If anyone out there is looking for inexpensive colocation space in Minneapolis, I’ve got a half-rack at ipHouse which I’m using to host my gear, and am looking for other people who want 1U of space for $50/mo, including bandwidth (assuming fairly low usage). If you’re interested, give me a shout at colo at natecarlson dot com.
I’m afraid that I’m no longer able to offer colocation space in Minneapolis. In addition, I’ve had a lot of trouble finding providers that offer reasonable pricing for a 1U server with a modest amount of bandwidth.
I’ll include some quick reviews of companies I’ve either done business with or considered doing business with, all outside the Minneapolis metro area. If you sign up with any of these, I’d appreciate you letting me know that I sent you!
Companies that I currently have servers with (As of 2009/Nov/02, in order of when I purchased service):
Waveform Technologies: Waveform is located in Troy, Michigan. They have upstreams via XO and Level3. The only issues I have had is that the network segment I am on (“Single Server” segment) seems to be quite vulnerable to DDoS — I have not had a DDoS focused on my server, but there have been a few times where my server had a complete outage while another customer was being DDoS’d. Often their internal monitors do not catch it right away, as it is not necessarily a “hard down”, but they have always mitigated the issue quickly once contacted. Their engineers are great to work with. No user-accessible graphs, control panel, etc that I am aware of. They were willing to stub out reverse DNS to my servers, which is a big bonus for me. I have a 100mbit uplink to them; under normal circumstances, I can max it out with no issues.
Sharedlayer: Sharedlayer’s data center that I colocate in is located in Dallas, Texas. They are in the Cologuys suite of the Infomart building. Upstreams via Global Crossing, Level3, and possibly others. Still seems to be a company being built up; IE, the customer-facing control panels have been changed multiple times, support and invoicing systems have changed multiple times, etc. I have also had a few network issues with them.. one major outage happened at the Cologuys layer, but I have also had issues where the link between Cologuys and Sharedlayer has been maxed (capacity has apparently been increased on said links), and one issue where the link between their core and the switch in my rack was overloaded (due to a DDoS of someone else in the rack.) All in all, they have also been quite good; IP pricing is excellent, and they also are able to lease control panel software at reasonable rates. 100mbit link; under normal circumstances, I can max it out with no issues.
Continuum: Continuum is located in the Chicago area. My server just arrived there today (2009/Nov/02), so I have not had time to do tests yet. However, all the reviews I have read of them have been excellent, and the owner seems to be quite sharp. I will update this once the server has been online for awhile.
Companies that I have previously done business with:
Servondemand: Michigan area. Please see my review at Web Hosting Talk.
Companies that I have heard good things about, in no particular order, and not all-inclusive by any means:
Gigenet: Chicago area, high quality, high price.
Joe’s Data Center: Kansas City; cheap, decent quality. I’ve been tempted many times, but Cogent is a turn-off for me.
Ubiquity: Locations all over; I’ve also almost set up servers with Ubiquity many times. The biggest downside for me is the IP cost.
Uberbandwidth: Asheville, NC; bandwidth trunked via Atlanta. Everything I’ve heard is great. $3.99/mbit high-quality bandwidth. Downside for me is the cost for IP space.
If none of these providers fit your needs, I highly recommend researching providers at Web Hosting Talk.