This is why I still build my own. If I can't trip over the power cable it's not my server. Hetzner's auction machines are at least real boxes you can identify. The cloud stuff? I don't trust it.
3 Years Stuck With Contabo – Here's What Actually Happened
petegrid1990
Member
The auction machines are real, I've had two. But their "cloud" line is just Proxmox with a nice jacket. The pricing makes sense once you understand that.
TimeTomas
Member
I run my professor's code on Hetzner Cloud CX11. It's definitely KVM, they don't hide it. The problem is when they do hide it and charge dedicated rates. That's the scam layer.
GuruDeutschlag
Member OP
Exactly, TimeTomas. Hetzner Cloud is honest about being virtual. The issue raised in this thread is about the dedicated tier being possibly virtualised without disclosure. This is a different matter entirely.
dancore
Member
I found a Dell R720 in a dumpster outside a datacenter in Falkenstein. Still had the asset tag from a Hetzner colo. Ran it for two years before the RAID battery died. Best server I ever had.
jane_ffm
Member
Nuremberg. I used to process tickets for a host that did this exact thing. "Dedicated" plans were just fat VMs on a Proxmox cluster. The customers who knew enough to check /proc/cpuinfo were rare. Most just saw the word and paid.
Single mode till I die 💀
In Lyon we have an expression: "vendre du vent." Selling wind. That's exactly what this is. I'm not defending Contabo, but Hetzner isn't innocent either if these accusations are true.
Vive la résistance... électrique
ARM servers make this harder to fake. You can't just KVM an Ampere Altra and pretend it's something else, the topology's too weird. X86 has decades of obfuscation tools.
one small ping for man...
sven
Member
Good point. I had an Ampere box at Hetzner's Nuremberg location, real machine, you could feel the weight. Their x86 "dedicated" line needs more scrutiny though.
So what's the actual move here? If I want real dedicated in Germany, who ships actual hardware? Or do I have to go colo?