We're looking to leave Linode as we're tired of dealing with IOPS and cpu slowdowns due to sharing the interface with our vps neighbors. We tried looking at other vps options but we now think we'll need to go dedicated after all. The hope is we can get a ~$100 a month server that can host multiple sites of ours, instead of a vps for each one.
Curious what folks have been using in this price range? We've noticed a lot of host's in this range offer really, really old server hardware, but there are a few that give more modern hardware. We are concerned primarily about single-threaded performance. Our current VPS runs us on an Epyc 7642 which has decent single threaded performance (2131 on Passmark), so we hoped to at least match this if possible.
Ultimately we came up with this shortlist:
1) Knownhost - very dated hardware (circa 2013 Xeon E5-2680v2, 1790 Passmark SC, 10c/20t, 32GB ram) but solid support options across the board at least for VPS users. Unknown if dedi is the same? $119 a month for our required storage and ram configuration. Storage in particular is quite expensive.
2) IONOS - slightly newer hardware (circa 2017 Xeon 1270v6, 2484 single core Passmark, 4c/8t, 32gb ram), but less customization and higher cost especially after the promo pricing. They also charge a $50 setup fee which is annoying as we can't easily order one for a month to see how it performs. We can't add a high capacity hard drive to the config. $130/month after promo pricing $20 discount for 3 months
3) Interserver. This is a weird one. I have trouble finding a lot of folks that have even heard of this host, let alone used them. They have a ton of customization options and we were able to configure a test server with way more than the rest were offering. Unknown customer support. Their sales team was hit and miss as was their vps support, but their dedicated support seems to be a different team and in a 1 month test I've not had issues. They even caught a config choice I made that wasn't optimal (wrong raid software config that needlessly increased CPU overhead), and suggested I approve a fix for it before provisioning. Very new hardware but using a desktop chip (circa 2020 Ryzen 5600X 6c/12t with 64gb ECC ram, 3352 Passmark, nvme boot drive), $100/month including our ideal storage solution. Notably their storage is super cheap, 2tb data drive for just $5 a month makes a data drive in raid 1 super viable. Curious if anyone's had experience with their dedi team?
4) Hivelocity. I've heard good things about them but again like Knownhost it's mostly VPS reviews. They have a dedicated option with newer hardware (circa 2019 Xeon E-2236, 6c/12t, 32gb ram, nvme boot drive, 2841 Passmark), but they don't offer software raid which is annoying and their properly configured hardware raid is $50/month...also their storage, especially HDD data storage, is stupidly expensive compared to other options. $119 a month but notably no OS raid 1 at this price. Can improve pricing with a long term commitment but we don't like that. Coming from linode, we prefer flexibility to pick up and go if we ever need to without worrying about too much in lost funds.
We'd be using an S3 compatible bucket to self-mamage our backups, so keep in mind we aren't relying on raid as a backup, just want to ensure as much redundancy as we can to avoid disruptions in service. That said, we'd absolutely prefer redundancy vs no redundancy...Any other host's I should consider in this price range? Right now based on pricing an customization options, it's between Interserver and Hivelocity, but customer support is also important and that's a bit of an unknown for both in the dedi space. Both have been around a long, long time with 20+ years in business. Any experience with these?
terrahost.com
