but having a dirty cheap box outside is not bad at all.

    But I guess that's all it's about. If you use it as production, it will explode.

    If only people could understand that. To be honest, I think people are either a little jealous of the publicity they get, or just stupid enough to expect amazing quality for such low prices

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