Why I stick to Futurehosting when it comes to VPS services ...

Futurehosting is a VPS (Virtual Private Server) That provides high quality, low cost VPS systems through any one of their 5 data center locations at present.

Support queries are usually answered within minutes and unscheduled outages are few and far between.

There are a few quirks with their DNS system for example when adding an MX record, you cant specify a host for which you want that MX record, it defaults to the domain zone you are in. Meaning if you wanted to add an MX record for a subdomain, you need to first create a corresponding zone then add the respective MX record.

I have also had trouble with their ipv6 AAAA records as the interface has it as an option, but doesnt accept any values for the records.

They presently do not have any ipv6 offerings either. Something that ARP Networks provides by default. They actually give you a /48 which you can chop up an use as you wish.

Another cool thing about ARP Networks is that they let you install your own OS. Simply provide the iso URL to them and they will insert it into your VPS, from there you can login over VNC and install the OS with your own customizations and options. 

VPS woes

I have been having issues with VPS provider DirectSpace. It started when I tried to ping a host on their network, but found that it was down. On creating a ticket with their support, they said they suffered a hardware failure with their power strip, but had not replaced it and experienced fragmentation on the drive which now needed a FSCK and would be back within a few hours.

The next day, the sites were still down and information from the support tickets said that a hard drive had failed. They mention that they have RAID 10 on their systems, so ideally a single drive failing should still leave them operational.

Upon further investigation, they reveal that the RAID is actually intact but the file system in fragmented. Also since this is an unmanaged service, there is no expectation of any kind of backup. They still assure me that they should be back in a couple of hours.

Approximately 3 days later they announce that their restore operations had failed and 3 out of 4 drives in their RAID had failed,  (I find this highly unlikely) resulting in total data loss and they had to re-provision my VPS accounts. In doing so they changed the root passwords without providing them to me. This was the last straw.

I terminated the accounts, requested SLA credits (Which they have refunded in full 100% of the monthly cost, which for 2 VPS was $20)

I now intend to move to ArpNetworks and am currently in the process of having the VPS provisioned.