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BoxVPS - $5 512MB OpenVZ VPS Exclusive Offer

BoxVPS Justin from BoxVPS has emailed me some exclusive specials for the LowEndBox readers about two weeks ago. Apologise to the BoxVPS team that I have not been able to put the specials up until today due to “inbox bankruptcy”. Pretty good deal though, and here are the steps to claim it:

  1. Go to this “hidden” page. You shall see the plans listed there with upgraded resources.
  2. Order the Small Box!
  3. Use the coupon code lowendbox to get $5 off recurring discount.
  4. It’s supposed to be instant setup so you’ll have your new VPS in no time. (Although when I ordered one last month it took around 3 hours from payment to server info welcome email — not too bad either).

So you ended up paying just $5/month for their Small Box package, which is not really small when you look at the spec…

  • 512MB guaranteed memory
  • 10GB storage
  • 1000GB/month data transfer
  • OpenVZ/HyperVM

Servers are co-loc with leased from SoftLayer in Dallas. Burstable memory is the same as guaranteed in my case, and I will give a review in a few months time.

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

52 Comments

  1. David:

    Have just signed up. Once I payed, it was an instantaneous build, however the control panel is currently resolving to 10.17.69.242, so I can’t access it just yet.

    I have submitted a support ticket regarding it, so fingers crossed :)

    November 23, 2009 @ 4:10 am | Reply
  2. Wow, what a response. We have ran out of 512RAM boxes, please use the small box on the home page for the same vps just with 384MB.

    November 23, 2009 @ 5:00 am | Reply
  3. @David — the “trick” to access the HyperVM panel is via your VPS (using a SSH SOCKS tunnel for example). Although it would be useless to use it to rebuild the VPS unless you order two so one can stay up while HyperVM rebuilds another :P

    November 23, 2009 @ 5:08 am | Reply
  4. David:

    Well Justin, 512MB for $5 is a very sweet deal :) So is 384MB for that matter.

    Anyways, for those curious about my first comment, Justin replied to my support ticket in 20 minutes. My experience with providers offering low-end prices is that support reacts like a pack of sloths, so it’s nice to see a provider give such quick response times. As for their answer to my question regarding the control panel IP, well it’s a case of them busy working on it and that it’ll be up “any day now”.

    November 23, 2009 @ 5:12 am | Reply
  5. David:

    @LowEndAdmin – I considered that option, actually, however I only have 1 vps with them so far. Plus, I reread the emails they send during signup, and saw that there was a comment about the CP being down for the moment (doh!). I feel like a bit of a twit now, submitting that ticket, haha.

    November 23, 2009 @ 5:22 am | Reply
  6. irc:

    Is irc connections allowd on this VPS plan?

    November 23, 2009 @ 6:45 pm | Reply
  7. Jacob Wall:

    Softlayer does not offer colocation.

    November 23, 2009 @ 10:53 pm | Reply
  8. No to IRC connections, and Softlayer does not colocated, we lease servers.

    November 23, 2009 @ 10:54 pm | Reply
  9. Jacob Wall:

    Okay, thanks for clearing that up.

    Quoted: Servers are co-loc with SoftLayer in Dallas.

    November 23, 2009 @ 10:55 pm | Reply
  10. Just emailed them and got a response in less than a minute. Looks like they’ll have more slots available in about 2 days.

    November 24, 2009 @ 2:07 am | Reply
  11. A week later and my open ticket got closed since there wasn’t any status change on it for 48 hours. Oh well.

    A suggestion for the hosts here. If you autoclose tickets for whatever reason, make sure there’s a link to the ticket in the autoclose message. I have the ticket number but I can’t get to the ticket from either the email or their support system. (ie There’s no login that I can see or link to follow to get to it.)

    December 1, 2009 @ 1:05 pm | Reply
  12. chris:

    They didn’t get at me either… What does 24/7 support mean to them? :D

    December 1, 2009 @ 8:15 pm | Reply
  13. Philip:

    The coupon code ‘lowendbox’ isn’t working. I have been trying to sign up for several days now. You get ‘promotional code already used’ when you enter the coupon code.

    Anyone know what is going on with them? I opened a ticket two days ago simply asking for a status on the coupon–I have emailed as well. I have yet to get a response.

    December 1, 2009 @ 10:42 pm | Reply
  14. David:

    @philip

    They only reserved a limited number of VMs to sell via this special, and they were used up very quickly.

