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Founded in 1998, Redstation has provided dedicated servers for mission-critical organizations to its compatriots and global audiences alike for more than two decades. Today Redstation manages thousands of servers, hosts thousands of websites, email accounts and other applications for customers in more than 150 countries worldwide. They exist as part of iomart Group Plc (Britain’s leading information technology and cloud computing company) and are headquartered in a convenient location in Glasgow.
They all own their eight bespoke data centers that use N + 1 design and the latest in technology, including Free Cooling from GEA Denco, which is making their web hosting solutions part of the race to make the earth a greener place ). Their data centers are spread across the UK and have online locations in the US, the Middle East and the Far East.
Redstation places great emphasis on dedicated and bare metal hosting, but also offers colocation services with multiple UK locations (London, Manchester, Maidenhead, Nottingham, Gosport, St. Asaph, Glasgow and Leicester), one in the United Arab Emirates ( Dubai) and one in Singapore (Singapore).
Redstation’s official website is easy to use and contains a fair amount of information about the network, computer services and hosting solutions. However, it doesn’t offer too much insight into the company itself and its history.
The site has a matching blog with a couple of well-written articles, but the most recent one is from December 2016, which made us a little disaffected.
You can find them on LinkedIn too, but not on other popular social media sites.
Plans and Pricing
Redstation’s services include dedicated servers, bare metal cloud, hybrid cloud, GPU servers, as well as resellers, colocation, media streaming, big data and a wide range of similar services. In short, they provide everything essential for a mission critical website for medium to large businesses with the will to grow.
One of the main advantages of using Redstation’s dedicated servers is the ability to customize just about anything. You can start with disk space, memory, RAID configuration, operating system, control panel, software, and so on. The price you pay for it is completely influenced by decisions you have made regarding the basic configuration of your future server, so it can range from a bargain (for the services you get) to a small fortune. Since Redstation does not promise a minimum contract with its bare metal infrastructure pricing models, you can pay based on usage.
As is often the case with similar companies, Redstation doesn’t offer a refund policy but instead offers a variety of payment methods including most major credit / debit cards (with the exception of American Express), bank transfers, and PayPal.
user friendliness
Though minimalist, Redstation’s official website manages to provide a decent amount of information about their main services: bare metal servers, dedicated servers, GPU servers, and colocation hosting services. Here you can find out more about your infrastructure in general, data centers, network solutions, storage options (Pure Storage, Dell and EMC), security solutions and acquired industry certifications (PCI, ISO, OHSAS, Cyber ​​Essentials and Data Protection). . However, to learn more about these and options like pricing, you need to choose a solution, book a call (for a free consultation), or create an account with Redstation.
When it comes to hardware, depending on the basic system, you can choose between a few processors (Xeon 4 Core, Dual Xeon 10 Core or Dual Intel Xeon Silver 4114), a lot of RAM (128GB, 256GB, 512GB or.) 1 TB RAM), hard disk space (everything above 4 x 500 GB SSD costs additional money) and whether a hardware RAID configuration should be included or not.
As for the software, you can choose an operating system (between multiple versions of Windows, Linux, VMware ESXi, FreeNAS, or your own operating system), a control panel (there are some versions of cPanel and Plesk) and decide if you want MS RDS License or MS SQL licenses.
Some extras are also available (for extra money), including remote management, some server SLAs, and IP addresses.
Creating an account with Redstation means providing a fair amount of personal information (your full name, email address, phone number, etc.), your billing address (street, city, county, zip code, phone) and even fax ), Security details (create a password and choose a security question) and decide whether or not to provide additional information.
In a few seconds your account will be activated and you will be taken to the Redstation dashboard, from which you can manage everything about your account, domains (register a new one or add an existing one) and servers. Contact customer support or consult the FAQ section. Despite the fact that Redstation’s user interface looks and feels dated, it is quite easy to use.
It’s immensely important to point out that there aren’t any additional auto-setup tools besides automatically installing your operating system. So, unless you are a particularly skilled webmaster, you may find that you are not quite up to the challenges of hosting at Redstation and should find a more suitable solution.
