Fascinated by cheap French dedis, I was interested in offers outside of the OVH/Online duo and decided to take a look at Digicube.fr Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any relatively recent review, so I decided to give them a try myself.
(okay inklight posted one just a while ago but I ordered before that so I thought I'd post my story anyway)
From reviews that I could find, people were mostly critical about their support and network. Also the fact that they require written confirmation (ie snail mail) of a number of things, including if you wish to cancel.
I decided to try their cheapest 1Gbps offer:
Athlon II X2 240
8GB RAM
2x 1TB drives (I configured them in RAID1 during order)
1Gbps unmetered with 250Mbps guarantee (note that this 250Mbps is shared across all your servers)
22.21 €/mo (paid monthly, discounts apply for longer contract terms)
The website is completely French, as well as the control panel, but looks like support will answer in English. So be prepared to use translation if you're not familiar with French.
Order Process
The order process was fairly standard - nothing particularly surprising here. I connected via a US proxy whilst using an Australian billing address / credit card, and noted that they display the country you're connecting from. However this showed "N/A" so maybe that feature isn't working for them.
Payments can be made via CC or Wire Transfer. I selected CC.
Credit card payments are done via an external processor: webpayment.citelis.fr which also requires "CC verification" (eg verified by Visa)
Interestingly, despite the summary (at Digicube) showing a charge of 22.21€, I only got charged 1€. Initially I thought this might be due to a pro-rata like Online.net, but it doesn't quite work out (1€ would be a bit over a day, but there was about 6 left in Jan when I ordered) Not sure what this amount is about.
After going through the payment provider, I got redirected back to the following URL: http://ift.tt/1yYqjcL which is a 404... Not exactly reassuring, but my CC got charged the 1€. Didn't receive any emails, so tried logging into the panel, which showed (via Google Translate)
This order was not completed because you have not completed the payment process. It will not be considered.
I went back to the payment provider which confirmed that payment was made. Retried the "return to online shop" link and got sent to the same 404 page.
There's no "complete order" link or similar from the page, so looks like I have to take this up with support.
Filed a support ticket with English and a French translation from Google Translate, which included a screenshot of the payment processor page to show that payment was indeed successful.
I got an email when I opened the ticket, so at least I knew now that Digicube emails weren't being blocked / marked as spam.
Support responded about 11 hours later, in English, saying that they had issues, and fixed the order.
Server was delivered at the same time. No further verification requested or charges put down.
Got an email advising that the server was delivered, but no emails about charges or receipts.
Update: it looks like the full amount (22.21€, hence no pro-rata) has now been charged to the credit card now - not exactly sure when, but it seems within 24 hours of setting up the server. As above, no notification emails about charges or receipts - a little worrying.
Setup Process
I logged into the control panel, and it asked me what OS to install and what RAID to use - didn't I give this info during the order? Oh well. Options presented were Debian 7 32/64 bit, CentOS 7 64 bit and Ubuntu 14.04 64 bit. For the Debian/Ubuntu options, there's also a checkbox labeled "Advanced Installation via ssh" - unsure what that was, but decided to tick it anyway. Next to the RAID option, there is a note: "RAID - For Debian Wheezy and Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty, choose Advanced install ssh to configure the disks" - it looks like you can setup custom RAID setups via the Debian installer.
After selecting the options, details to login via SSH were provided. After logging in, I got presented with the installer (which I presume is what the "advanced install" checkbox does). Unfortunately, this is configured in French, but easily fixed if you select the second option (one with "expert" in it), or if you selected the first, press Esc and "choose language".
This just looks like the standard Debian 7 net installer.
Installation completed in around 15 minutes.
Details & Benchmarks
Note that the disk is an ext4 partition, default settings, on a software RAID1 across both drives.
/proc/cpuinfo: http://ift.tt/1yYqgNV
lshw: http://ift.tt/15I2DNz
smartctl for both disks: http://ift.tt/1yYqgO1
Some openssl speed tests: http://ift.tt/15I2GJ9
ServerBear: http://ift.tt/1yYqjsZ
Network speed tests: http://ift.tt/15I2E3Y
Things seem decent, except that the network seems a little poor for 1Gbps / 250Mbps guaranteed. I would presume that their 100Mbps servers probably won't notice any issues.
Control Panel
Here's a screenshot of the main page with annotations: http://ift.tt/1yYqjt3
Cancellation
When you use the cancellation link on the side, it sends you to a page where you can get a PDF to, presumably, print off, fill in and mail. There's also a note at the top of the page (via Google):
To cancel a server, thank you to send mail with return receipt to Digicube.
In accordance with the terms and conditions, your machine will be disabled 30 days after receipt of mail.
To help advance the quality of our services, thank you to indicate on the mail in the area indicated the reason for your résilisation.
I haven't tried cancelling yet, but since they want 30 days' notice, I'll try soon. It'll be interesting to see if they don't mind me doing so with a bit less than 30 days notice (then again, it's February's fault for only having 28 days =P).
Considering how everything's done so far, my guess is that they automatically charge your linked CC when a payment is due and don't give you any email notification before or after the fact. I presume the Renewal link in the Control Panel allows you to renew ahead of time. Note that you can also unlink your CC by going to the payment processor, although the CC info is still listed at Digicube.
Conclusion
If you're patient, looking for a cheap French server, willing to put up with a French website (or you known French), and a few niggles here and there, it seems to be a decent server except for the network speed. My main concerns would be:
- you need to cancel 30 days in advance
- lack of email notifications
If there's any questions I can help with / things you want me to try on this server, reply and I'll see what I can do.
http://ift.tt/1dvHQ0Z
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