    December 2, 2009 @ 5:26 am | Reply
  15. boxvps_user:

    Deal with vps problems too slow,and always said “Please standby for further updates.”,but I’ve been waiting for several days :(

    December 2, 2009 @ 7:05 am | Reply
  16. @David, that should have been mentioned in the copy sent to LEB then. I wasn’t real worried about the special or the coupon. I just needed a minimal 512meg VPS for what I needed to do. Last I heard, it was going to be a couple of days until more rolled out.

    Although if the prices listed on the “hidden” page no longer apply, maybe that page needs to be removed or redirected.

    I wound up going elsewhere once I saw that closed ticket. Oh well.

    December 2, 2009 @ 12:54 pm | Reply
  17. “Out Of Stock”

    January 2, 2010 @ 12:38 am | Reply
  18. Alright, I have a question. Been reading around the web for more than 4 hours now a horrible mixture of reviews about Boxvps. Some are having problems, some have had problems and some are saying it’s charming and all time beauty!

    Frankly am confused so question is @lowendbox is it possible if you could confirm whether Boxvps is reliable or should I stay away? :)

    Thank you In advance,
    Hady A.

    January 4, 2010 @ 11:02 pm | Reply
  19. David:

    I have 2 VPSes with them. The server speeds, etc are what you’d expect for the price you’re paying, however their first level support is a bit dodgy at times. I think they outsource 1st level support to India or something, as their English is good enough to get by, but not good enough to always full understand what you’re asking for.

    January 5, 2010 @ 7:11 am | Reply
  20. The coupon code does not seem to work any more. I am removing this from the exclusive offer page.

    January 5, 2010 @ 7:45 am | Reply
  21. @Hady A.
    I took advantage of this offer for lowendbox users (http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/boxvps-25year-256mb-vps/), and now have a vps with boxvps for 6 months.

    Yeah, there are some unexpected reboots and downtimes, maybe 2 or 3 times. As I was not running a website or a mission critical server, That’s OK with me. And there were a few weeks that my vps felt unresponsive occasionally (maybe someone tied up the IO subsystem), with load more than 10, however it was still usable for my application. All my urgent support tickets had been handled timely.

    Recently the vps has been quite stable. I just issued the following commands inside my vps with boxvps:
    $ uptime
    14:29:12 up 31 days, 11:00, 1 user, load average: 0.16, 0.17, 0.16
    $ ps ax|grep bd|wc
    180 1080 8985

    It shows that the last time my vps rebooted was 31 days ago, while there are currently approximate 180 SMTP server processes running (handling incoming mail), with load < 0.2. Don't be misled by the number "180." This is not a heavy weight mail server. All the mail are just tiny sized (< 10K) spam.

    I can say that I am satisfied with this vps so far, considering what I have paid for it.

    January 5, 2010 @ 2:52 pm | Reply
  22. Support told me this

    “As previously said, we cannot provide any discount at this time, sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.”

    So the code does not work..

    January 18, 2010 @ 3:23 pm | Reply
  23. David:

    Well, I had a support ticket that was left open for a while, and I suddenly got a reply to it. Things are afoot there – they’re doing a lot of migrations to new hardware and internal shuffling so I guess we’ll have to wait a while before they offer any specials

    January 18, 2010 @ 8:55 pm | Reply
  24. Had a read at this thread at WHT. Basically Justin is selling boxVPS + clients.

    That makes me worried about my 1 year prepaid VPS…

    January 24, 2010 @ 1:07 pm | Reply
  25. *shrug* Sometimes hosts get in over their head. I’ve received three “Please buy our clients!” emails so far this year.

    January 24, 2010 @ 2:15 pm | Reply
  26. David:

    Yeah, looks like they were bought out by VPSguys.

    They’ve been migrating the VMs over to their servers it seems, however they made a botch with one of mine and now the node keeps on dropping :( They’re working on it though as it’ll be affecting more people than just me.

    I also see that my $5 512MB is now a 384MB slice, so I’m gonna query with sales. When the ticket system is back online.

    January 24, 2010 @ 7:30 pm | Reply
  27. My 256MB VPS with them was down a few hours ago and is still offline. The fact that their website is now offline does not help.

