Hetzner

DMag · 21st February 2008

Has anyone had experience with hetzner.de? Their prices are amazingly competitive and I can't find anything bad said about them really. However they are a German company and despite having sections of their website with an English option, it makes me quite nervous about getting support...

Power, bandwidth and server costs must all be a lot less in Germany for them to charge so little?!

othellotech · 22nd February 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMag

Their prices are amazingly competitive

For what ?
Their domains are expensive, their SSL certs are the standard Thawt pricing and the dedicated servers are all ancient kit - what is *apparantly* competitive about them ?

DMag · 22nd February 2008

Well, going on spec alone for one of their servers:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Dual Core
4 GB DDR2 RAM
2 x 400 GB SATA II
1000/gb a month then limited to 10mbit

£44pcm + £75 setup

Then picking a similar spec from a UK host....

P4D Dualcore 2.8ghz
4Gb Ram
2x 250gb drives (Don't offer 400gb on the configuration tool)
1000/gb month

£198pcm + £315 setup

So an arguably less well spec'd UK server is four times more expensive, imho that means their prices are competitive.

midnightsoftwar · 22nd February 2008

Where did you get the price for the UK Host? Thats a lot more than most people on here would charge - assuming that it is unmanaged.

DMag · 22nd February 2008

I'd prefer not to say which host as I don't want to appear to be bashing them. I just did another online quote with a UK host who is regarded at being at the cutting edge in terms of low prices and by the time I add the drives and memory, it comes to £157, although setup is much less this time.

As it turns out, I can't use Hetzner anyway, as they don't offer a network feature I need, plus I would always have felt a bit nervous about them being German, language wise.

I suppose they do their cheap prices by scale and they won't be paying such high prices for everything as we do here.

Larry David · 22nd February 2008

That price is not usual. I guess you arrived at that price from upgrading the Ram x 4 and the disk x 2.

This is a big bone of contention for me: webhosters seem to think that site operators don't know hardware costs and thus charge extortionate 'monthly' costs for upgrades.

Find a webhoster with a straight upfront fee for upgrades or one who doesn't charge such high rates of upgrade.

Similar spec you gave above could be had for under £100 if you shop around or less with a bit more on the setup cost.

DMag · 22nd February 2008

Quote:

webhosters seem to think that site operators don't know hardware costs and thus charge extortionate 'monthly' costs for upgrades.

Yes I agree and that has put me off a lot of hosts. Although I suppose it adds a nice wedge to their profit margin, especially if a customer is with them for a long time.

othellotech · 22nd February 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry David

This is a big bone of contention for me: webhosters seem to think that site operators don't know hardware costs and thus charge extortionate 'monthly' costs for upgrades

Most dedicated server suppliers look to recoup the cost of their outlay on the hardware over a set period, say 12 months. So they take the cost of the hardware, keeping spares, warranty/maintenance contracts etc.

Just because you can get some bashed up consumer grade disk from scamsh!te.org for £20 doesnt make the *cost* of sourcing a harddrive, installing it, testing it, warrantying it, keeping a spare onsite etc the same :P

Also worth remembering that the "entry-level" systems are regularly sold at a loss to entice people in by the headline price, but only a business preparing for suicide would sell *everything* at a loss ...

Similarly, just because p!ss-poor-no-support-cheapo supplier charges £30 and you-actually-get-what-you-pay-for supplier charges £300 doenst actually when you look at what you're getting and compare like-for-like necessarily mean that the £300 is less competitive

Larry David · 22nd February 2008

Ok, I got the bait

Let me give an example with reference to the ovh thread.

Ovh 2008 range include:

EG 2008
Intel Core2Duo E6750
2008 RAM 2 GB DDR 2
Hard disk 2x 250 GB
Type of disk SATA2 RAID HARD 1
Bandwidth 1 Gbps
Traffic limit unlimited
Fixed IP 1 address
IP Fail-over +4 addresses

MG 2008
Intel Core2Quad Q6600
2008 RAM 2 GB DDR 2
Hard disk 2x 250 GB
Type of disk SATA2 RAID HARD 1
Bandwidth 1 Gbps
Traffic limit unlimited
Fixed IP 1 address
IP Fail-over +4 addresses

These servers are identical apart from the CPU. The prices are different too..

