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FastMail Forum All posts relating to FastMail.FM should go here: suggestions, comments, requests for help, complaints, technical issues etc. |
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11 Nov 2005, 11:55 PM | #1 |
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Hurricane, WV
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Second Thoughts on Bailing
I'm having second thoughts on bailing from FastMail. Everyone screws up once in a while, no matter how thoroughly the plan is to avoid it.
Yes, I am frustrated I can't access my email. Yes, I think a better system should have been in place to avoid this fiasco. Yes, I think enhanced users are getting screwed with the restore process. After having cooled down from my initial rage and frustration however, I realize these guys have done a great job overall with this email service. I sense they will be EVEN BETTER and MUCH more reliable as a result of this incident. As frustrated as I am, I am sure it is only a fraction of the frustration the FastMail guys are experiencing right now. So, I don't think I'll bail anytime soon. I believe I'll just wait and see what comes of this "learning opportunity" for the Fast Mail folks. CS |
11 Nov 2005, 11:57 PM | #2 | |
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Re: Second Thoughts on Bailing
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12 Nov 2005, 12:11 AM | #3 |
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Location: Guildford, UK
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Sitting in the middle
I'm not bailing per se, but I've arranged my email in a better way now to compensate for any future downtime on FastMail's part.
I'm just lucky that I'm able to do this, and have the technical knowledge to understand DNS and MX records and domain management etc. God help the FM users that are relying on x@fastmail.fm and are going to be totally screwed if they're on server 4 for the next 2 days. Again - here's hoping a realisation that redundancy is not up to what it should be from FM. |
12 Nov 2005, 12:14 AM | #4 | |
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Re: Second Thoughts on Bailing
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12 Nov 2005, 12:19 AM | #5 | |
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Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
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Re: Re: Second Thoughts on Bailing
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Generally, I agree with CyberSaint. Simon |
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12 Nov 2005, 12:26 AM | #6 |
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Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: London, England
Posts: 72
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Someone described FastMail as a "sandbox for nerds" earlier - which seems about right to me at this moment in time. It appears that a lot of us are paying $39.95-per-year to allow the nerds to experiment.
All I have to say is that I'm utterly flabbergasted at the incompetence of said nerds. |
12 Nov 2005, 12:28 AM | #7 | |
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Quote:
...i said it for good reason! |
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12 Nov 2005, 12:28 AM | #8 |
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Join Date: Nov 2005
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afraid
I'm just very afraid that after we wait out these 72 hours, we awake on monday morning to hear that the raid itself is fried and that they need to restore again to a different system. it is very unfortunate that their system only queues our incoming mail and can't also autoforward it to a backup account for us.
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12 Nov 2005, 01:42 AM | #9 |
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 26
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I'm bailing. No doubt. I think that there are more services out there that did not exist when I was researching fastmail and signed up 3 years ago. It's time to move on.
Anyone know of a service that will allow me to host my own domain, check pop accounts and have a powerful web interface? I found one called fusemail. It looks interesting. I think I'm going to try the demo. Any other services out there?? I don't care what it costs. |
12 Nov 2005, 02:30 AM | #10 |
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Join Date: Nov 2005
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There is no other global email provider out there that offers the kinds of features fastmail offers. Period. I have four domains pointed at my fastmail account, and I also use a number of fastmail aliases. Their alias system is brilliant and it's not found anywhere else. When it works, it's really slick.
When it doesn't work, it's really frustrating... and shows that they are still a small company, trying to grow. Nothing has changed on the reliability front in several years... two years ago, I remember all the same old discussions. I've been with fastmail for about three years now, and I'm not gonna bail on them right now. I like the features. But... For my primary mail account - my most important email - I just signed up with Yahoo Mail, however. If you own your own domain it's only $10 a year and no one beats Yahoo Mail reliability, not even GMail. But it will still take up to 24 to 48 hours for the DNS changes to propagate around the world and accept the switch from Fastmail to Yahoo. Since fastmail isn't accepting my domain's email right now, it doesn't matter that much either way... I will continue to use Fastmail for my "fun" accounts, and many of the domain email addresses I use that aren't critical. I will still renew my Enhanced account when it comes due, too. I like the features too much to cancel. But for my primary email, it's got to be somewhere more reliable. For another $20 on Yahoo I can get 2Gb of storage too. So in the end I'll be using *both* Fastmail and Yahoo, and my annual costs have almost doubled... [sigh]. But we gotta look after ourselves, email is too important nowadays. |
12 Nov 2005, 02:40 AM | #11 |
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Yahoo is notoriously slow, not even being able to get mail from one Yahoo account to another, depending on time sent. Though I have not noted any major outages in the last few years, delays are often the norm. Their spam filters suck as well. I keep several email accounts, including AOL, so that I can get AOL mail from AOL members without delay.
I came here from @mac, which was dreadfuly expensive, and their system seemed to update every morning, sometimes for a few hours, so I couldn't look at what came in overnight until noon. As I have mentioned, as well as you, all of these issues have come up before. It would be simple to allow those who are afraid to let them have a choice of moving to another server. It is ALL a server 4 issue, IMNSHO. |
12 Nov 2005, 03:11 AM | #12 | |
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Quote:
Buy bye fastmail! |
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12 Nov 2005, 05:11 AM | #13 |
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I'm not on the affected server but I agree this is unacceptable. I renewed recently but wouldn't have if I knew this was their definition of reliable. A fried drive should not result in 45 hours of downtime. Well 45 is the latest figure, it keeps changing. The amount of time to fix a lost server also shouldn't be a complete mystery to those running the service.
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12 Nov 2005, 05:42 AM | #14 | |
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Quote:
Jeff |
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12 Nov 2005, 06:10 AM | #15 |
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Location: USA
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I renewed back in August (whatever the <$20/year plan is called). Next year, no way.
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