    January 24, 2010 @ 10:34 pm | Reply
  28. same problem with boxvps from sunday until now my server don’t work, boxvps.com is down, any ideas about this situation?

    January 25, 2010 @ 9:16 am | Reply
  29. Uncle Bob:

    and my 256MB VPS has strange behaviour. 3 times it was down more then 15 hours, then somehow it was up and it is down now.

    I try to talk with VPS Guys Livezilla chat. Here is hopeless dialog :-) (but only 10 minutes left, may be it will raise and shine soon :-))

    Paul M.
    Hello RS, my name is Paul M., how may I help you?

    RS 12:21:40
    I am from boxvps
    my vps periodically shutdown

    Paul M. 12:23:30
    Have you submitted a ticket?

    RS 12:24:20
    I am ex BoxVPS.com client. Theire site and ticket system is down.
    vpsguyes bought them, as I see. Can you help?

    Paul M. 12:24:58
    Ah, okay, that makes sense.

    RS 12:25:12
    My address is 209.130 cut

    Paul M. 12:25:22
    I personally can’t no, as I’m first level support
    However I have passed the message on, and we have our techs looking into it as we speak

    RS 12:27:19
    should I wait in chat or what?

    Paul M. 12:28:12
    There should really be no need… We just need to restore services
    Things should come back online soon

    RS
    When vpsguys ticket system will be accessible for BoxVPS clients?

    Paul M. 12:33:30
    But im sure they’re working on it

    January 25, 2010 @ 9:45 am | Reply
  30. David:

    Well, my 2 VMs have gone down. Again. This is BS.

    I’ll be switching hosts :/

    January 25, 2010 @ 2:39 pm | Reply
  31. snyper:

    Paid a year for this… they’re gone?

    January 25, 2010 @ 6:19 pm | Reply
  32. Uncle Bob:

    it is running again
    uptime
    00:08:28 up 13 min, 1 user, load average: 0.35, 0.18, 0.06

    January 25, 2010 @ 9:09 pm | Reply
  33. Well looks like the site boxvps.com is back up with a changed IP address. Let’s see how soon does it take to restore my VPS.

    January 26, 2010 @ 4:25 am | Reply
  34. Uncle Bob:

    its still running
    uptime 10:32

    January 26, 2010 @ 7:29 am | Reply
  35. I have just got back the control of my VPS. Sorry about those who had a 512MB VPS but got downgraded to 384MB — because somehow my 256MB VPS got *upgraded* to 384MB :P Moreover,

    – Host nodes are with Graxis in Dallas.
    – Access to 4x Xeon 5520 equal share CPU

    So far so good.

    January 27, 2010 @ 12:04 am | Reply
  36. David:

    @LEA

    MY 512 slices were downgraded to 384. I asked them if they would honour the original pricings and specs and they said that they weren’t even aware of the special. They increased the memory for me.

    Apparently BoxVPS was heavily overselling – they only had two boxes. VPSguys also said that they’re honour the BoxVPS pricings (dont know if that extends to the specials) for the time being but may need to revise them, in which case they’ll give us 30 days notice.

    January 27, 2010 @ 5:06 am | Reply
  37. @David — overselling was pretty much as expected (as with many other providers listed on this blog).

    I am just somehow feeling cheated of posting all these “exclusive” deals for providers to overload their boxes and boost their subscribers number, so they can sell their business for a higher price later.

    January 27, 2010 @ 5:22 am | Reply
  38. snyper:

    you guys got yours back up and running? mines still a no show…

    January 28, 2010 @ 7:55 pm | Reply
  39. Uncle Bob:

    my is down again. Has worked more then day before.

    January 29, 2010 @ 6:22 am | Reply
  40. Mine is dead as well, since around 6 hours ago. Was happy that I got some free upgrades.

    Edit: SolusVM is still accessable (although pretty slow) but the VM just refuses to be booted. Time to hit support soon.

    January 29, 2010 @ 6:35 am | Reply
  41. snyper:

    Got access to mine finally. However VPS cannot be started. Tried rebuilding VPS. No go. Sent support a ticket (same ticket really just continual). So VPSGuys are running the show now?

