wreckedcarzz
Geek with a bandwidth need
I was researching several services, as I needed more upstream bandwidth than my isp could offer me, and reached out to SH (via Ethan, the founder, as his contact information was easily accessible) with an admittedly long list of questions (can you do this, that, etc), possible pain points/incompatibilities (looking to migrate from my own server to one of SH; do you do file sync, are multiple server instances seperated or can they be managed as one...), technical inquiries (processor, network...). I expected to be shooed away, too difficult, too many goals and questions, not worth the effort. But this wasn't the case; after a back and forth for a couple of days, with most (not all, but I had a lot of things I was trying to do in this possible migration) things nailed down and understood, I signed up for one (1) of their premium trial services, and began the copy migration. Things went so well that two days later, I requested a move to a paid server, and a second paid server instance. While things weren't perfectly smooth, the issues I encountered were minimal and easily mitigated. I needed more storage space - already done for me, due to the discussion we initially had. I was trying to sync player data across the two server instances, which wasn't possible with the built-in system, but as I run my own server at home, configuring it to sync via sftp only took a few minutes, and the player data files I'm working with are microscopic, so I'm not putting undue stress on the network connection or storage. I needed a longer in-game server name and discription than usually allowed, done. I had additional questions about backups, how to handle them, do they count against the storage quota (no), all answered. I was worried about vendor lock-in - get migrated, all comfy, then realize that I can't easily migrate to another service. This is in no way unique to SH, I've just been burned before, and I try to keep all my data in my own hands (hence why I have my own server at home). But one should only need to perform a backup, save that backup archive (and verify that all your data is there!), then close your account once done. Could not be any better. I have no plans to search for competing services - it's really rare to find someone who is so active in the daily operations of their business, and they were able to geek out a bit with me on my questions, instead of referring me to useless faq pages (again, my questions were not very typical of what I would expect a user of this service to have - they absolutely did not have to go to the lengths they did just to get one new customer). That level of customer service, in my experience, is unusual and should be highlighted whenever it occurs. It's been a couple weeks now and my only catch-points refer to it being an external service - and not a service that I fully control, down to the bare metal. But that's a footnote, and absolutely an expected one (I'm not getting root access to their hardware at these prices, LOL). So would I say I'm satisfied? Beyond my expectations, yes. Would I say that I'd recommend it to others? For my friends, I can spin up a server instance for them on my server in 10 minutes, for free; but for those who don't have a geek on speed dial: absolutely.
Response from RackGeniusApr 21, 2023
wreckedcarzz, Thank you very much for sharing your experience with others (and in great detail!) It's been a pleasure working with you thus far, and of course, do not hesitate to ask any other questions. ;) Thank you again, -Ethan