# Virtual6.net Ceases Operations for unforeseen reasons :)



## drmike (Jan 14, 2014)

Our buddy, "VPS Flipper" Ashley Hawkridge has done it again.  Now he is closing  Virtual6.net:



> We regret to inform you that due to unforseen legal circumstances, Virtual6 have ceased trading completely as of Tuesday the 14th of January.
> 
> Any payments made today (14th January 2014) will be refunded within the next 24 hours. Our hardware is paid for up until the 11th of February, we will leave everything online until the datacenter takes our servers down, no further payments will be required from you. Unfortunately our support system and public facing website will be disabled throughout this time. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused and wish you all the best moving forward.
> 
> Best Regards, Virtual6.net


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## cubixcloud (Jan 14, 2014)

Hmm. I wonder what happened. Legal reasons?


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## Virtovo (Jan 14, 2014)

Maybe he found a job:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1337104


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## Aldryic C'boas (Jan 14, 2014)

Guess he couldn't find a buyer before the bills piled in.


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## texteditor (Jan 14, 2014)

Virtovo said:


> Maybe he found a job:
> 
> http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1337104


goddamn is that even minimum wage in the UK he's asking for?


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## MartinD (Jan 14, 2014)

Called it.

..along with everyone else.


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## dano (Jan 14, 2014)

Amazing - only what, a couple of months, and already calling it quits on this brand? Let's hope that he will not be dropping his offers here or anywhere else for a very long time(till he grows up).


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## Eased (Jan 14, 2014)

Aldryic C said:


> Guess he couldn't find a buyer before the bills piled in.


Or there were too little clients for it to even be worth a sale.


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## MannDude (Jan 14, 2014)

_But I thought this brand was long term and permanent?_


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## rds100 (Jan 14, 2014)

Don't be sad. There will be a new one  Soon (tm ackowledged).


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## concerto49 (Jan 14, 2014)

I'm pretty sure it's the name/trademark - it sounds SO MUCH like quite a few other names of bigger brands.


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## kaniini (Jan 14, 2014)

cubixcloud said:


> Hmm. I wonder what happened. Legal reasons?


Yeah I agree here, "Legal reasons" seems kind of bogus for a company that is less than 2 months old.



concerto49 said:


> I'm pretty sure it's the name/trademark - it sounds SO MUCH like quite a few other names of bigger brands.


In this case, he would likely just rebrand the operation and be done with it.  I doubt, seriously, that other companies would waste their time on litigation if he simply did that.  It's just not worth it to them over a kiddiehost.


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## vRozenSch00n (Jan 14, 2014)

texteditor said:


> goddamn is that even minimum wage in the UK he's asking for?


Poor chap. Maybe he is desperate.


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## Amitz (Jan 14, 2014)

Cool! He has a new EXIT strategy!


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## MartinD (Jan 14, 2014)

vRozenSch00n said:


> Poor chap. Maybe he is desperate.


there are plenty of jobs that don't involve sitting on your ass in front of a PC all day.


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## Francisco (Jan 14, 2014)

MartinD said:


> there are plenty of jobs that don't involve sitting on your ass in front of a PC all day.


Alas a lot of people aren't willing to work manual labour.

I don't think there should be a "" on the post since I feel bad for the customers.

If anything his case just shows the problems that exist in the current LE market.

Francisco


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## JayCawb (Jan 14, 2014)

I sit on my ass on a pc all day for 10 hours and get paid £4/hour. *cough* shitty apprenticeship wage *cough*


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## DomainBop (Jan 14, 2014)

MartinD said:


> there are plenty of jobs that don't involve sitting on your ass in front of a PC all day.



I wouldn't say there are "plenty" of jobs available to Ash.  The UK unemployment rate for people in Ash's under 25 age group demographic is over 20%...about 3 1/2 times higher than the unemployment rate for those over 25. 



> Yeah I agree here, "Legal reasons" seems kind of bogus for a company that is less than 2 months old.


Ash is a sole trader so technically there was a Virtual6 "business" but there never was a Virtual6 "company"  The legal entity was Ash.  It's entirely possible, and likely, that the legal entity's (i.e. Ash H.) _"unforseen legal circumstances"_ are entirely unrelated to the Virtual6 business,


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## SPINIKR-RO (Jan 14, 2014)

I called this and then people bashed me on LET for it... Oh hes a nice guy, oh this oh that.. what is this like 6 or 7 times now?

People need to learn to stop enabling this behavior.


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## maounique (Jan 14, 2014)

Francisco said:


> If anything his case just shows the problems that exist in the current LE market.
> 
> 
> Francisco


Yes, I predicted them for an year or more, pump and dump schemes no longer work, even straight out scams have a hard time, this is due to a combination of factors.

2014 will be another hard year.


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## Francisco (Jan 14, 2014)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> Yes, I predicted them for an year or more, pump and dump schemes no longer work, even straight out scams have a hard time, this is due to a combination of factors.
> 
> 2014 will be another hard year.


I think this year is going to be made up of a lot of mergers or just straight deadpools.

The 'problem' I see stemming from that is certain companies buying out a controlling share of a host and staying in the shadows so the operation

looks to still be owned by the original owner.

Francisco


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## BBGN-Doug (Jan 14, 2014)

kaniini said:


> Yeah I agree here, "Legal reasons" seems kind of bogus for a company that is less than 2 months old.


Legal reasons could be he found another job and they made him sign a non-compete.  So technically it could be "legal" reasons, although I agree that's a stretch for why you're shutting down.


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## maounique (Jan 14, 2014)

Francisco said:


> The 'problem' I see stemming from that is certain companies buying out a controlling share of a host and staying in the shadows so the operation looks to still be owned by the original owner.
> 
> 
> Francisco


Nah, nobody will buy crap and these things usually dont go well, sooner or later the "partners" will have a quarrel and it will be public. If they can work things out, ok, but these will be rare occurences, the customers would be lucky.

The problem is not only for LE market, but it starts here to show because the cushions are much smaller and people dont sit on millions from VC. Even the mighty OVH with lots of investments had to cut the crazy expansion policy coming back to earth this move will be followed by others, this year will amaze people on how bad will be.


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## Francisco (Jan 14, 2014)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> Nah, nobody will buy crap and these things usually dont go well, sooner or later the "partners" will have a quarrel and it will be public. If they can work things out, ok, but these will be rare occurences, the customers would be lucky.
> 
> The problem is not only for LE market, but it starts here to show because the cushions are much smaller and people dont sit on millions from VC. Even the mighty OVH with lots of investments had to cut the crazy expansion policy coming back to earth this move will be followed by others, this year will amaze people on how bad will be.


No no, there is no partners in those deals.

Said 'partners' buy a controlling share (51% or the whole boat) and the past staff (usually owner included) stay on to man the ship.

I agree with the OVH comment. OVH realized that they were competing with only themselves in the end and it hurt.

Francisco


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## drmike (Jan 14, 2014)

Francisco said:


> I agree with the OVH comment. OVH realized that they were competing with only themselves in the end and it hurt.


Didn't OVH get a good chunk of government dole out cashola too?


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## maounique (Jan 14, 2014)

Francisco said:


> No no, there is no partners in those deals.
> 
> 
> Said 'partners' buy a controlling share (51% or the whole boat) and the past staff (usually owner included) stay on to man the ship.


Right, this is what i mean, the current staff will have no interest to continue or will have other grievances with the 'partners' and it will go south fast. UGVPS was just an example on the extreme side but many other smaller problems can make these things die.


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## maounique (Jan 14, 2014)

drmike said:


> Didn't OVH get a good chunk of government dole out cashola too?


Sorry about no-edit, etc.

If they did, it might be a time-bomb. In EU the press is not so gagged like in US, they are not afraid of picking on the government and if found out the aunt of Oles was friends with some minister, then it will blow out and the investigations will run around the clock. You can be sure they will find something at least looking suspicious.


