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Opinions of Hetzner dedicated auction servers for serving US client websites
I've been looking for a cheap dedicated server to consolidate a batch of US clients I have and host their websites. I'm NOT a hosting provider, but I do consulting and some of my clients just ask me to host them to make their lives easier as well.
They don't need any control panels or complex config, just simple reliable WordPress or static sites. I don't enjoy the stress of hosting them, but it's part of the consulting service I provide sometimes, and these small clients are not hosting-savvy, only know how to post in WordPress (at best), and they are good people with no issues with content/abuse. So I just do it for them.
So currently, these particular sites are spread around some extra VPS instances I have in the US, and an ancient dedicated server that I want to shut down.
I ran across the Hetzner auction servers and thought they might work fine and be a good deal too, but I have no idea if the network performance and reliability from Germany (FSN1 datacenter) is good for US website visitors, which will make up the majority of my clients audiences.
Almost all these sites run on WordPress (on LAMP). Bandwidth and traffic are typically NOT high at all, and a basic dedicated server with 4+ cores+SSD+32GB RAM is more than capable of hosting them at their current combined usage levels, so Hetzner auction prices are really good for that. I figure I can easily consolidate a couple dozen sites on there at first and add more later if this plan works and eventually saves me time and money. Right now it's a big hassle.
Please let me know your experiences with Hetzner auction servers in Germany FSN1 and how that might fit my US clients. Thank you.
Comments
Most auction servers of them are fine but not the right choice to use for US visitors esp. in regard to latency. I would rather stick with some US VPS providers in your case.
Why not look into OVH? OVH is kind of the alternative to Hetzner alternative in the states and you can typically get good deals with the Kimsufi / SoYouStart line
I was worried about latency. Thanks for bringing that up. Is it that bad? These clients will honestly probably not notice. One of the servers I currently use is so old and slow, they might think I've upgraded them. But I will look into the FSN1 datacenter and I should probably test it first.
Re: Using US VPS providers, that's mainly what I'm doing now, and I'm just too spread out with too many instances that I have to maintain, and it's driving me crazy. My experience has not been too positive with some of them too, and I just have had better luck with dedicated servers in general. That's why I want to consolidate if possible. Trying to make my life easier rather than stick with my old model. Also saving some money won't hurt.
Thank you, I have not had good experiences with OVH in the past. Maybe I was just unlucky, or maybe they have changed since I was with them, but I have tried to avoid OVH for the last few years. I had both reliability and customer service issues, so I just decided to go elsewhere. Ironically, Hetzner is one of the providers I tried after OVH, and it has been pretty solid so far (their VPSes in VA at least). I've never rented one of their dedicated servers though, and never used their Germany VPSes.
And I'm not opposed to ultimately consolidating onto a dedicated server with a different provider here in the US too, but I'm just wondering about the Hetzner FSN1 auction servers for now.
So far I have found this to help: http://fsn.icmp.hetzner.com/
It's not terrible with my quick test. Might be okay though for the websites I'd put there. But definitely not great to the US. As always, this is a cost/performance decision. There's always a negative.
Surely I'll be a little biased
but overall I would definitely look for something in the US to serve US-based clients. Especially if its not on a CDN and if the whole "high latency = bad SERP" is true (don't know, just hear it repeated). There are some solid LET hosts that are centrally located (think Chicago, Texas, etc) that should have ~30-40ms latency at the high end coast to coast. I think you can probably find comparable pricing to Hetzner, too.
Bigger dedicated resource VPSes (nvme, higher frequency, etc) should fit the bill given that ask, but there are plenty of good centrally-located dedicated providers as well. @MrRadic and @Ernie immediately come to mind as two places I would start looking.
Thank you for your thoughts! Yes, Hetzner is not an ideal situation so I'm open to other options. I was mainly looking for feedback on Hetzner auction servers at FSN1 to the US. But from my quick test it does look like latency and bandwidth are not ideal. However, it's doable. BUT not ideal for sure. I will probably test it a little more though.
If I could find a comparable dedicated server in the US for a roughly comparable price, I'd be open to it though. I will check out @MrRadic and @Ernie and I also received a PM from another provider, so it seems like there is no shortage of alternatives.
BTW, if I stick with the US, I am also thinking of Dacentec, which has good customer support IMO, but their "cheaper" hardware is very old, and they only offer 10TB bandwidth and no DDoS. So to do somewhat comparable hardware+bandwidth+DDoS with them doubles/triples the total cost compared to Hetzner auction at FSN1. On the other hand, their network performance and latency would be far better for US customers...
That makes sense. I'm always interested to learn where we do/don't have good connectivity. Here is a screenshot of a quick test I just did on a not-yet-provisioned idle hypervisor. Downloading the 100MB test file from FSN1 and then also from a random looking glass in Seattle, WA (which is ~315 miles away). Not a scientific test, but at least a data point on what kind of bandwidth/speeds you might see to western-US based visitors.
