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What I learned waiting 14 months for cabinet capacity

Datacenter Talk by carlos2 26 replies 1.4K views
carlos2

Member OP

12 #1

So Contabo told me "Q3 availability" back in May 2025. Q3 came. Went. "Q4 for sure." Then "early Q1." You know how this goes.

The queue position game is real. Every two months I'd email and magically my position "improved" from 47 to 31 to 19. Either people ahead of me kept fleeing, or someone was rolling dice in their NOC.

Phantom "coming soon" space appeared on their site three times. Each time I jumped on it. Each time "sorry, that allocation was just reserved by an existing client."

The reveal: they converted a half-suite to full cabinets. I got in because I threatened to blog the whole saga. Suddenly there was space. Funny how that works.

Bonus: they take XMR now. Which providers take XMR for colo? Still a short list.

What games have you played?

not your keys, not your coins
KE

Member

#2

The "existing client" line is often a placeholder for "we haven't finished the electrical survey yet." Contabo's facility is in a converted textile mill, so I understand the complexity.

CL

Member

#3

14 months is rough I waited 6 for Hetzner once and thought that was bad they kept saying "next month" every month I should have threatened to blog maybe did you actually write the post or just bluff either way smart move

MA

Member

#4

Blog post or not, the real question is why anyone in Southeast Asia would wait 14 months for European cabinet space. Contabo's Singapore DC opened years ago. Did you check there or were you set on Germany for latency reasons?

carlos2

Member OP

#5

Good catch. I needed EU for GDPR client contracts. Singapore would have been instant but wrong legal jurisdiction. The irony is I have VPS in Singapore that took 2 hours to provision.

not your keys, not your coins
bainangerd

Member

#6

Ordnung muss sein, auch im Serverraum. Contabo's Nuremberg facility is literally 20 minutes from my office. The textile mill story checks out. I have seen the loading dock. It is chaotic.

dave39

Member

#7

Secondhand hardware and stubbornness over here. 14 months you could have bought a decommissioned Dell R740 off eBay, racked it in a local Detroit co-lo, and been running before their Q3 turned into Q4 turned into Q1. What is the actual monthly on the cabinet?

carlos2

Member OP

3 #8

€299/month for half-cabinet, 10A. Not terrible, not great. The eBay route crossed my mind but I needed their IP transit mix and DDoS protection for this client. Can't get that in my basement.

not your keys, not your coins
glasgow_tom

Member

#9

Running CS 1.6 servers since 2003. I know waiting. Hetzner's auction servers are where patience actually pays. Snagged a SX134 for €34 that was "2-4 weeks" and arrived in 6 days. Their colo queue though? Never tried, probably never will.

CL

Member

#10

This. Hetzner's cloud and dedicated provisioning is fast because it's automated. Colo is still humans with clipboards walking around Falkenstein. Different world.

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