    January 29, 2010 @ 6:46 am | Reply
  42. David:

    VPSGuys suck balls. They’ve had datacentre issues for over 14 hours and not one single notification. I’ve been pestering them for an update but nothing so far >:(

    January 29, 2010 @ 6:33 pm | Reply
  43. Jim Black:

    Mine was down for over a week, then at last i got the e-mail with my new IP, from then vps is working about 1 day per week. No one is answering my support tickets and VPS Guys are saying that this is BoxVPS’s problem

    January 29, 2010 @ 7:41 pm | Reply
  44. snyper:

    Sadly Paypal does not refund anything after 28 days of transaction. Problems with yearly purchases :\

    January 30, 2010 @ 5:31 pm | Reply
  45. snyper:

    Still not up yet. If anyone is reading this and theirs is online, please let us know

    January 30, 2010 @ 5:32 pm | Reply
  46. David:

    BoxVPS sent out an email (finally…):

    “Hello,

    This is an announcement to tell you what has been happening, what will be happening and to apologize for all inconvenience caused.

    As you are all aware, the main server you were all moved to is currently down and has been for a day or so. This is due to a datacenter move which happened at the beginning of the month at which point our server was placed into a faulty cabinet which power surged once turned on. Since this, the server has had countless amounts of Hard Drive failures, RAID failures and it doesn’t seem to help when the provider seems resistent to help us. We are constantly contacting the provider to hopefully resume the services but as of yet, we haven’t acheived anything. As of this, we have made arrangement with another close by datacenter which we have servers arriving shortly to move everyone onto once the main server becomes available again. Yes this does mean that we will need to move everyone again and yes it means we will need to change everyones IP again. We are aware how troublesome this may be for some people but we hope you understand this is also troublesome for us and we are trying to do all we can but it just seems that our provider just doesn’t care. We have received everyones support tickets but we have not replied to any of them as we do not have anything to reply with which is why this announcement is being made. We do request that no further tickets are made about VPS servers being down and there is nothing we can do about it at this time. We will send out announcements as and when we know any more. Once everything is up and running again like it should be, clients will be givin the oppertunity to claim 25% off of their next invoice as an apologie from us to you for the amount of hassle and greive this has caused.

    Once again, we apologize for all inconvenience and we truly are doing all we can.

    Thank You,
    boxVPS.com Team”

    January 31, 2010 @ 8:00 pm | Reply
  47. Uncle Bob:

    and on the Announcements page http://www.boxvps.com/client/announcements.php
    Issues with host node S02 IP 209.130.155.2
    30/01/2010 04:53
    Hi,
    firstly let me apologise for the current downtime and give you a bit of an explanation about this. We have been experiencing problems with our host node s02 IP 209.130.155.2 which is currently down.
    We have been working with the Datacentre to try and fix this problem and have so far completed the following.
    1. Replacement of hard disk on one of the RAID card ports
    2. Replacement of the RAID card
    3. Moving the server to a new rack
    Believe me we are as frustrated by these problems as you are as we have together with the Datacentre been working around the clock to find the fault(s) and fix it.
    Please do not post any support tickets about this until we post any further announcements. Thank you for your co-operation and patience in this matter.

    John H
    Senior Management BoxVPS

    January 31, 2010 @ 9:24 pm | Reply
  48. andro:

    well, my vps is online now, did they resolve their problems with datacentre? or it’s only beginning of this situation?

    February 1, 2010 @ 12:02 pm | Reply
  49. Uncle Bob:

    New email from BoxVPS

    You are shown as an active client of BOXVPS who you may or may not know sold their VPS clients to my company. Part of the deal was meant to include the domain name, all web content, and taking over the WHMCS billing system.
    Unfortunately this part has NOT been completed which has made it difficult for us to manage and support these clients. I have therefore registered the domain boxvps.co.uk and imported a WHMCS database from a couple of weeks ago.
    Your login details should remain the same but the login url will now be http://www.boxvps.co.uk/client

    and more..

    February 14, 2010 @ 8:38 pm | Reply
  50. dudu:

    again problem with boxvps.co.uk: my vps is offline and i cannot boot it through control panel, does somebody have the same problem?

    May 17, 2010 @ 8:00 am | Reply
  51. @dudu — yes same problem. I have an external script pulling the current uptime, and the last reading was from 2 hours ago, saying:

    475.85 473.89 469.83

    Something is really bad on that server.

    May 17, 2010 @ 8:07 am | Reply
  52. Boris:

    Hey Uncle Bob
    How about you stop spamming people with invoice overdue reminders?

    December 16, 2010 @ 2:10 am | Reply

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