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NixDot - $4.49 256MB OpenVZ VPS in Phoenix

Updated February 2012 — Deadpooled. Business partner has recommended people file a chargeback to get their funds back. Please see this post.

NixDot Chris, director at ico7 Network which manages NixDot Web Solutions, emailed me their offer a few days ago. According to this WHT thread they have recently re-launched NixDot and have one low end OpenVZ VPS plan that fits my listing criteria. “OpenVZ I” is $4.49/month and it comes with

  • 256MB guaranteed/512MB burstable memory
  • 30GB storage on RAID10
  • 500GB/month data transfer
  • 2x vCPU cores
  • 2x IPv4 addresses
  • OpenVZ/SolusVM

Signup link here. If you pay yearly it will get discounted to $30/year. They take PayPal or Google Checkout. Servers with PhoenixNAP in Phoenix AZ (test IP: 199.30.48.138). IRC and legal P2P are allowed. ico7 Network is based in UK. Domain has only been registered since May 2011 and wasn’t trading until November so pretty much a new provider. Any one knows about these folks?

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

55 Comments

  1. To give more of an insight about us and me –
    The ico7 network was formed as a central point for a group I intend to grow upon over time. After acquiring NixDot and its assets in around august/september, I’m taking this venture very seriously and we are certainly not going to become a deadpool, with large amounts of funding in the pipeline.

    The main members of the group are me, Dan who I first met a few years ago whilst working in the Host Europe DC and his business partner Jonathan, who provided the initial funding and resources to get us off to a good start. I do believe Jonathan has been involved with a hosting company previously which couldn’t sustain, my only opinion on that matter is that it’s the past, we value what Jonathan is doing for us and hopefully our work will make up for previous failures.

    My own experience comes from an interest in web hosting from a young age, starting with a free reseller, then aged 19 I went to work in the HostEurope/Webfusion DC, during this time I was setting the foundations for what is now NixDot Web Solutions.
    Dan, who is my right hand man, worked in the same DC on a different team, when I left HostEurope to proceed with my own ventures he followed shortly after and has since become an asset to me, initially I was working not far off 24/7, as I was training staff constantly and of course handling escalations alone, Dans’ joining to the management team saw me having more time to devote to the overhead mechanics of NixDot, allowing us to expand above and beyond what we expected in such a short time-frame.

    Our main intention in this business is to basically show and demonstrate long-term that a budget provider can be sustainable, profitable and successful, while still providing high-value support and grade A performance. A lot of hosts are going to be upset about a lot of things we do, simply because we’re going to prove how over-priced this industry can be. I see some providers charging double/triple what we do for certain products, and actually giving the client less than we are in terms of basic support and performance, how can this be acceptable?

    I’ll leave it there, I’ve rambled on for long enough.
    If you do use our services though, leave us some feedback, we don’t claim to be perfect and your opinions genuinely matter.

    I will point out though that next month we may create an exclusive LEB special; 128MB-256MB, but I’d like to know what the demand would be for this, let me know. :)

    Thank you.

    January 10, 2012 @ 3:24 pm | Reply
    • Amfy:

      How old are you now?

      January 12, 2012 @ 5:17 pm | Reply
    • Zach:

      … and not even a month later we’re in the deadpool. The original post in this thread would be comedic gold if not for the fact that they ran off with the money of dozens of customers.

      Apparently, the owner (Chris) decided to do a pump and dump type thing and act like they were in it for the long haul at first, and boom, sell the company off to some random party a month later. His “right hand man” (Dan) is even telling people on WHT to file PayPal claims to hopefully recover their money – hopefully this link works: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7949603&postcount=24

      As a (former, I guess!) client, I have done just that and am just waiting on PayPal to act. The sad thing? I actually was quite pleased with NixDot’s NL server and their support was actually pretty good too! I routinely got ten minute replies and hour resolutions to my tickets. Sad sad sad.