I would vote for Dedipath, if a 250 GB SSD is big enough for your use case - see their new years offer thread here on LET. Do continuous backups at an external vps provider or the like. I also have good experiences with dedicated.com in the US and - in terms of reliability - TNAhosting is the best but they never have any stock in regards to dedicated servers.
Thank you for the mention. We for sure can help!
Thank you for the mention we can definitely assist. We also do have larger then 250GB SSDs available.
@Ernie I think the thread starter is quite sensitive regarding pricing if he is looking at hetzner auction servers, so I had been looking at your cheapest offers, those $39 and $49 machines with one 250GB ssd. Your ssd upgrades are a bit pricey though...
Personally I don't like dedicated servers with just one drive and would always go for two drives and raid 1 (for read speed and better reliability) that's why I'm also mentioning dedicated.com that have some servers with two ssds decently priced, e.g. the E-1270 with 16GB ram and two 256GB ssds at $45.
Absolutely. I think either of those would be a good fit for him.
Guys, just want to thank you all for helping out, including the PM. I didn't expect such quick and good feedback. I'm still basically new to this forum, so this is quite refreshing to see this community in action on my query. You all rock.
Any other thoughts are welcome of course, but I will look at all these options.
I'm in a very similar situation to you @jlet88 .... build and manage primarily WP sites for clients. And end up hosting a good many of them. Several times I have tested the idea of going with a dedicated box vs a bunch of VPSes. Always ended up finding the VPS route the more flexible and scalable option. I actually really enjoy hosting, so I haven't minded managing all that is connected to that in my situation. If you would like to discuss outsourcing your hosting, feel free to PM me, I'm happy to chat.
For such a usecase, i actually think netcup RS line is better. They also have US location. 1 click snapshots, rock stable and fast. Scale it up with a click if needed in future.
I've just done a quick test from my GreenCloud NYC and SJC servers to be Hetzner box. The SJC averages 150ms and NYC averages 100ms ping.
This level of latency will probably not really be noticeable IMHO for a single request, but if your page loads a bunch of different scripts, and then a bunch of images, and then does some REST queries, etc, you could easily end up with several round trips before anything gets displayed, leading to a poor experience, especially if it's not cache friendly and the slowness occurs on every page on the site they visit.
Thanks for the offer about outsourcing! Many of these clients are resistant to change, though, and while I don't enjoy the stress of hosting them, it's part of the deal I have with them. In most/all cases it's just the way it is, and I don't mind in the sense that they're good people and on top of that, they pay on time. So together that's about as good as you can get.
As for dedicated vs. VPS, it's something I've struggled with for many years. I have gone back and forth. There are advantages/disadvantages either way as you know, and each person will have their own unique needs and experiences, of course. I think the pendulum is swinging back to dedicated for me, personally. Can't describe the logic behind my direction lately, as it's also an emotional/gut kind of a decision process too -- feeling tired of my current approach and stress levels, and I find dedicated removes some of that stress and simplifies some things. We'll see how it goes! I might regret it.
Interesting, thank you, I'll look at them.
Indeed, the numbers are not great to the US. Confirms my testing too. BTW, I have decided to NOT use Hetzner FSN1 dedicated servers... the servers are a great deal, but the aggregate performance of multiple requests to a mainly US-audience from FSN1 is too laggy, so I decided to go a different direction.
BTW, this thread has sparked a deeper look into how I'm doing things, and thanks again to all who have helped inspire me to re-think what I'm doing (in this thread and many other threads in this forum). This forum has really been an incredible resource. Wish I had found it sooner.
In addition to the original hosting issues that prompted me to start this thread, I've expanded my search and started looking at how I'm hosting other projects too, and I'm looking at a variety of providers I've never heard of before. LET is great!
Just as a result of this thread, for example, so far I decided to try DediPath as part of my larger hosting needs. It's too early to know how it will go, but I'm optimistic and I have to say that @Ernie has shown such a high level of personal and professional communication, I'm really impressed. Not sure how some of you long-term customers and veteran LET members feel about DediPath, but frankly I think Ernie is exceptional. So that bodes well for DediPath in my book. Thank you to @OhJohn and @crunchbits for the recommendation.
And as I mentioned in a prior post, I've decided against the whole Hetzner dedicated idea due to the issues with latency to the US, based on my own testing and confirmed by @ralf (thank you!). However, I ran across Hetzner's Storage Box service, and that looks like it could be very useful. So Hetzner might still be part of the plan, just not their dedicated servers in Germany. If they had dedicated in their Virginia data center, they might still be on my list.
Anyway, thanks again, really appreciate the thoughts as I'm still working through my plan. I'm still looking at other services too as I try to build out something that will cover all my clients and projects really well, and reduce stress, and hopefully build long-term confidence with these various providers. So far so good. Cheers to you and hope you all have a great 2023!
happy ending. Yai!
@jlet88 Sorry won't quote your long typing 😁
At beginning I think you should offload the service to other people, at least the clients willing to pay. But at the end it seems you found some new energy to take it fresh instead of burden 😁
Nope, it's new path toward good things that will happen 😄