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Questions about BuyVM
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Questions about BuyVM

Anyone longtime users of BuyVM, I have a few questions:

1

Their website states that their older OpenVZ line offers snapshots, while their newer Slice/KVM line does not show any snapshot feature listed. Is that correct? Is there really no snapshot feature for the Slice line?

2

If there is, in fact, a snapshot feature for Slice/KVM and it just simply isn't listed, is there also an option to snapshot the optional addon Block Storage or just the included package SSD itself?

3

Honestly, how does the customer service and stability compare to Vultr? I moved to Vultr from DO because of very poor customer service with DO. Sometimes when I would initiate a snapshot on a DO droplet, the snapshot would get stuck, and the droplet would immediately become unresponsive. I would have to wait 9+ hours for someone to answer my ticket and stop the stuck snapshot service so that the droplet would come become responsive again. This happened multiple times, and every time they told me it shouldn't happen anymore, or that I should destroy and rebuild so that I would be on a different VPS node. I never had that snapshot problem with Vultr, but I have had multiple times with Vultr where the Block Storage service itself was down. Most recently, their entire Block Storage service was down for about 19 hours. During that time, the instances that have block storage attached to them are also down.

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Comments

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    Hello :)

    1) Backups/Snapshots on OpenVZ always sucked, I was never happy with how they ran. Since was refused to use ploop they always took a fairly long time to complete.

    2) I expect to have Backups/Snapshots on Slices sometime in the spring. I can reuse most of the code, I just need to make some UI changes to handle GDPR crap.

    3) That's up to other peoples opinions, but I think our product is pretty good these days :) With the launch of block storage and backups/snapshots soon, i'm excited.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • williewillie Member
    edited December 2018
    1. Slices don't have snapshots afaik, but I never knew the openvz containers had them either (I've had both). You can obviously get a storage slab and do your own backups/snapshots to it.

    2. Snapshots for storage slabs would be silly imho. They're storage, they come in 250gb chunks, etc. It's a great product and none of the big hosts have anything like it at comparable price levels.

    3. Support (as with many small hosts) is up close and personal: you get to know the people at the other end, etc. Be sane and decent and they will bend over backwards to help you. If you act like a dick they will throw it back at you. It's like the difference between shopping at a local comic book store run by nerds and dealing with some giant soulless corporation.

    4. They are perfectly fine hosting edgy applications as long as they don't hassle other people, and quick to stomp anything that does. Ovearall I am extremely comfortable using them because of this. My own stuff is not edgy at all but it's great to not have to worry. I have a basic 1GB slice with a 250gb storage slab with them and I use it as if it were my home PC.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • If you can wait for around 4 months, I will tell you how good or bad they are. Did not used personally them for a long time. Even interesting for me how they running now =)

    Thanked by 2Francisco mikebush
  • I can only answer #3. All my support tickets (3) have been answered within hours, and resolved quickly. This was in 2015.

    • Had an issue with ipt_state module, was enabled within a few minutes.
    • One time I forgot to use SSH keys. VPS was hijacked, was resolved.
    • I selected the wrong location once, made ticket and asked to get transferred, was resolved.

    Oh, and Stallion's panel is amazeballs.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • i i'm trying to buy from BuyVM, but when I'm trying to pay with paypal I can not use the balance, and the card is being requested.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @prowlersgg said:
    i i'm trying to buy from BuyVM, but when I'm trying to pay with paypal I can not use the balance, and the card is being requested.

    Which card? I guess the CC you have on it?

    Francisco

  • juf said: Honestly, how does the customer service and stability compare to Vultr?

    BuyVM will meet or exceed Vultr's stability, in my experience, but they don't offer block storage (yet) so you can't compare that.

    Customer support is knowledgeable. There used to be some irascible guys but @Francisco purged them. I think that, in general, smaller hosts like BuyVM, Ramnode, BudgetNode, etc are quicker to fix things and don't suffer these 19h extended outages.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @jiggawattz said:

    juf said: Honestly, how does the customer service and stability compare to Vultr?

    BuyVM will meet or exceed Vultr's stability, in my experience, but they don't offer block storage (yet) so you can't compare that.