      If I do not recover my money from PayPal, I guess I’ll just have to take this as a lesson learned and rationalize the purchase as a month of overpriced VPS service.

      February 11, 2012 @ 10:21 am | Reply
      • Thanks for the heads up.

        I’ve updated main post to document this all.

        February 11, 2012 @ 11:26 am | Reply
        • Zach:

          Thanks Mark, I appreciate it.

          February 11, 2012 @ 11:50 am | Reply
  2. James:

    Rock solid servers,great support,
    I feel satisfied with my NixDot’vps performance,
    so keep on good job Chris!~

    January 12, 2012 @ 4:12 am | Reply
    • Thank you James, comments like this really make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ;)

      I hope the positive opinion only grows. :)

      January 13, 2012 @ 12:49 am | Reply
  3. “re-launched” makes me worry about “re-close”…

    January 12, 2012 @ 4:29 am | Reply
    • There will be no re-close. :)
      The previous owners of the NixDot brand may not have done as they should have but I personally aren’t going to let us just fade into obscurity. We’re up and we’re staying up.

      January 12, 2012 @ 2:08 pm | Reply
  4. DG:

    Unless you’ve got some deep pockets your going to need them unless you have your own IPv4 allocations of course…

    January 12, 2012 @ 9:57 pm | Reply
    • No ripe allocation, but good deals from providers and a decent amount of funding, possibly an insane amount of funding depending on a meeting I’m off for on the 18th. I’ve been very selective with top-level providers just for the IP reason.

      Basically if we don’t get the funding we’ll grow at a steady rate, applying for further investment once we’re seen as being more than just a start-up, if we do then a fast initial growth will be coming.
      Luckily though the group I’m meeting with is aimed at start-ups, if their terms are good I think and hope things will go fine.

      January 12, 2012 @ 10:48 pm | Reply
      • Chris:

        Good luck with that and I hope everything goes well for the future, let’s see in a few months if your still around and, that first comment of yours at the top, about what you wish to do with this business is still true 6 months into this new year, and if it is… I’ll be sure to go ahead and grab one! But you also got to understand, of how many kids and people have done what your doing exactly right this moment, and saying the same exact words as they did and failed within the month or maybe even made it a year and went under, that is why people are also saying, “Re-close”, because it happens, 9 out of 10 hosts I’d say re-close, after their re-launch, it never works out because they don’t really have the trust they had originally, it takes some deep pockets to turn around a re-launched company that had the fate that it had previously. I wish you the best, but just a tip we all have heard it over and over and over, it’s a weekly thing..

        -Chris

        January 13, 2012 @ 2:16 am | Reply
        • Thank you, I genuinely appreciate the advice. :)

          To update all, we’ve had to temporarily disable Google Checkout, all of a sudden I get an email from them saying they’ve closed the account and can’t provide any more information as to why.

          Considering only about 5% of clients signed up with it, I’m assuming it’s because of some fraud orders that were made by one individual (which were rejected by the card issuer) when we first added that gateway. I won’t cry though, I’ll stay strong.

          Current clients who used Google Checkout, you’ll have received an email, Google Checkout tells us that payments were refunded so this means services are currently unpaid for. I won’t suspend at this time but I’m allowing 24 hours for alternative payment method to be made, backups to be taken or at least contact to be made with a solution. During this time I’ll also be looking for a replacement to Google Checkout, would appreciate any suggestions of good gateways.

          Google Checkout clients, allow me to apologise personally, again anyway (in addition to the email sent out), for any inconvenience. I can understand you being just as pi**ed off as we are to be honest.

          Thank you all.

          January 13, 2012 @ 2:35 am | Reply
  5. New clients, check this out after ordering for information about getting the additional IP added – http://urlify.it/34EqCV

    January 16, 2012 @ 6:22 am | Reply
  6. Great news, our new EU location is nearly ready!
    Same great prices… brand new location!
    With this also comes an optional 1000mbps upgrade.

