Data Center Uptime Rates and Major Outages in the United States (2023–2024)

In this article, we will examine some surprisingly low uptime issues experienced by certain data center operators in the United States during 2023–2024 and explore the reasons behind them.

Our goal is to provide you with a solid foundation for understanding what to look out for when choosing the right hosting or data center service provider.

During the period reviewed, the uptime performance of some companies was particularly concerning:

Alarmingly Low Uptime Rates:

• GeekStorage (~72.6%): One of the companies with the lowest uptime rates on the list. This rate means being unavailable for nearly a quarter of the year. Frequent and severe infrastructure failures throughout 2023 were the primary reason for this low rate. hrank.com 
• CentrioHost (~77.6%): This Bangladesh-based company operating data centers in the US experienced far more frequent outages than claimed. User reports indicated frequent downtime. Hrank.com  
• Hostek (~78.9%): Came into the spotlight due to a planned data center migration that went out of control. A planned 6-hour maintenance window for moving servers in St. Louis resulted in an approximately 40-hour outage due to unexpected issues webhostingtalk.com. Such lengthy outages significantly lowered the annual average.
• HostColor (~84.6%): A planned 8-12 hour outage during an infrastructure migration at its Indiana facility lowered its annual uptime rate to this level (referenced via hrank.com . 
• Servage (~90.8%): Was unavailable for nearly 10% of the year. The company, known for past issues with DDoS attacks and server problems, continued to experience reliability issues hrank.com . 
• Contabo (~99.4%): This German-based provider of low-cost VPS and servers also operates in US locations. However, during a maintenance operation in 2023, it caused an outage lasting over 24 hours without prior notice to customers (referenced via reddit.com . More importantly, Contabo's Service Level Agreement (SLA) only guarantees 95% uptime, meaning they consider up to approximately 18 days of downtime per year acceptable. This makes Contabo a risky choice for critical workloads.

Even though they generally maintain high uptime rates, the major players were not immune to significant outages:

• Rackspace (~94-96% Estimated - Affected Service): A ransomware attack starting in December 2022 and lasting into early 2023 crippled its Hosted Exchange email service for weeks This incident highlighted the critical importance of disaster recovery plans. Rackspace attempted to mitigate the issue by migrating customers to Microsoft 365. 
• DreamHost: Experienced an "impossible" scenario in November 2023 at its Oregon data center: both primary and backup power systems failed simultaneously (referenced via. As a result, thousands of websites were inaccessible for approximately 12 hours (referenced via. This incident showed that even the best redundancy measures can sometimes fail under unexpected circumstances.
• Microsoft Azure: On January 25, 2023, a global network configuration error caused Azure services (including Microsoft 365, Teams, Outlook) to be inaccessible for about 5 hours. This demonstrated how even cloud giants can be vulnerable to network issues.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): On June 13, 2023, a network outage occurred in one of the busiest US regions, North Virginia (us-east-1), lasting approximately 2 hours. Services like Lambda and EKS experienced increased error rates, affecting many large customers. Although AWS's overall annual uptime remained very high (around 99.98%), such regional outages can still cause significant disruption.
• Oracle Cloud (OCI): Experienced a cooling system failure at a data center in the Ashburn (US-East) region in June 2023, affecting multiple services.
• Cloudflare: A utility power failure at a critical Portland data center on November 2, 2023, where backup systems also failed to engage, caused service disruptions. While Cloudflare's intelligent routing capabilities mitigated the broader impact, the event underscored the importance of physical infrastructure. 
• Google Cloud: A fire at a European data center in April 2023 impacted cloud services in the region. While this didn't directly impact the US, it showed how global providers can be affected by regional disasters. 
• OVHcloud: A brief but severe global BGP routing error in October 2024 also reminded everyone of the critical role of network infrastructure. 

No matter how much we rely on technology, 2023-2024 clearly showed us the fragility of the digital world. Even giant hosting companies and cloud providers in the US experienced unexpected outages. This underscores the fact that even the most advanced hardware and management systems cannot guarantee 100% uninterrupted operation. So, we shouldn't fall into the comfort of thinking, "it won't happen to me."

Whether you're managing your own personal blog or heading a large-budget project built on massive servers, one truth remains constant: the security of your data and the survival of your projects primarily depend on your diligence and the precautions you take. While your provider's ambitious claims like "we provide 99.9% uptime" or "your data is safe with us" might sound reassuring, you wouldn't want to leave your business entirely to chance, would you? Real control should always remain with you.

Especially if you earn income from your online projects, tracking your website's real-time status (Website monitoring) or regularly checking your servers' health (Server monitoring) isn't a luxury, but rather a necessity. Remember, early detection saves lives in the digital world too! The sooner you notice a problem, the better your chances of overcoming a potential crisis quickly and with minimal damage.