GeekStorage In 2018: How Would GeekStorage Clients Review Them?

Geek Storage Introduction

Geek Storage is an employee-owned hosting company with an emphasis on high-end hardware, custom software configurations, and expert technical service.

Geek Storage is geared toward Geeks — people who care about getting the most out of their technology.

Services and Specialties

Geek Storage offers an array of shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting plans.

Their shared plans are available in several tiers based on limits to disk space, user accounts, and a few other specific usage items. All of GS’s shared hosting plans offer unlimited bandwidth.

Geek Storage offers seven different VPS configurations, and can accommodate custom requirements as well. They provide specialized tools for easily managing VPS servers. Additionally, they offer three tiers of ongoing server management.

Their managed dedicated plans are highly customizable, with several pre-configured options available.

Datacenters and Technology

Geek Storage operates out of four data centers — 2 in Chicago, one in Las Vegas, and one in Falkenstein, Germany.

Shared hosting plans are run out of one of the two Chicago centers and also from Germany. VPS plans are served out of the same Chicago facility as their shared hosting services. The second Chicago center and the Las Vegas center house their dedicated server accounts.

All four datacenters are housed in state-of-the-art facilities near major internet trunk lines. They all provide multiply-redundant physical and network infrastructure.

Geek Storage uses purpose-built server hardware with high-end processors and Solid State Drives (SSD).

Custom Server Software

Most hosting companies use the same software stack for their Linux shared and VPS hosting plans — one of a handful of Linux distributions (whichever one the owner was most comfortable with in 2003), Apache web server, and MySQL databases.

Geek Storage is run by employee-owners who care about performance and have taken the time to customize their hosting software stack.

They use the CloudLinux distribution for their underlying Operating system. This is distro specifically design for web hosting environments, with improved security and stability. It also offers more flexibility to shared hosting customers. For example — unlike with other Linux distros, each customer on a shared hosting plan can choose their own PHP version.

Rather than the industry standard Apache web server, GS uses the LiteSpeed web server. This is a drop-in replacement for Apache, providing faster, more efficient web service — while still being fully compatible with any software designed to work with Apache.

Finally, instead of MySQL for a database system, Geek Storage uses MariaDB. This is another drop-in replacement for MySQL, developed by a team that includes a number of people who previously worked on MySQL, including its inventor. It is fully compatible, but much faster and with a handful of additional features.

Taken together, this custom software stack improves overall performance and speed a considerable amount, and makes hosting plans more secure and efficient.

Support and Customer Service

Geek Storage offers expert-level customer service and support on a 24/7 basis, primarily via Trouble Ticket and Email. They also have a toll-free phone line, but they steer customers toward their online system.

They also keep customer apprised of any maintenance or emergency issues via their extremely thorough Service Announcements blog.

Finally, they have a rather extensive knowledge base.

Security and Backups

Geek Storage takes security very seriously. Their data centers are extremely secure from a physical plant perspective. Their network is protected by advanced firewalls and anti-virus systems. They use inherently secure operating systems and other hosting software.

Automated backups are available as part of several managed hosting plans. For self-managed customers, automated backups can be set up from the hosting control panel.

Guarantees

Geek Storage provides several guarantees:

• 99.99% uptime
• 30-day money back
• 100% Satisfaction

The uptime guarantee is subject to the usual exclusions:

• GS is not responsible for downtime caused by customer activity or negligence
• GS is not responsible for downtime caused by third-party providers
• scheduled maintenance does not count against downtime

Costs and Payment Policies

Geek Storage hosting plans are surprisingly affordable.

Shared hosting plans are about average with standard, major market hosting providers that are typically using inferior technology. VPS plans are actually less expensive than comparable plans from the big-box providers.

Summary and Conclusions

Geek Storage is a high-quality hosting company offering a unique service at a relatively low price point.

Bloggers and small businesses would do well to start with Geek Storage. Small traffic sites may not notice enough performance benefit to justify moving to Geek Storage from one of the more popular providers, but if they are choosing a hosting company for a new project this is one of a small handful of really excellent options.

The biggest benefits of GS’s approach would be realized by PHP app developers and large publishers. Anyone building a large WordPress based site or a web app based on one of several PHP development frameworks should consider Geek Storage.