I recently migrated the small business I worked for off of Linode to DreamHost. We discovered we really didn't need the features of a VPS, so we could no longer justify the extra cost.

My two complaints about Linode come down to performance and storage.

In the era of 500 GB SATA drives it seems odd that Linode only provides 3-12 GB of storage. I understand that Linode probably uses high performance SCSI drives which cost a lot more, but I still don't feel as though Linode's storage offerings compete.

My performance complaints basically boil down to those dreaded IO tokens. There's only so much time I want to waste fiddling with MySQL, Apache, and Postfix settings trying to get my memory and IO usage as low as possible. Ironically, the virtually unlimited CPU resources seemed to only make the poor IO performance more obvious.

For example I would enable SSL everywhere possible in an attempt to improve security while rate limiting IO by putting strain on the CPU. The CPU could handle the strongest encryptions with no problem, so my IO was still the bottleneck.

I know upgrading from our Linode 200 probably would have helped IO significantly, but I just couldn't justify the cost when there are dedicated servers for as little as $60/mo. out there.

Now for the positive aspects of Linode!

Linode's service and support have been excellent. Our host has never had an unexpected outage and our Linode currently has an uptime of 428 days!

The control panel is wonderful, as is LISH (especially when my io_tokens run dry).

The list of supported distros is reason enough to choose Linode over many VPS competitors.

In the past the forums have been very helpful as well, although they seem very quiet as of late.

The support was definitely the main reason we stayed with Linode for so long. They helped me configure an extra IP (even though thats really my problem), and they would even un-limit my io_tokens a bit when my server was under such heavy load I couldn't even login to kill services!

Bottom line:

If you're looking for community, service, and support -- choose Linode.

If you're looking for cheap and easy performance, try to find a good shared hosting service. DreamHost seems good so far, but I've already had more downtime with them, than in my couple of years at Linode!

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!

I left linode in the spring for dreamhost, and came back this fall after dreamhost couldn't figure out how to run their core network. Dreamhost seems to be better now, but:

The lack of reasonably priced disk space on linode sucks bad.

I put up with it, hosting some stuff over port 443 on my cable modem, but it's a huge pain. Linode's disk size is smaller than any of their competition, and the cost for additional space is much higher than their competition. I'm on a linode 200, and thanks to them increasing ram over the past few years I haven't had a huge problem with IO tokens, but for what I'm paying you'd think I'd have more disk space.

I've complained, you've complained, yet linodes prices and disk sizes remain static. Nobody else offers the virtual machine management features linode does so I'll probably remain a captive customer. It just sucks I have to remain unsatisfied about this one thing.

I can tell you though, the moment somebody offers a full dedicated server with a serial console for less than $50 I'm gone. I don't even care that much about raid, I can deal with restoring from a nightly backup every couple of years after a disk crash. It's better than when my linode's host raid card decided to silently corrupt my filesystem a few years ago. (yes, i know a regular ide chipset can corrupt the same way, I just want to point out raid1 isn't the greatest thing ever)

Isn't there a cheap way they could add some nfs space to sell to us at a reasonable cost? Anything?

Thanks for your comments. Hold tight -- we're working on it and hope to make an announcement soon.

-Chris

For what it's worth, I left Linode about three months ago because the disk space offerings were just far too small for me. I hope that Caker can address this because maybe someday I'd like to come back to Linode. Right now I am paying for a dedicated host for 50% more $$$ but *much* better specs than a Linode 100. Out of courtesy to Linode I won't mention what service I am using now, but so far I have been very happy, no problems whatsoever. It does make me nervous that the hardware could fail, there is no raid, and I don't know how responsive the hosting service will be if a disk crashes or something.

Linode definitely gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, and I would seriously reconsider Linode if the disk space (not to mention memory) offerings were more competitive.

You might wonder why I'm even posting here if I'm not a Linode customer anymore ... but I do check back on these forums every once in a while to see if Caker is announcing any enhancements to the plans.