I am still a fan of Linode and have been enjoying a recent boost in network transfer speeds on my faithful VPS. Linode have also supported a number of YAPC::NA conferences, and I really appreciate that.
In the mean time, I set up one DigitalOcean Droplet with which I have been very happy. DigitalOcean have also been offering discounts via ny.pm. I had a few interactions with their support staff who reply immediately and satisfy requests with amazing speed.
Then, I ran into a 42% off promotion RamNode is currently offering.
42% and ν42 … Hmmmmmm …
It was as if Mr. Adams was personally sending me a sign. That sounded crazy reasonable to me, and I decided to give it a shot. I needed a little test bed anyway. I went with a cached OpenVZ/CVZ-E5 option with 256MB memory, 90GB disk space, and 1000GB bandwidth limit. I didn’t want to worry about running out of disk space:
For the operating system template, I went with the 32-bit minimal Centos 6 option to reduce memory requirements and initial clutter. yum update worked out of the box which I was able to log on to fully 12 seconds after clicking the last submit button in the checkout process. That was before they received my payment. Nice.
The VPS has been on for only a few hours so far, so I cannot comment on anything long term. But, for ease of signup and setup, RamNode certainly deserve an A.
Worth a look.