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## Francisco (Jan 14, 2014)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> Sorry about no-edit, etc.
> 
> If they did, it might be a time-bomb. In EU the press is not so gagged like in US, they are not afraid of picking on the government and if found out the aunt of Oles was friends with some minister, then it will blow out and the investigations will run around the clock. You can be sure they will find something at least looking suspicious.


That's what I heard at least. They had some sort of large loan that was mostly backed by a few EU banks (like 100M of it was from the alone or something insane like that).

When they saw that they were harvesting their own customer base they had to quickly change gears or they're going to have a hard time meeting payments.

Francisco


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## Coastercraze (Jan 15, 2014)

That one went pretty quick... probably will see a lot more of the low end market merging / closing up later this year.


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## vRozenSch00n (Jan 15, 2014)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> Yes, I predicted them for an year or more, pump and dump schemes no longer work, even straight out scams have a hard time, this is due to a combination of factors.
> 
> 2014 will be another hard year.


Unless you have a strong customer base and maintain a good cooperation with fellow providers to maintain a stable market.


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## maounique (Jan 15, 2014)

When providers cooperate this smells like a cartel. It looks like CC kind of stuff I buy your brand, you work for me, we pass customers from one site to another but in the backend we use the same old servers.

I hope you do not mean that. I am all for healthy competition, without threats and blackmails, though, we can still be friends and stab each other with the price-cutting knives and crush our heads by the bluntness of quality.


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## MannDude (Jan 15, 2014)

Ash said:


> In the empire business.



What I don't like was Ash's arrogance, coming on here saying he was in the 'empire business'... Now he is on WHT looking for a job that pays minimum  wage.

That doesn't sound like an 'Empire Business'... sounds like his past companies that he sold didn't yield much money, or he spent it all unwisely, and that this new company didn't make much, and bills are due...

His name in the industry is tarnished. He'll be back with an alias / fake name. That's how this game is played.


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## vRozenSch00n (Jan 15, 2014)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> When providers cooperate this smells like a cartel. It looks like CC kind of stuff I buy your brand, you work for me, we pass customers from one site to another but in the backend we use the same old servers.
> 
> I hope you do not mean that. I am all for healthy competition, without threats and blackmails, though, we can still be friends and stab each other with the price-cutting knives and crush our heads by the bluntness of quality.


Not that kind of cooperation or cartel. At least there is a cooperation among providers to stabilize low end price.

I learn that from how China be able to penetrate international market including many mainland Chinese kids are trying to buy half dead hosting companies and established their business from the US through surrogates.  

Look at this picture. $0.5 profit in the US is a measly number but when you convert it to third world currency....


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## maounique (Jan 15, 2014)

vRozenSch00n said:


> Not that kind of cooperation or cartel. At least there is a cooperation among providers to stabilize low end price.
> 
> I learn that from how China be able to penetrate international market including many mainland Chinese kids are trying to buy half dead hosting companies and established their business from the US through surrogates.
> 
> Look at this picture. $0.5 profit in the US is a measly number but when you convert it to third world currency....


"Stabilizing" any price is still a cartel business. If the price is too low you get out of the market and it stabilizes itself.

As for the people trying to revive dead companies that is a lot of work, good luck to them.

While chinese currency is artificially devalued, this does not mean 0.5$ can sustain anyone, you need at least 200 $ to survive from what i know. Besides, when the DC will slap a 250$ fee for spamming, you need 500 VPSes in that month's profit to pay it. IIf the profits so low are important for the investor, then the investment required is impossible to meet and risk.


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## DomainBop (Jan 31, 2015)

if Ash hadn't necroed the dead I wouldn't be necroing a year old thread. 

Virtual6 is back... http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1450384


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## drmike (Jan 31, 2015)

DomainBop said:


> if Ash hadn't necroed the dead I wouldn't be necroing a year old thread.
> 
> Virtual6 is back... http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1450384


How many times is Ash going to reappear with a VPS company.....?


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## drmike (Jan 31, 2015)

Mao_Member_no_signature said:


> Yes, I predicted them for an year or more, pump and dump schemes no longer work, even straight out scams have a hard time, this is due to a combination of factors.
> 
> 2014 will be another hard year.


   How nearly spot on... A year later and Ash's prior company reappears in Zombie mode...

But Mao is right, the pump and dumps are out of track area.   Even if you pump a company up with customers on the VPS side, it's hard selling that business.  Margins usually are blah, customers have no loyalty or stick, unless you stuck them on those annuals or multiple year plans (which means no income for a company purchaser) and buyouts lead to big chunk of customers leaving.

People doing deals in that lowend swamp are like a dime per container, maybe a bit more if you aren't entirely shit.

At this point, if you aren't in this to run a company long term, quit taking a dump in the public pool.


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## RTGHM (Jan 31, 2015)

drmike said:


> How many times is Ash going to reappear with a VPS company.....?


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## wlanboy (Feb 1, 2015)

I should review his service - but I am posting my first results after 2 months ... so this might be a big waste of my time.


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## drmike (Feb 1, 2015)

whois vpsflipper.com

No match for "VPSFLIPPER.COM".


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## texteditor (Feb 1, 2015)

Isn't he a father? He should try and look for a stable, real job instead of continuing to try this flipping thing if only because it isn't a reliable, responsible income source


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## Virtual6 (Feb 2, 2015)

Hi VPSBoard!

As a representative of Virtual6 I feel it's only right I step in and clear this up straight away. Although Ashley's name is "above the door" he will be taking a back seat with the day to day running of Virtual6, that's what he has employed me for, he essentially provides the funding only at present.

I intend to improve the brand name as best I can and hopefully I will be able to recuperate some of the past client relationships, from many of Ashley's other VPS brands, though understandably this will not be possible in all cases.

As texteditor mentioned, Ashley does indeed have a family to take off, he also works some 50+ hour weeks as an Electrical Engineer with his past employer (Pre VMPort.com), obviously this leaves essentially no free time for him to participate in much at all.

Please forward any concerns to our support desk and I will attempt to talk them through as best I can. I'm not looking for an argument here, people are justifiably angry and rightfully so, I'm just trying to do my job.
 

Many Regards,
Jamie Stevens.
Virtual6 Management.


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## RTGHM (Feb 2, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi VPSBoard!
> 
> 
> As a representative of Virtual6 I feel it's only right I step in and clear this up straight away. Although Ashley's name is "above the door" he will be taking a back seat with the day to day running of Virtual6, that's what he has employed me for, he essentially provides the funding only at present.
> ...


Okay Ashley. Sounds good, but why use the name Jamie now? Seems too, well, stupid.

Shall I press the button?


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## DomainBop (Feb 2, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi VPSBoard!
> 
> 
> As a representative of Virtual6 I feel it's only right I step in and clear this up straight away. Although Ashley's name is "above the door" he will be taking a back seat with the day to day running of Virtual6, that's what he has employed me for, he essentially provides the funding only at present.
> ...



Are you the same Jamie Stevens who worked support for VMPort?

Also:



> All of our host nodes utilize dual hard drives in a RAID configuration for additional data redundancy.


RAID 1?


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## Virtual6 (Feb 2, 2015)

DomainBop said:


> Are you the same Jamie Stevens who worked support for VMPort?
> 
> Also:
> 
> RAID 1?


Hi Domainbop!


Yes I am the same Jamie that worked for VMPort. Hopefully there may still be people around that remember me, I was with VMPort from the start.

And yes, we utilize RAID-1. There's no need for anything larger, we host a maximum of 16x 1GB VPS per node and from our extensive testing, this set up works well, allows us to lower costs and have our customers spread across more physical machines.

Everything is dedicated, including CPU. We don't operate a fair share policy etc.


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## drmike (Feb 2, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi Domainbop!
> 
> 
> Yes I am the same Jamie that worked for VMPort. Hopefully there may still be people around that remember me, I was with VMPort from the start.
> ...


Why the ZOMBIE mode for Virtual6?  I was thinking someone accidentally posted WHT offer somehow...

"*Enterprise VPS*

Offering 100% dedicated resources including CPU power, these packages are intended for serious hosting that's mission critical or resource hungry. Satisfaction guaranteed and online within one business day."

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]Enterprise + serious + mission critical = RAID1 ????[/SIZE]


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## Virtual6 (Feb 3, 2015)

drmike said:


> Why the ZOMBIE mode for Virtual6?  I was thinking someone accidentally posted WHT offer somehow...
> 
> "*Enterprise VPS*
> 
> ...


Hi drmike!


Yes, for the reasons I listed above. RAID1 with 16 customers IMHO is more stable than RAID10 with 64+ customers (As with most providers using E3xxxx servers), though I guess its an administrators preference. 

If you have any other questions please ask away, honesty is definitely one of my top priorities for this brand. Nothing about our service is hidden, we want the customer to know what they're buying, I refuse to hide things behind a TOS.


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## blergh (Feb 3, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi drmike!
> 
> 
> Yes, for the reasons I listed above. RAID1 with 16 customers IMHO is more stable than RAID10 with 64+ customers (As with most providers using E3xxxx servers), though I guess its an administrators preference.
> ...


No. RAID1 is still RAID1, you´ll be in deep shit with "mission critical" customers when (not if) it happens. I hope you have backups.


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## Virtual6 (Feb 3, 2015)

blergh said:


> No. RAID1 is still RAID1, you´ll be in deep shit with "mission critical" customers when (not if) it happens. I hope you have backups.


Hi blergh!

Like I said, it's down to personal opinion, RAID1 still gives us a level of redundancy and good enough performance per VPS, it's better than a single disk. Yes, backups are taken daily and stored off-site, though customers should of course have backups off their own.


You're right though, maybe the wording should be changed, as I would consider mission critical hosting something with HA myself, which is not what we're offering here.


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## drmike (Feb 3, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi drmike!
> 
> 
> Yes, for the reasons I listed above. RAID1 with 16 customers IMHO is more stable than RAID10 with 64+ customers (As with most providers using E3xxxx servers), though I guess its an administrators preference.
> ...


RAID1 is running Rambo style.  I do it or worse on my own personal stuff, but on production, never.  Never do I say Enterprise or similar cash justification terms with such a disk choice in the mix.

As far as container loading,  depends on virtualization and actual use as to what is sane to pack on your servers.  E3's lack core count for big workloads.   Reason people use them???? Newer CPU acceptance in their minds... Unsure really.   People would do better on other CPUs, even if older CPUs --- especially lean startups.

Aside from those gripes, congrats on sticking in here, replying, etc.


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## Virtual6 (Feb 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> RAID1 is running Rambo style.  I do it or worse on my own personal stuff, but on production, never.  Never do I say Enterprise or similar cash justification terms with such a disk choice in the mix.
> 
> As far as container loading,  depends on virtualization and actual use as to what is sane to pack on your servers.  E3's lack core count for big workloads.   Reason people use them???? Newer CPU acceptance in their minds... Unsure really.   People would do better on other CPUs, even if older CPUs --- especially lean startups.
> 
> Aside from those gripes, congrats on sticking in here, replying, etc.


Hi drmike!


I completely agree with pretty much everything you have just said.. One of the focuses of our business plan was to offer dedicated CPU, with a policy that's straight forward and easy to understand for everyone.

To offer a good enough percentage on even our lowest plans, using older quad core CPU's was the obvious option, since E3's just don't offer the power we need. It's decisions like this and the fact that RAID1 and backups was cheaper than 4x disks + with RAID10 that have made it possible for us to offer such a competitive yet sensible price.


And don't congratulate me just yet, I have a lot of work to do


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## devonblzx (Feb 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> RAID1 is running Rambo style.  I do it or worse on my own personal stuff, but on production, never.  Never do I say Enterprise or similar cash justification terms with such a disk choice in the mix.


To be honest, there isn't a big difference between RAID1 and RAID10 in terms of redundancy.  RAID10 is just two RAID1s striped.  Losing two drives in the same mirror will destroy your data in both instances (assuming you are using 2 drive mirrors).

RAID6 and RAID7 are the safest because  they are the only ones that are guaranteed to survive 2 drive failures but they normally lack in performance, especially write IOPS.  RAID7 is rare and I've only seen it in place in ZFS systems (RAIDZ3).  RAIDZ3/RAID7 can survive 3 disk failures.


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## drmike (Feb 4, 2015)

devonblzx said:


> To be honest, there isn't a big difference between RAID1 and RAID10 in terms of redundancy.  RAID10 is just two RAID1s striped.  Losing two drives in the same mirror will destroy your data in both instances (assuming you are using 2 drive mirrors).
> 
> RAID6 and RAID7 are the safest because  they are the only ones that are guaranteed to survive 2 drive failures but they normally lack in performance, especially write IOPS.  RAID7 is rare and I've only seen it in place in ZFS systems (RAIDZ3).  RAIDZ3/RAID7 can survive 3 disk failures.



Correct me here if I am wrong, but even with RAID-10 on the atypical 4 drive setup, folks are running fairly stupid.  Why?  Only 2 sets of stripes.  One fails other drives get punched by activity and increases potential for failure.   If the other stripe breaks, you are done. 

RAID-10 would seem to be sane say on 6 drives / 3 stripe setups and larger.


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## zzrok (Feb 4, 2015)

I think your understanding of RAID10 is partially incorrect.  It is one stripe on top of two sets of mirrored drives.  See the diagram on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nested_RAID_levels#RAID_10_.28RAID_1.2B0.29.

The I/O on each device in the mirrored sets isn't hugely different when one of them is failed.


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## devonblzx (Feb 4, 2015)

drmike said:


> Correct me here if I am wrong, but even with RAID-10 on the atypical 4 drive setup, folks are running fairly stupid.  Why?  Only 2 sets of stripes.  One fails other drives get punched by activity and increases potential for failure.   If the other stripe breaks, you are done.
> 
> RAID-10 would seem to be sane say on 6 drives / 3 stripe setups and larger.


I actually just posted this as a guide: 

The number of stripes doesn't make much of a difference in this case.  Only the number of drives in each mirror.  Therefore a 6-drive RAID10 would be much more reliable ONLY if they ran each RAID1 with 3 disks, but that is unusual since it would mean they would only have 2/6 disks worth of actual storage available.


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## AnthonySmith (Feb 5, 2015)

Jamie, you are Ash's cousin right?

Regarding the whole raid thing, if 1 drive brakes you replace it asap anyway and assume the array will die imminently if not, the various levels after that are just about performance or reduced recovery effort, i.e. raid 6 vs raid 10, 6 is easier to recover if you die 10 is a bit more complex but performs faster etc etc.

Raid 1 unless SSD cached is just f'ing ridiculous in 2015 for a VPS node though.


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## Virtual6 (Feb 5, 2015)

AnthonySmith said:


> Jamie, you are Ash's cousin right?
> 
> Regarding the whole raid thing, if 1 drive brakes you replace it asap anyway and assume the array will die imminently if not, the various levels after that are just about performance or reduced recovery effort, i.e. raid 6 vs raid 10, 6 is easier to recover if you die 10 is a bit more complex but performs faster etc etc.
> 
> Raid 1 unless SSD cached is just f'ing ridiculous in 2015 for a VPS node though.


Hi AnthonySmith!


I'm not. I think you're probably talking about Karl


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## Virtual6 (Feb 5, 2015)

Virtual6 said:


> Hi drmike!
> 
> 
> I completely agree with pretty much everything you have just said.. One of the focuses of our business plan was to offer dedicated CPU, with a policy that's straight forward and easy to understand for everyone.
> ...


I meant dual quad core CPU's of course


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## DomainBop (Mar 23, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> if Ash hadn't necroed the dead I wouldn't be necroing a year old thread.
> 
> 
> Virtual6 is back... http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1450384



This necroing of this thread sh*t is getting to be an annual event //rolls eyes


Ash on LET today:



> Hello.
> 
> 
> As per our emails, OVH has suspended our account (Ongoing for the last two weeks) but since we cannot login to pay our invoices, our servers have now been suspended. OVH literally couldn't care less as to be expected.
> ...


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## graeme (Mar 23, 2016)

This thread is fascinating and deserved resurrecting. A VPS provider who things RAID 1 offers "a level of redundancy". I suppose it does, if you can have a negative level of redundancy. A sysadmin offering to work for £6/hour? It was two years ago, but that is not all that long ago. I live in a low cost country and could not survive on that (not without working very long hours, anyway).


People on OVH seem to accept the "it was all OVH's fault" story. I know OVH does not have great customer service, but is it that bad?


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## drmike (Mar 23, 2016)

More failed business ventures due to [lack of caring] [lack of funding] [lack of contingency planning] [lack of business].


I refuse to deal with companies like this and I refuse to deal with a company like OVH.  OVH wants your identity documents which is overbearing.  Yet, when something breaks as alleged with chargeback and some unknown 3rd party, the customer is left in no support, no access zone.   Quite shit if factual.  


Normally this sort of clown college stuff doesn't happen.  But, this at minimum is what happens when you deal with a company that is all about the non human log into get support approach.  If I can't pick up a phone if needed and get some action, I am certainly not spending real money with such a company.


Virtual6 should have backups.  All companies intending on remaining in business should have backups.  If they did, they could take a day or week hit and spin customers up elsewhere.


Those poor customers with no source control, no backups, etc.  Their million dollar investments and $10 billion ideas just went up in smoke.


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## graeme (Mar 23, 2016)

Typo: that last para should be


People on LET seem to accept the "it was all OVH's fault" story. I know OVH does not have great customer service, but is it that bad?


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## DomainBop (Mar 23, 2016)

drmike said:


> Virtual6 should have backups.  All companies intending on remaining in business should have backups.  If they did, they could take a day or week hit and spin customers up elsewhere.



Ash addressed this on LET: he has backups but he can't afford to offer these plans with the same specs anywhere else so he's discontinuing the Virtual6 budget line and refunding customers.



> More failed business ventures due to...



On LET he insisted none of his brands ever deadpooled but that depends on your definition of deadpool I guess.  Virtual6 _"ceased trading completely"_ (Ash's own words) in January 2014 only to be resurrected in January 2015, and now customers are once again left stranded after V6 discontinues its OVH-based budget line...that's two deadpools from one brand IMO.



> But, this at minimum is what happens when you deal with a company that is all about the non human log into get support approach.  If I can't pick up a phone if needed and get some action, I am certainly not spending real money with such a company.



OVH does offer phone support.  Their ticket support is fairly useless with day long waits in between responses but the phone support is halfway decent.  For things like hardware problems you'll probably never need to open a ticket because their automated monitoring system dispatches a technician as soon as it detects a problem (1 hour guaranteed response time on hardware incidents plus a 2 hour guaranteed hardware replacement time)


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## HN-Matt (Mar 23, 2016)

@graeme pretty terrible in my experience. Unrelated to this necro, but I had a similar experience to what @drmike is saying. My final support request with OVH went unanswered for ~10 days. Service was unusable the entire time. When they finally answered, they offered a free month as compensation, but it was too late, the charge back kicked in a couple days later.

Why 10 days?



> I'm terribly sorry for the unacceptable wait time on your tickets. It seems there was a configuration problem on our end which prevented your tickets from being seen on our end.



Yeah, whatever that means.

Guess your mileage may vary, but no luck with them on my part.


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## OSTKCabal (Mar 23, 2016)

OVH's ticket support is absolutely useless. I've legitimately seen wait times of up to 1 month - 30 days! - about financial issues. The phone support, on the other hand, is generally significantly better - but often won't handle financials; they'll throw you back over to tickets, things will look good for a day or two, and then you're dead in the water again. I've had multiple acquaintances and friends report similar happenings (with varying wait times of between 10 days and 30 days)


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## drmike (Mar 23, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> Ash addressed this on LET: he has backups but he can't afford to offer these plans with the same specs anywhere else so he's discontinuing the Virtual6 budget line and refunding customers.



If one can only have biz model with a single vendor in the entire universe, then that biz model is not viable.  Genius how that works.  Like watching natural selection in the form of a business.



DomainBop said:


> that's two deadpools from one brand IMO.



Yeah it is, you are a good bean counter 



HN-Matt said:


> My final support request with OVH went unanswered for ~10 days. Service was unusable the entire time. When they finally answered, they offered a free month as compensation, but it was too late, the charge back kicked in a couple days later.



I recall this.  Quite horrible.   Seen too many OVH horror stories to ever risk going with them.



OSTKCabal said:


> OVH's ticket support is absolutely useless. I've legitimately seen wait times of up to 1 month - 30 days! - about financial issues.... I've had multiple acquaintances and friends report similar happenings (with varying wait times of between 10 days and 30 days)



Those wait times are insanity.  I know of no one, consumer or business that would tolerate such.


Question to OVH buyers --- were you on a certain line of their products - like perhaps is support less crappy on certain pricier product lines?


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## DomainBop (Mar 23, 2016)

drmike said:


> Question to OVH buyers --- were you on a certain line of their products - like perhaps is support less crappy on certain pricier product lines?



I use OVH for production but I'm not about to take a risk with their regular support so I subscribe to their VIP support option €49 monthly (payable only annually, so lump sum of €588 every year, cost covers all servers and products in account).  Guaranteed 15 minute response time, priority handling, dedicated advisor, etc. The extra €49 a month isn't that bad when you consider the overall savings compared to going with a higher priced competitor who offers better free support.


If you're using OVH (or Online.net or fill in extreme budget dedi blank) and running a business that puts food on the table for your family and your employees' families then opting for one of their support packages is very advisable and a good investment, and even with the added cost you'll still save money over going with the competition (_of course you need to be able to manage your servers yourself because even with a premium support package you're still using an unmanaged service_).  


If you don't opt for a premium support package at most of the extreme budget dedicated providers...you risk becoming the next Ash which is why I've always avoided OVH based low end providers because there is a strong possibility of something going very wrong and you know with most of these providers' low margins that extra €49 month for better support would break the bank so they're forced to use regular free support.  OVH pricing looks attractive to many of these "startups" but OVH has been the graveyard of a disproportionate amount of providers over the years. 


_*edited to add:*_ premium support isn't available on their SoYouStart and Kimsufi lines so never use these lines for production (and I do see many low end providers using them for production.)  Plus, while the OVH line has 24/7 telephone support (for technical issues), SYS telephone support hours are only Mon-Fri 9AM-6PM.  Kimsufi doesn't offer telephone support and email support is only replied to during office hours Mon-Fri.  Most SYS and Kimsufi hardware issues are dealt with automatically by their automated monitoring but if you need anything else and its outside of business hours be prepared to wait a long time.


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## drmike (Mar 23, 2016)

DomainBop said:


> I use OVH for production but I'm not about to take a risk with their regular support so I subscribe to their VIP support option €49 monthly (payable only annually, so lump sum of €588 every year, cost covers all servers and products in account).  Guaranteed 15 minute response time, priority handling, dedicated advisor, etc. The extra €49 a month isn't that bad when you consider the overall savings compared to going with a higher priced competitor who offers better free support.



There is what I was looking for   Paid support.


€588 year isn't too bad since it's a bulk all services coverage.  I can see small shops not affording it or refusing to prioritize this.  No way anyone should be on OVH offering services without this yearly buy-in.


This amount isn't much, not compared to what they sell you servers at their price points vs. what such costs elsewhere.


People using the Kimsufi and SoYouStart as their provider should be drawn and quartered.  Severely risky lines of products and neither is intended for hosts in traditional sense.


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