Moving from datapipe after 6+ years, advice sought

[digires]

Greetings. I also posted on WHT a few days back, looking for some good advice.

Let me first say that I have been with datapipe for about 6.5 years, since the the days that they were called "hispeed hosting". No complaints about the support, technicians are all top notch, and data center has great connectivity. My server has been up 336 days as of this writing, and last reboot was strictly for maintenance.

That said, my needs are modest, perhaps far more modest than what they are used to dealing with these days. I am currently on a dedicated pentium 3 1Ghz, using about 1.3 GB/mo in bandwidth (bytemarked at 27.1 yesterday, ouch!). I have been paying about $200/mo for this unmanaged (although they have gone over and above on support requests even with an unmanaged server). I recently requested to add security updates, and backup services, which I was informed would double my cost, to $400/mo. They cut me a "deal" and gave me $50/mo off. Grand total now is $350/mo. I feel like I am being nickel and dimed after more than six years of loyalty.

Bottom line is that I would love to stay with them, but since I am primarily a developer my hosting side has become non-economical. I need to find a company that can do this for me in a reliable manner for less money, there must be companies out there that are up to the task.

At this point I am even thinking a good VPS would suit my needs, but am open to any suggestions. From watching several forums for the past week, I have started a dialogue with some providers:

1. Servint
2. Liquidweb
3. Softlayer
4. Steadfast.net

The first two are managed and offer VPS and Dedicated solutions, the third I would be looking at a dual core dedicated box for about $159, and would probably add a management service (platinumserver?) to the mix. I have heard good things about steadfast, and welcome feedback here as well.

Servint seems to have good VPS packages that allow max 1 or 2 VPS's on a physical machine, so that might be a good option as well. Being used to a high level of service at datapipe, would I be missing out on anything by going with one of these other, less expensive options? Am I really "getting what I pay for" with datapipe?

Thank You profusely for your time and advice.

John

[ASP-Hosting.ca]

You can try simpli.biz, I've used them and you should be able to get fully managed server for around $270 per month...