    Customer support is knowledgeable. There used to be some irascible guys but @Francisco purged them. I think that, in general, smaller hosts like BuyVM, Ramnode, BudgetNode, etc are quicker to fix things and don't suffer these 19h extended outages.

    Thanks for the...actually positive opinion for once.

    Block storage went live in Vegas in November :)

    Francisco

  • @Francisco said:

    Thanks for the...actually positive opinion for once.

    I've always said positive things about BuyVM products. I never said anything positive about @Aldryic because she doesn't deserve it. :smile:

    And it's true that you are not collecting VAT from EU customers, and so your LU assets could be seized at any time in a tax action. :neutral: That's not positive or negative... just the plain truth.

    Block storage went live in Vegas in November :)

    Just checked the website... indeed it has! Good luck.

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • @Francisco said:

    @prowlersgg said:
    i i'm trying to buy from BuyVM, but when I'm trying to pay with paypal I can not use the balance, and the card is being requested.

    Which card? I guess the CC you have on it?

    Francisco

    Yes, I am trying to pay with the paypal balance but I am not getting asked to pay with a credit card.
    Is there no way to send money manually to your paypal?

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    prowlersgg said: Yes, I am trying to pay with the paypal balance but I am not getting asked to pay with a credit card.

    Is there no way to send money manually to your paypal?

    That's odd. Is the account not verified?

    Francisco

  • @Francisco said:

    prowlersgg said: Yes, I am trying to pay with the paypal balance but I am not getting asked to pay with a credit card.

    Is there no way to send money manually to your paypal?

    That's odd. Is the account not verified?

    Francisco

    It's verified.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    prowlersgg said: It's verified.

    Odd.

    Take a picture of it and send it to billing. We can try to see if there's something on our end causing it.

    Francisco

  • @Francisco said:

    prowlersgg said: It's verified.

    Odd.

    Take a picture of it and send it to billing. We can try to see if there's something on our end causing it.

    Francisco

    Now it's worked lol, I just paid how much time is activated?

  • williewillie Member
    edited December 2018

    Snapshotting a slice to a storage slab would be an interesting Stallion feature if it isn't already there. Backing up (copying files from a live server) to a slab is easy, but the idea of a snapshot is you can take it while the slice is shut down.

    More generally it would be nice to have a "rescue system" style of boot image. That would launch a kernel with its rootfs in a ramdisk, and with the slice's rootfs mounted read-only. Snapshot would just be a script that launches the rescue system, mounts a slab, and copies the slice's disk image to a compressed file on the slab. I don't know if that's how the cloud (cough) hosts do it and maybe I missed something, but it sounds pretty natural.

    Edit: just saw Fran's 2:16PM post, which addresses some of this stuff. It must have gone up while I was writing my 2:31PM post.

  • HarambeHarambe Member, Host Rep

    I can speak on #3. The support Fran and the team provide is easily worth 20x what you pay. I feel like I don't spend enough money with him to get the level of support that I do, so am slowly increasing the Frantech bill every month or so as I move things away from other providers.

  • @prowlersgg said:

    @Francisco said:

    @prowlersgg said:
    i i'm trying to buy from BuyVM, but when I'm trying to pay with paypal I can not use the balance, and the card is being requested.

    Which card? I guess the CC you have on it?

    Francisco

    Yes, I am trying to pay with the paypal balance but I am not getting asked to pay with a credit card.
    Is there no way to send money manually to your paypal?

    When you try to pay with PayPal make sure you uncheck the check box at the right of PayPal button on buyvm payment selection. If you check this box when you forwarded to PayPal it will enable PayPal subscription and need credit card, when you uncheck it will go to PayPal and you can pay using PayPal balance.

    I just had this a few weeks ago when I buy new vps from buyvm.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    willie said: Snapshotting a slice to a storage slab would be an interesting Stallion feature if it isn't already there. Backing up (copying files from a live server) to a slab is easy, but the idea of a snapshot is you can take it while the slice is shut down.

    When we do snapshots I'd like them to be "live", though I could see that being an issue if people have files open.

    Francisco

  • williewillie Member
    edited December 2018

    Hmm I usually want to shut down a VM before snapshotting, to make sure everything is static. There is always stuff happening in any running system.

