I woke up this morning and started reading through Google Reader to see what appears to be an amazing offer posted on LowEndBox.com. The post claims a company called 2HOST is offering Xen based virtual private servers at $5/mo. How could anyone resist looking into this? Naturally, I did, and here's the scoop.
- 512MB Ram / 1024MB Swap (More available)
- 1 IP Address (Upgrade to 2 for another $5/mo)
- 300GB Bandwidth per Month
- Monthly or Yearly Payments Available
- Xen Node with CentOS 5 & Debian 5 Available
- "Dedicated, guaranteed, non-overbooked resources"
- "100% gigabit powered screaming fast network"
Updates: [ 1 ] , [ 2 ] , [ 3 ]
They also say,
Our servers are all the latest dual socket, dual QuadCore Intel Xeon's with at least 32GB Fully-Buffered RAM, high performance 6x 450GB SAS 15,000RPM RAID10 storage. Utilizing SAS drives with 15,000RPM means better performance, long life and servergrade hard drives, ideal for virtualization
Ok, sounds great, right? So far, yes, until you attempt reading their non existent Acceptable Use Policy, Terms of Service, Service Level Agreement, or Privacy Policy, all of which return a 404 at the time of writing.
bigbrother ~:# curl -I http://www.2host.com/tos.html HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 03:13:30 GMT Server: Apache/2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Cache: MISS from 0x95.net Connection: close bigbrother ~:# curl -I http://www.2host.com/aup.pdf HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 03:13:38 GMT Server: Apache/2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Cache: MISS from 0x95.net Connection: close bigbrother ~:# curl -I http://www.2host.com/sla.pdf HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 03:13:43 GMT Server: Apache/2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Cache: MISS from 0x95.net Connection: close bigbrother ~:# curl -I http://www.2host.com/pp.pdf HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 03:13:50 GMT Server: Apache/2 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 X-Cache: MISS from 0x95.net Connection: close
How can a company that claims,
"a team of professionals with years of industry experience, focusing on US-based virtualized and dedicated server solutions. The company is driven by reliability, customer satisfaction and value for money"
even be considered when their "Legal Documents" are non existent? Anyway, I used their contact form to send them this,
Good Morning,
After seeing the incredible $5/mo ($60/yr) VPS offer, I was eager to sign up for a year, but like any good consumer, I first decided to check out the TOS, AUP, SLA, an PP, all of which 404'd.
http://www.2host.com/tos.html
http://www.2host.com/aup.pdf
http://www.2host.com/sla.pdf
http://www.2host.com/pp.pdf
Can you please provide these documents?
Also, is the $5/mo good for the lifetime of the VPS? If I purchase for a year, and then renew after that year, will the price remain $5/mo ($60/yr)?
Thanks,
Guy Patterson
http://www.nullamatix.com/
I'll be sure to provide an update when and if they respond...
(Quick!) Update - 05/26/09 @ 07:45:00
Wow, within an hour of submitting my question, a member of 2HOST's staff responded with this,
Hello,
The prices are for the life of the account and will not increase in the future (for the services that you have ordered).
We reserve the right to change prices for non-ordered products or services. If you have a 1GB VPS and we increased the prices for our 1GB and 1.5GB plans, your price will stay the same, unless you wish to upgrade to 1.5GB.
As for the Legal documents, I will look into this further.
Best regards,
John Danielsen
----------------------------------------------
Ticket ID: #101XXX
Subject: Contact Form: WHT Offer
Status: Answered
Ticket URL: http://www.2host.com/support/viewticket.php?tid=xxxxxx&c=xxxxxxx
----------------------------------------------
I may be signing up for one of these after all. Just standing by for the legal docs at this point...
Update - 05/27/09 @ 07:10:00
Still no word on the status of 2HOST.com's "legal documents." Such a shame, the price is amazing. I probably wouldn't have a problem with any of their legal documents, but it's just nice to know what you're getting into before making any type of commitment. How is it possible to not have these documents available after five+ years of service? Incredible... Scam/Hoax?
Update - 05/29/09 @ 08:03:00
Looks like 2HOST's legal docs are finally available. After reading over the SLA, I couldn't help but notice the reference to "2HOS" instead of "2HOST." Minor issue, just struck me as odd..
"Hello,
The Legal Documents page has been updated. If it's still not working for you, please try clearing the browser cache. We appreciate your patience. Do let me know if you have any further questions.
Best regards,
John Danielsen"
After looking over their AUP, SLA, TOS, and PP, a server for $60/yr sounds pretty reasonable :]
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