I have had my Helium plan for about a month now and figured I would share my experiences...
The initial deployment of my slot was almost instant. However, it was an obviously automated system, so this is to be expected.
Setup of apps is a bit clunky as most everything needs to be installed via SSH. This may be an issue for those uncomfortable in a non-GUI environment... That being said, their list of FAQ/Tutorials is quite extensive, covering just about anything you could want. These tutorials include copy/paste-able commands for just about every step needed, which makes it rather simple... Tho it makes me wonder why they don't just put those same commands in a script and call it a day...
Also, the tutorials seem to have been submitted by different people, with different writing/coding styles. It's not a big deal really, just interesting from a coder's perspective. Seeing different styles presented in a single library of docs, makes one yearn for some standardization.
Once I had everything set up, my initial thought was over the download speed... OMG it's FAST! .. Watching massive hundred gig torrents arrive in a matter of minutes when previously (at home) it would some times take several hours to days... I was totally blown away! .. And most of the normal stuff I grab is done before I can even find it in the list of torrents!
Upload speeds are a different matter... At first I assumed my issue was the people I was connected to.. However, reading other's comments here I have begun to wonder... I see many torrents waiting to be seeded, showing there are peers wanting my files, but never seem to connect. And when they do finally connect they just creep along... But hey, at least I can leave the torrents up for weeks now, right?
Another nice thing is the HD space is not locked down! .. I accidentally grabbed a torrent which put me over my "limit" by a couple hundred gigs. Rather then shutting me down, or blocking this torrent from writing, things continued to operate normally. Further more, I only received automated emails, daily, reminding me that I was over limit and asking me to take care of it "as soon as possible".. A couple days later I finally cleared enough stuff to bring my usage down and all was good... That being said, at the time I only shared my 8TB drive with 2 others. But now, I share it with 7. So if this happened today, I would be "borrowing" space from someone else >.>...
As for issues.. So far I have had 3 incidents that warranted a ticket! Furthermore, all interaction I have had on tickets has been with the same person.. First, the HD I was on turned to read-only mode! I put in a ticket. The next day it had "magically" fixed itself and stuff was working again. Tho there had been no response to my ticket.. Then, later that same day everything went down again. This time I wasn't even able to connect via SSH to see what was up. So I put in a second ticket. 45 minutes later I got a response, to my previous ticket, saying they were going to move me to a new box (more on that in a moment)... 10 days later I was again unable to access any of my apps. After several attempts, I was finally able to lag (yes, I said lag with an A) into the box via SSH. I found several people had processes running that were eating the CPU like crazy. The response from the rep arrived 45 minutes later, but the issue had self rectified by that point.
Other then these issues, everything else has been smooth sailing.. I have now had about 3 weeks of great, uninterrupted service.
I feel it pertinent to highlight the box changing/file moving process as well. As this same process is apparently undertaken if you decide to "upgrade" your plan.. First, they create a folder on your new box. They then dump a copy of all your old box's files and folders here.. They provide a link to a "status" page, however even hours after all my files were done copying, this page still said the copy process was ongoing.. Once all your stuff is copied over, it is then -your- responsibility to re-setup and re-configure all your apps, as if you had just signed up for mew service.. Due to the way they have their drives set up, you -cannot- simply move all your files back into their respective locations and expect stuff to work right. This is because the full paths of all your files have changed. For example, your files may have previously been at /media/qq2z7/USERNAME, but are now at /media/88ar5/USERNAME/. And sadly, the apps tend to use the full paths, rather then user-relative paths... So this is a bit of a pain.
You should also be weary of the username you choose to use! .. While others cannot see what you have inside your folder, the folder itself is your username and that is visible to -everyone- on your box!
All in all, I am content with the service. Especially for the price! .. I do however think I will look at other options out there when it comes time to upgrade to a plan with more HD space. After all, if I have to setup from scratch again anyway.... Perhaps a VPS, or a dedi box, something where I know the resources are mine to do with as I please, and no one else will be stepping on my toes!
The initial deployment of my slot was almost instant. However, it was an obviously automated system, so this is to be expected.
Setup of apps is a bit clunky as most everything needs to be installed via SSH. This may be an issue for those uncomfortable in a non-GUI environment... That being said, their list of FAQ/Tutorials is quite extensive, covering just about anything you could want. These tutorials include copy/paste-able commands for just about every step needed, which makes it rather simple... Tho it makes me wonder why they don't just put those same commands in a script and call it a day...