    Thanked by 2Francisco eol
  • juf said: Honestly, how does the customer service and stability compare to Vultr?

    I haven't used Vultr, but I've been using BuyVM since 2012 and I'd definitely recommend them. No issues with support, and the servers are great. Very fast and stable. I really have zero complaints about them.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • I'm not a longtime user (only been with BuyVM for around 2 months or so) but I've been VERY impressed with them. I actually just canceled one of my dedis to migrate over to my BuyVM server. Their control panel Stallion is freaking awesome, it's stable as hell, fast, and does everything you could want it to do (except for custom ISOs which would be great!). Their support is really good, my tickets have been answered and solved within 30 min or less. Their storage slabs are the fastest/best I have used and are wayyyy better then the storage that VULTR or OVH offers. Everything has just been amazing with them and I plan on moving more and more stuff over to them.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @sin said:
    I'm not a longtime user (only been with BuyVM for around 2 months or so) but I've been VERY impressed with them. I actually just canceled one of my dedis to migrate over to my BuyVM server. Their control panel Stallion is freaking awesome, it's stable as hell, fast, and does everything you could want it to do (except for custom ISOs which would be great!). Their support is really good, my tickets have been answered and solved within 30 min or less. Their storage slabs are the fastest/best I have used and are wayyyy better then the storage that VULTR or OVH offers. Everything has just been amazing with them and I plan on moving more and more stuff over to them.

    That's awesome.

    Thanks for the feedback on our Slabs product! I really appreciate all the feedback I can get so I know where we can improve it.

    Francisco

    Thanked by 1sin
  • I've been a customer of BuyVM since 2010. Overall I'm satisfied despite some glitches. Some glitches I mean like, recently I ordered a new service from my company network (Optimum business) and was marked as fraud. Had to order again from home (Optimum consumer) later. But for the services they provided, I really have no complains.

    Just activated their slab block storage and it works pretty neat. We use the block storage to host the forum attachments which is about 60GB. Fits perfect on a 256GB slab.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • Mr_TomMr_Tom Member, Host Rep

    Can't answer 1 and 2, but from a support point of view only had 1 minor dealing, and it was dealt with in a timely and professional manner - so all good from my point of view. Never had to deal with Vultr/DO support but don't run anything "different" and only use them to spin up the odd testing box.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • @Harambe said:
    I can speak on #3. The support Fran and the team provide is easily worth 20x what you pay. I feel like I don't spend enough money with him to get the level of support that I do, so am slowly increasing the Frantech bill every month or so as I move things away from other providers.

    You're gonna get a shill reputation.

  • HarambeHarambe Member, Host Rep

    @TimboJones said:

    @Harambe said:
    I can speak on #3. The support Fran and the team provide is easily worth 20x what you pay. I feel like I don't spend enough money with him to get the level of support that I do, so am slowly increasing the Frantech bill every month or so as I move things away from other providers.

    You're gonna get a shill reputation.

    You're free to think whatever you want :smile:

    Keep in mind we're in a thread about BuyVM and the OP asked for opinions on the service, and my opinion seems to echo that of at least a couple other folks in the same thread...

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • I have a couple of services with them including a slice and they have always been helpful and responsive to the the couple of tickets I raised. As soon as there are slabs in lux I will be moving most of my services over to them.

    Thanked by 1Francisco
  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @lurch said:
    I have a couple of services with them including a slice and they have always been helpful and responsive to the the couple of tickets I raised. As soon as there are slabs in lux I will be moving most of my services over to them.

    Trying to arrange something in the spring.

    I mentioned it elsewhere but there's a chance LU will get slabs before NY, just because we need to do buyshared upgrades in LU.

    Francisco

  • I'd have some slices if New York location had ipv6 that wasnt through a tunnel!

    @Francisco how about it :) ?

  • @Francisco said:

    @lurch said:
    I have a couple of services with them including a slice and they have always been helpful and responsive to the the couple of tickets I raised. As soon as there are slabs in lux I will be moving most of my services over to them.

    Trying to arrange something in the spring.

    I mentioned it elsewhere but there's a chance LU will get slabs before NY, just because we need to do buyshared upgrades in LU.

    Francisco

    when someone need to touch fran-node, then it will be you :smiley:

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