£79.99 for the EG and £109.99 for the MG

Over the course of a year this equates to a difference of £360 so is this cost justified?

No because there is very little difference int the price of the CPUs.

Joe Punter can purchase an E6750 for £125 or the Q6600 for £170 (both retail - cheaper for OEM versions)

That is a clear example of a webhoster taking the pi$$. Over the course of one year OVH are charging the customer £360 more for a part which cost them under £50 more. If the customer keeps this server for two years he's paid around £620 more than he should have.

It's the same with RAM upgrades. Ram is now dirt cheap and yet some of the ram upgrades effectively mean that a webhost is making a return from month 3 onwards.

It's the same with disks. Upgrade a disk from 160Gb to 250Gb and the customer is expected to pay £5,£7,£10 a month extra for a part which only costs £9 more outright!

There have been a lot of excuses of this practice such as 'higher energy costs', 'support etc'.

The power difference in a 250Gb to a 160gb is small if at all. The support theory doesn't wash either as this is not an extra part to support as there is still only one disk.

There is no doubt about it. Some hosters are blatantly profiteering from upgrades. If they want to do that - fine.

There are some much better value hosters out there who don't do that. Some give good deals so why can't the others?

Larry David · 22nd February 2008

To be fair to some webhosters they are probably not realising that they can shop around too.

Take the Dell R200 (and this is also in relation to a similar thread here re: upgrades / warranty)

If a webhoster is purchasing an R200 direct from Dell he has the option of upgrading the base unit from 1Gb.

Dell are currently offering an upgrade to 2Gb for £50

So the hoster could pay Dell £50 to upgrade to 2Gb at point of purchase. Or he could go to Crucial, order identical spec ram for £22.31 - half price!

Now take a look at upgrading that R200 to 2GB of DDR2-800 ram...

Dell are offering that upgrade for £140.
Crucial can do it for £49....

JamieBeeston · 22nd February 2008

Larry,

You seem to think we're all charities?

We have staff, offices, insurance, power, accountants, marketing, spares, phones, vehicles, training courses and on and on and ariston.. to pay for..

If we don't make a profit selling on our core business.. where the hell ARE we supposed to make a profit? in tips?

J

Larry David · 22nd February 2008

As I said...

Some hosters offer either straight one off costs for upgrades or respectable monthlies (and offer good service / support too)

If some can do it why can't others?

JamieBeeston · 22nd February 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry David

As I said...

Some hosters offer either straight one off costs for upgrades or respectable monthlies (and offer good service / support too)

If some can do it why can't others?

So that means they either have to earn significantly less ever.. or charge more for the hosting in the first place..

As Rob said above, just because someone offers it, doesn't make it viable or sustainable..

I think my clients would prefer I stay here for another 9 years.. not just die and phoenix like the majority of the industry seems to be doing on a monthly basis.

As for Crucial RAM... do a search on the Dell Warranty topic we had recently..

It's so easy to look in from the outside and demand XYZ and wax the lyrical on how evil and mean we are to charge such devilish amounts..

The customer has the ultimate vote with their feet.. and I'll tell you what, I've never had it better... every month is better than the last, with sustained ~ 100% growth year on year for the last 4 years... so If I'm doing it wrong... I think I'll carry on doing as such.

Ta

Larry David · 22nd February 2008

Have you ever wondered if you could achieve 150% growth if you offered a better deal on upgrades?

JamieBeeston · 22nd February 2008

Sure,

I've also wondered if I'd achieve staff layoffs too.

Id say 99% of all servers we rent are not on basic spec..

with the vast majority being triple or quadruple basic cost..

We also have a 94% renewal rate.. This tells me that people want upgrades, and are happy enough with the prices and style and enjoy the service immensely (so they tell us)

Anyway.. I just couldn't sit by and watch as you vilified me/us/the sector.