Also, the tutorials seem to have been submitted by different people, with different writing/coding styles. It's not a big deal really, just interesting from a coder's perspective. Seeing different styles presented in a single library of docs, makes one yearn for some standardization.
Once I had everything set up, my initial thought was over the download speed... OMG it's FAST! .. Watching massive hundred gig torrents arrive in a matter of minutes when previously (at home) it would some times take several hours to days... I was totally blown away! .. And most of the normal stuff I grab is done before I can even find it in the list of torrents!
Upload speeds are a different matter... At first I assumed my issue was the people I was connected to.. However, reading other's comments here I have begun to wonder... I see many torrents waiting to be seeded, showing there are peers wanting my files, but never seem to connect. And when they do finally connect they just creep along... But hey, at least I can leave the torrents up for weeks now, right?
Another nice thing is the HD space is not locked down! .. I accidentally grabbed a torrent which put me over my "limit" by a couple hundred gigs. Rather then shutting me down, or blocking this torrent from writing, things continued to operate normally. Further more, I only received automated emails, daily, reminding me that I was over limit and asking me to take care of it "as soon as possible".. A couple days later I finally cleared enough stuff to bring my usage down and all was good... That being said, at the time I only shared my 8TB drive with 2 others. But now, I share it with 7. So if this happened today, I would be "borrowing" space from someone else >.>...
As for issues.. So far I have had 3 incidents that warranted a ticket! Furthermore, all interaction I have had on tickets has been with the same person.. First, the HD I was on turned to read-only mode! I put in a ticket. The next day it had "magically" fixed itself and stuff was working again. Tho there had been no response to my ticket.. Then, later that same day everything went down again. This time I wasn't even able to connect via SSH to see what was up. So I put in a second ticket. 45 minutes later I got a response, to my previous ticket, saying they were going to move me to a new box (more on that in a moment)... 10 days later I was again unable to access any of my apps. After several attempts, I was finally able to lag (yes, I said lag with an A) into the box via SSH. I found several people had processes running that were eating the CPU like crazy. The response from the rep arrived 45 minutes later, but the issue had self rectified by that point.
Other then these issues, everything else has been smooth sailing.. I have now had about 3 weeks of great, uninterrupted service.
I feel it pertinent to highlight the box changing/file moving process as well. As this same process is apparently undertaken if you decide to "upgrade" your plan.. First, they create a folder on your new box. They then dump a copy of all your old box's files and folders here.. They provide a link to a "status" page, however even hours after all my files were done copying, this page still said the copy process was ongoing.. Once all your stuff is copied over, it is then -your- responsibility to re-setup and re-configure all your apps, as if you had just signed up for mew service.. Due to the way they have their drives set up, you -cannot- simply move all your files back into their respective locations and expect stuff to work right. This is because the full paths of all your files have changed. For example, your files may have previously been at /media/qq2z7/USERNAME, but are now at /media/88ar5/USERNAME/. And sadly, the apps tend to use the full paths, rather then user-relative paths... So this is a bit of a pain.
You should also be weary of the username you choose to use! .. While others cannot see what you have inside your folder, the folder itself is your username and that is visible to -everyone- on your box!
All in all, I am content with the service. Especially for the price! .. I do however think I will look at other options out there when it comes time to upgrade to a plan with more HD space. After all, if I have to setup from scratch again anyway.... Perhaps a VPS, or a dedi box, something where I know the resources are mine to do with as I please, and no one else will be stepping on my toes!
Figyelem! Szexuális ragadozók az nCore-on! Kattints a képre!
I think this is very misleading. You can install the main torrent applications from Feral's Manager page. MySQL, Rtorrent, Deluge, Transmission, OpenVPN. One of the nicest things is you can even use more than one torrent client at a time on Feral.
It's true you need to install other things from SSH but many installs are as easy as cutting and pasting scripts. autodl for instance is like that. Plus if you really can't or don't want to learn to use the command line, you can always make a ticket and feral staff will install things for you. Personally, I think if people can't or won't use SSH at all, they probably don't need more advanced programs on their boxes.
Figyelem! Szexuális ragadozók az nCore-on! Kattints a képre!