Speed ​​and experience
Among the many reasons why you should choose them in the sea of ​​similar web hosting providers, Redstation highlights their “super-fast, highly secure, massively scalable multi-data center” and their fiber optic network, which is fully owned, managed and maintained by its own Network department.
However, after testing the official Redstation site (provided by our tried and tested tool GTmetrix), we were faced with an analysis error for the first time because the page was not redirected correctly. When nothing changed after several unsuccessful attempts, we decided to swap GTmetrix for another popular tool (Pingdom) and finally got the results. Fortunately (since nobody likes a slow site) Redstation’s website fully loaded in 1.84 seconds. However, there was a full list of recommendations for improving the site’s performance, resulting in C (74%) which is terribly average.
As for uptime, UptimeRobot (our other trusted tool that didn’t let us down) had a lot to say about Redstation, but only good words. After a month of monitoring Redstation’s official website, not a single indication of downtime was recorded, which justifies the 100% uptime guarantee.
Support
Redstation offers customer support around the clock (365 days a year) via the MyServers customer portal ticketing system and the telephone line. However, live chat is not an option.
Given that live chat is generally one of the most popular support channels of all time, and is fast, efficient, and convenient, without the burden of real-time conversations or boredom on hold, the lack of one is Redstation’s biggest weakness. of support.
As for the self-sufficient support options, Redstation has a fairly extensive FAQ section that covers all general questions broken down into nine main categories, but you can also find the solution using the search bar. Since they don’t provide a knowledge base or instructions, you’ll have to rely on Redstation’s support staff if you need more.
However, the level of support you receive seems to be limited to infrastructure issues. Therefore, if you have any concerns or issues with the software, then most likely you will need to find out for yourself.
The competition
Like Redstation, RapidSwitch is a child of the same company (iomart Group plc) and shares interests with its siblings, mostly a commitment to highly flexible bare metal server solutions. In terms of infrastructure, network, services, features, and support, these hosts are almost a copy of each other (aside from the fact that RapidSwitch’s official website is more sophisticated) so you can’t go wrong with either.
Another brother of Redstation (and RapidSwitch) is Easyspace. However, this sibling is more geared towards newbies compared to the other two, with optional shared hosting, 24/7 live chat support, a free one-year domain, and an easy-to-use website builder. On the other hand, just like its siblings, Easyspace doesn’t offer free trials or a money-back guarantee.
An excellent alternative to Redstation and its family members for beginners and webmasters alike is a fan-popular, beginner-friendly, US-based HostGator. This company has the ability to cover everything from simple blogs to large corporations, all without breaking the bank. That being said, HostGator’s dedicated server solutions are pre-built and not as customizable as those you can get from providers like Redstation and RapidSwitch.
However, if you’re looking for a pocket-friendly shared hosting package with loads of great features, you’ve come to the right place. All of HostGator’s shared hosting plans include free domain registration, free website transfers, free SSL certificate, a tidy sum of one-click installs, HostGator’s own drag-and-drop website builder, and (unlike all hosts mentioned above) have a money-back guarantee that is valid for a pleasantly long interval of 45 days.
A similar set of features with shared hosting plans and great choices for those looking for WordPress-centric, VPS, and dedicated server solutions are available with Bluehost. The money-back guarantee might not be as generous as HostGator’s, but it beats HostGator in terms of security as the free website backups are more customizable and a little less restrictive.
Final verdict
If you are looking for a dedicated server that is assembled and connected the same day the way you want, a secure colocation facility, or world class hosting for a mission critical website, take the risk with Redstation. Plus, they’re as cheap as any provider of this type can get, and you can always start with the cheapest rates and upgrade later.
However, Redstation is by no means aimed at newcomers and does not offer any simpler hosting solutions such as shared or managed WordPress hosting. This can be found at hosts like Bluehost, HostGator, and (if you want to live green, love green, and host green) GreenGeeks.
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