I have just moved my Virtual server from Web24 to Linode. I was suffering from pretty much the same IO issues as described here (http://hostingfu.com/article/moved-web24-linode).
Pings/Latency was great at around 35ms from home, but when you were logged into the server sometimes the most basic operation (ls for instance) would take seconds to complete.
So i bit the bullet and went for an overseas VPS from Linode, I went with the Linode 540 which with 540mb RAM, 24Gb Disk and 300Gb network transfer is much more then I need at the moment (All for less then what I was paying for my Australian VPS).
I have to say I am very impressed. Along with my VPS, i get free access to Linode’s DNS servers to host what seems like an unlimited amount of domains. This means I don’t have to worry about Primary/Slave’s and redundant configurations/Bind security issues. Linode also provide an API to access server stats as well as manage DNS configurations, this has allowed me to create some cacti graphs based on Linodes Stats (CPU Load over Time and Network Transfer and Allowance) which I will post later on.
Support is top notch, I had a configuration error on my server (my fault, not theirs) and logged a support ticket at about 11pm on a Saturday night (Australian Time) and within 5 minutes had a response and another 5 minutes after that the entire issue was solved.
So to anyone thinking of getting a VPS for their hosting requirements or as a test server give Linode a go. I cant fault the performance of the box or the services/support offered.
If you are interested please click on the following referral link: