Hi all, I am bringing you a tale of WholeSale internet. It all started on the 12/04/2015, when I ordered the server. I was looking forward to this server as it was my first one in the United States. I ordered at around 11:15 in the morning. Normally with all of the other servers that I use, delivery has been very quick. The server was delivered at around 17:15. (The email from them to my @virginmedia.com account ended up in my spam filter for some reason)
Wholesale's support was very good initially (Heck, they even installed Windows Server 2012 R2 for me as when I tried to upload the ISO from London, the install corrupted due to the fact that my upload was so slow)
All was fine with the server for the first month, and it has been in the past 4 days that my trust and faith in WholeSale internet has been completely trashed and destroyed. It all started when I RDP'ed into my server on Wednesday evening (British time) to work on it. I logged in, and after a longer than normal waiting time for it to connect, I was greeted with a black screen.
Because of this, I contacted support and asked them to either sort it out or provide me a KVM connection so that I can sort it myself. They asked for my login details to the server and then said that they would take a look at it for me. I got a message back that stated
"I saw the black screen you are talking about. It has doing that because Windows is not fully loading. No matter how I try to boot up, even safe mode, it will not come up to a login prompt. I think the best thing to do is reload the OS. Do you need any data off the drive? What OS do you want installed?"
Luckily at this point, I had a full backup of this server, so I did not need to get any data recovered. This is where I started to worry about the hardware condition of the server.
When I got the server reloaded and I got the RDP details, I then logged in and instantly started to run Acronis disk manager to see what was going on with the disk in this server. To my surprise and horror, I saw that it was having sector issues. http://harrycross.me/a22.png https://kb.acronis.com/content/9133 - talks about the issue
This is a drive that is failing. So I contacted support again and pointed this out. While I was there, I wanted another drive for this server and I asked for a price for that. They stated:
”We are replacing the current hard rive disk, as well as adding a new one to your server which we will be invoicing you for.” This is their exact message As well as:
”Please pay the fee so that we can swap out your current failing disk for a new one, and install a 2nd one at the same time, to avoid taking your server offline twice and more down time for you.”
So I paid them the $4 dollars they wanted and I thought that they were going to solve both issues, so add the new disk and replace the original one at the same time.
I forgot to remember that this is WholeSale internet here.
I then checked the server after I got the new set of login details and THEY HAD NOT REPLACED THE ORIGINAL DRIVE
So I contacted support again, and they stated:
"I have attached the new disk that was added on to this service. If you need us to pull the Drive that has the OS on it and test and replace it we can, but all information not backed up will be lost.”
I sat there confused, as this is what I initially thought they were going to do!
Back to support I trotted, and ”Okay I will pull this server and load the OS on the drive added as well as swapping out the old drive, Would you still like 2012 installed on it?”
HALLELUJAH! THEY ARE GOING TO DO WHAT I ASKED THEM TO DO 6 HOURS EARLIER!
So, I got login details (for the third time), three hours later and I logged back on.
I reinstall Acronis, and think I will check the drives again. Yes, the drive has been replaced. I sat there hoping that it had been fixed, and I see http://harrycross.me/eb1.png
SO THE THING IS NOW REALLOCATING SECTORS!
By this time, I have had enough of WholeSale internet and wanted to cancel and refund the server. So I go back to support and inform them that I would like out and to cancel the server. ”Dear Sir/Madam, I would like to request an immediate cancellation and refund for the rest of the month on this server, as I have lost complete faith in you as a provider, due to the fact that the replacement drive that you fitted in my server, has been reallocating sectors and only has one left to reallocate. This drive is a replacement for one that has been failing. I await the refund for the remaining period of this server, to my PayPal at mypapaladdress@gmail.com Thanks Harry Cross”
I then get this back from them
”I am forwarding this to the Billing Department and they will attend to this during normal business hours of 8am-5pm CST, Monday - Friday.”
And of course, they are closed on Monday, so let us see what Tuesday will bring!
Overall, DO NOT USE THEM