    January 17, 2012 @ 8:54 am | Reply
  7. Ion:

    Just got this message 7 days after I registered which profs how noobs they are

    “Important Notification
    Due to requirements by our network provider, we are required to validate the usage of all assigned IP addresses.
    This means that for any future orders of services, only 1 dedicated IP address will be allocated initially, although additional IP addresses will be assigned upon request once an indication is given to us regarding what the additional IP address(es) will be used for.

    – What all this means for you
    Not including the main IP address of your VPS, we’ll need you to give us some information about what your additional assigned IP addresses are being used for, you can do this by simply replying to this email or submitting a support request. All additional IP addresses that we aren’t provided information for will be removed from the VPS 24 hours from the time this email was sent and only re-assigned once acceptable justification is received, after this time we can’t guarantee that the exact same IP address will be assigned to your account. Please note that you need an acceptable reason for needing the additional IP addresses for us to accept requests for allocation/re-allocation. for example SEO is not a justified usage of additional IP addresses.
    We must point out that it’s important that you respond to this. Please give the information in the format below…
    (IP ADDRESS) – (WHAT IT’S USED FOR)
    Do this for each additional IP address you’ve been assigned.

    Apologies for any inconvenience this causes and we’d like to thank you for your custom.

    Regards,
    – The NixDot Web Solutions Management Team

    January 17, 2012 @ 9:04 am | Reply
    • i almost attract with their offer 2 dedicated IP for thier vps. but now seem like their not offer 2 dedicated IP like on their page.
      thank you for your review.

      January 17, 2012 @ 4:15 pm | Reply
  8. It’s rather obvious that clients need to simply let us know what the additional IP address is for, which is exactly what the email is for.

    7 days after you registered makes no difference, that mail wasn’t just sent to you, it was sent after our provider asks for allocation stats.

    Pain, we do offer 2 IP’s, many of our clients have 2 IP’s, they simply need to send us a support request letting us know what it’s going to be used for.

    Also to update, Our netherlands datacenter is online and after testing and tweaking we’re nearly ready to go, once we’re ready the site will be updated with the new EU services. Some new additions (EU Only) are the option to increase cores to 6, this location is also native IPv6 however we aren’t enabling it right now, needs testing.

    Thank you.

    January 18, 2012 @ 6:43 am | Reply
  9. Newest EU Node –

    vortex ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=64k count=100k
    102400+0 records in
    102400+0 records out
    6710886400 bytes (6.7 GB) copied, 3.26002 seconds, 2.1 GB/s

    vortex ~]# dd of=/dev/null if=/dev/sdb bs=64k count=100k
    102400+0 records in
    102400+0 records out
    6710886400 bytes (6.7 GB) copied, 1.4863 seconds, 4.5 GB/s

    January 19, 2012 @ 12:05 am | Reply
  10. Newest US Node –

    central [~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=64k count=100k
    16352+0 records in
    16351+0 records out
    1071636480 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 0.498374 seconds, 2.2 GB/s

    central [~]# dd of=/dev/null if=/dev/sdb bs=64k count=100k
    16351+1 records in
    16351+1 records out
    1071636480 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 0.237563 seconds, 4.5 GB/s
    root@central [~]#

    January 19, 2012 @ 12:07 am | Reply
    • conv=fdatasync :P

      Francisco

      January 19, 2012 @ 12:19 am | Reply
      • Also, he is writing directly to the device :S That’s ok? I am afraid of that, but seems to be doing it to the memory

        January 19, 2012 @ 12:33 am | Reply
    • Cheater u_u

      January 19, 2012 @ 12:32 am | Reply
    • Ah my bad, wasn’t sure what people wanted to see…

      vortex ~]# wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/10mb.test
      --2012-01-19 05:50:36--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/10mb.test
      Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
      Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
      Length: 10485760 (10M) [application/octet-stream]
      Saving to: `/dev/null'
      
      100%[======================================>] 10,485,760  39.1M/s   in 0.3s
      
      2012-01-19 05:50:36 (39.1 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [10485760/10485760]
      vortex ~]# wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
      --2012-01-19 05:57:29--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
      Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
      Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
      Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
      Saving to: `/dev/null'
      
      100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 50.8M/s   in 2.0s
      
      2012-01-19 05:57:31 (50.8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
      
      vortex ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
      24+0 records in
      23+0 records out
      1564672 bytes (1.6 MB) copied, 0.020796 seconds, 75.2 MB/s
      

      If someone can find me a 1GB CDN file I’ll wget that in and post as the speed was still rising at finish.

      January 19, 2012 @ 2:33 am | Reply
      • It’s just more that the write you did was going mostly to memory :) When you don’t define conv=fdatasync, linux won’t actually confirm/wait for the data to be written to disk.

        You can rip a very large dd w/o fsyncdata/sync, and pull the power while it runs and you’ll be missing a load of data.

        Francisco

        January 19, 2012 @ 6:58 am | Reply
  11. Gavin:

    Just got a VPS with them. My first VPS and got more than I expected :D

    More OS images would be good though. Great download speeds (using a VPS from NL datacentre).
    Upload speed from the VPS seem to fluctuate a bit, although could be, and probably is, my crappy home connection.

    January 23, 2012 @ 7:54 am | Reply
    • The NL location is new to us so we’ll have a look just to be sure.

      Anyway do you have any particular OS images in mind?
      It’s something we’ve been thinking about but I just want to know what the public want. :P

      January 23, 2012 @ 11:20 am | Reply
      • jdeep:

        would arch linux be possible?

        January 25, 2012 @ 6:18 am | Reply
        • Sure, we’re adding more today, added yesterday was Xubuntu with TightVNS and also a CentOS cPanel installer, I’ll look for a good arch base today.

          January 25, 2012 @ 12:17 pm | Reply
        • *TightVNC lol

          January 25, 2012 @ 1:54 pm | Reply
        • jdeep:

          so I signed using Ubuntu 11.04 under the impression that I would be able to change os to xbuntu after creating the VPS. Am I stuck with Ubuntu now or can you change it?

          January 26, 2012 @ 11:22 pm | Reply
        • You can change it at any time, within the SolusVM panel – https://vps-panel.mysecurewebsite.net

          Your access information can be found in the VPS welcome email.

          Thank you.

          January 27, 2012 @ 12:35 am | Reply
        • To add, ArchLinux 2010.05 Minimal is now available through the SolusVM panel, both 32&64bit archs.

          January 27, 2012 @ 12:50 am | Reply
  12. Jim:

    It only took about 5-6 hours after i bought a VPS until their entire service went dark.

    No responses to ping/http/ssh against my server, nor any responses to the admin panel, their own website or anything else that i got.

    Deadpool?

    January 25, 2012 @ 12:33 pm | Reply
    • Gavin:

      I think it’s just you. Which location is your VPS at?
      Mine, at NL (Vortex), is working fine. So is their website.

      January 26, 2012 @ 12:32 pm | Reply
    • I believe this was a result of a new packet flooding prevention system that the tech guys added yesterday, in the test environment all was fine but then the move to production servers caused issues (strangely only on the US Nexus node), basically kernel panic.
      All is fine now though, the systems are in place and we’re exactly where we want to be. :)

      January 26, 2012 @ 2:02 pm | Reply
  13. Cika:

    where do we choose location?

    January 27, 2012 @ 2:55 am | Reply
  14. Planned maintenance – 1st February 2012 – all EU service users be sure to read this! – http://urly.eu/0It1Xu

    January 27, 2012 @ 2:55 am | Reply
  15. Hi,

    I bought a openvz II (which offer 512Mb Ram). When I rebuild Apache v3.8.5, I received this notify:

    “Warning (VZ): You are only only guaranteed 333 Megabytes of ram when the system is out of ram! 512 Megabytes is recommended. !!”

    Can you suggest what mean?

    January 31, 2012 @ 9:38 am | Reply
    • I think you dropped in a ticket about this, I’m assuming it was VZ reporting however it surprises me that no-one else has bumped into this. You should have no issues with RAM, the max usage on the node your on is at about 8GB out of 32GB so at the moment clients are able to constantly max out on even burstable RAM (basically meaning right now you personally could push out 1GB without issues).

      Anyway though is this cPanel?
      Also have you had any other warnings like this?
      Thanking you.

      February 3, 2012 @ 2:39 am | Reply
  16. It looks fine at this time. I purchased for two vps and both of them are very amazing!

    February 3, 2012 @ 3:09 pm | Reply
  17. zander:

    http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/nixdot.com

    “It’s not just you! http://nixdot.com looks down from here.”

    February 7, 2012 @ 4:22 pm | Reply
  18. micromonser:

    what happen to this server ,my vps is not functioning

    February 8, 2012 @ 12:24 am | Reply
  19. My VPS still work, but I think I should backup database. :) Their website can’t load at current time.

    February 8, 2012 @ 9:07 am | Reply
  20. Gavin:

    Real pity. Was getting 80 MB/s off cachefly, even though I was on a 100 Mbits port, lol.
    Hopefully I get my money back through paypal dispute.

    February 12, 2012 @ 4:19 am | Reply
  21. micromonser:

    please give me back my money scammer

    February 14, 2012 @ 3:37 am | Reply
    • Check the top of the offer, you’ll see a link to a post on WHT about the owner taking off all of a sudden. I highly recommend you chargeback.

      February 14, 2012 @ 3:55 am | Reply
  22. Dave:

    Screwed again. Nix Job NixDot – epic fail.

    February 16, 2012 @ 7:04 am | Reply
  23. Is dead since friday! :|

    February 19, 2012 @ 10:52 pm | Reply
  24. Zach:

    Guys, there is still hope if you have gotten scammed by these idiots. PayPal just decided the dispute (which I immediately escalated to a claim) in my favor. They gave NixDot 10 days to respond, they didn’t… so here we are. Do this quickly though, I have no idea how much money is (or isn’t) still in their PayPal account. Good luck.

    The dispute resolution email follows:

    Dear Zach,
    
    We have concluded our investigation into your case and have decided in your
    favor.
    
    We were able to recover $29.99 USD and this amount has been credited to
    you.  Please allow five business days for this adjustment to be posted.
    
    If you are due any additional funds, we will make our best effort to
    recover the balance from the seller.
    
    
    If the seller's account has insufficient funds to complete the refund owed
    to you, please be assured that we will take appropriate action against the
    seller's account, which may include limitation of the seller's account
    privileges.
    
    
    -----------------------------------
    Transaction Details
    -----------------------------------
    
    
    Seller's Name: NixDot Ltd
    Seller's Email: Paypal@NixDot.com
    Seller's Transaction ID: 
    
    Transaction Date: Jan 15, 2012
    Transaction Amount: -$29.99 USD
    Your Transaction ID: 
    Case Number: PP-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX
    
    Buyer's Transaction ID: 
    
    
    
    
    -----------------------------------
    What to Do Next
    -----------------------------------
    
    No further action is required by you at this time.
    
    
    -----------------------------------
    Other Details
    -----------------------------------
    
    To make sure future transactions proceed smoothly, we suggest you visit the
    PayPal site and click the Security Center link located at the top of any
    page. There you will find tips on how to avoid fraudulent sellers in the
    "Fraud Prevention Tips for Buyers" section.
    
    To learn more about PayPal's Buyer Protection Program, go to the PayPal
    website and click the Security Center link located at the bottom of any
    page.
    
    Thanks,
    
    PayPal Protection Services Department
    Sincerely,
    PayPal
    February 22, 2012 @ 12:22 am | Reply

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