I don't have answer to you question, just a few notes about another low cost proder - Hetzner:
* They have RAID by default
* They have private network included now (vSwitch)
Drawbacks from my expirience:
* You have to monitor hardware by yourself (SMART, CPU and HDD temperature) and requests checks if you suspect hardware failure
* Decreased flexibility (curretly Hetzner have limited cloud support, but it's very limited). Probably doesn't matter for most startups.
* More manual work for administration (provided services are more low level)
Drawbacks from my expirience: * You have to monitor hardware by yourself (SMART, CPU and HDD temperature) and requests checks if you suspect hardware failure * Decreased flexibility (curretly Hetzner have limited cloud support, but it's very limited). Probably doesn't matter for most startups. * More manual work for administration (provided services are more low level)