Trying to look at new VPS and i am a terrible decision maker!

Dannymh

Active member
I am looking at a new VPS and have some options to choose between.

Have found a good host in a good datacentre but trying to choose between a few options, I currently host ona VDS of 3 cores, and 3GB ram. I am mostly fine with this but chew through a lot more in higher load times.
My load average is currently sitting at 1.08 but I often peak higher, and I chew RAM especially.
This is a KVM based virtualization too

I am considering between KVM option that has higher RAM and higher CPU than I have now and a Xen based system which has 5 core CPU and 6GB Ram.
whereas the KVM would have 6 core and 6GB ram.

The other difference is the network port for KVM isnt advertised but I suspect 100Mbps whereas the xen server is 1Gpbs

Just wondering if I would be better taking the lower core and same ram on Xen as this seems to be better from what I read and the RAM is usually more dedicated, or if I am better going for the KVM higher specs?

In peak times I can get several thousand people online at the same time this is especially on weekends and it dies off in the week to a much more manageable amount.

Any advice even if it is opinion would be appreciated

Cheers
Dan
 
As far as "dedicated" RAM, either the RAM is there or it's not. Doesn't matter if you use KVM, OpenVZ, Xen, etc. If you have 4GB of RAM assigned to your account, for example, but can only ever use 2GB, it's time for a new provider, not a new virtualization layer.

As far as what you need, that just depends on what exactly you're using. You say you're running your VPS out of RAM. If that's the case, then you definitely need more. If you aren't maxing out your CPU usage, then 5 cores vs. 6 is not really going to make a difference for you.
 
Data center location requirement?
US/ASIA/EU?
How many simultaneous visitors/per seconds?
 
Data center location requirement?
US/ASIA/EU?
How many simultaneous visitors/per seconds?
Needs to be In Australia, preferably Sydney
Concurrent users in peak can be around 2000 sometimes higher, in low points it can be in the 10's. It is the peaks I am planning for as those are the times I need to be up
 
My recommendation is to not use Australian hosting because bandwidth is expensive.
That would be great if my site didnt have its target audience in Australia.

98% of my traffic comes from Australia and primarily Sydney, I hosted in Singapore for a while but the latency made it too slow for users. Paying for bandwidth is fine if it means the service is fast. With that said, its slow for me managing it all the way from Amsterdam
 
98% of my traffic comes from Australia and primarily Sydney, I hosted in Singapore for a while but the latency made it too slow for users. Paying for bandwidth is fine if it means the service is fast. With that said, its slow for me managing it all the way from Amsterdam
I use Digital Ocean/Linode in the US from Western Australia and it is fine(~280ms/~260ms). Especially if you have CloudFlare in front for static content caching.

Because Australian bandwidth pricing alone is literally more expensive than entire VMs from Linode/Digital Ocean.

Note, connectivity from East Coast of Australia to Singapore is actually rather horrible and for some ISPs can result in your traffic going to the USA 1st.
 
That would be great if my site didnt have its target audience in Australia.
98% of my traffic comes from Australia
Same. I host on west coast usa and use a proper CDN (see my sig ;) ). Get better performance and bang for buck than local aus hosting.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Xon
Im looking at mammoth host or networkpresence.com.au
For my centminmod.com geodns latency VPS cluster, I have a few Australian VPSes with ramsomit (Melbourne), cloudshards (Sydney) and dediserve (Sydney) and use mammoth's binarylane for Brisbane VPN server and Vultr VPS for Sydney VPN.

If you're audience is Aussie based and latency matters, then forking out more for Aussie based web host is only way.
 
For my centminmod.com geodns latency VPS cluster, I have a few Australian VPSes with ramsomit (Melbourne), cloudshards (Sydney) and dediserve (Sydney) and use mammoth's binarylane for Brisbane VPN server and Vultr VPS for Sydney VPN.

If you're audience is Aussie based and latency matters, then forking out more for Aussie based web host is only way.
This is my thoughts as well. I am looking at the networkpresence.com.au xen 6 vps, which comes with 1gbps port as well. Its $114 AUD per month which isn't too bad and covers my bandwidth as well. I am just not sure about them. Binary Lane looks interesting and so does Mammoth, you just get less for the buck
 
After doing some research I am happy with the provider I was looking at. I ran some latency tests and all looks good for my main audience. Now there are two packages I need to decide on and i cant seem to make myself just choose one over the other

Package 1
KVM High Power
5 Cores @ 2.5 Ghz Intel Xeon CPUs per core
10GB EEC RAM
120GB SSD
100mbps port
5TB DATA

The one I keep looking at because so many people seem to say XEN is better, for which i am not yet 100% sold on that argument
5 Cores (no mention of speed
6GB RAM
90GB SSD
1gbps port
5TB data

The host reccomends XEN over KVM because they get the full dedicated 6GB ram whereas KVM has a reduced amount apparently due to the way KVM works

Would anyone be able to shed light on these options and what seems the better deal?

Both are identically priced
 
The host reccomends XEN over KVM because they get the full dedicated 6GB ram whereas KVM has a reduced amount apparently due to the way KVM works.

Your host is blowing smoke up your rear end, probably because I'm guessing they only sell XEN? The RAM can be oversold/overcommitted (I'm guessing this might be what they're referring to) in either virtualization. Easily done in both. As opposed to finding a certain virtualization layer to try to avoid this, you need to find an honest host who doesn't overcommit their nodes. 6GB is 6GB is 6GB, no matter how you slice it, and no matter what virtualization layer you use. Either you have 6GB allocated to your VM and available on the node, or you don't. The issue is that many unscrupulous hosts put hundreds or even thousands (oh yes!! I've seen it with my own two eyes!!) of VMs on a node, and overcommit the resources to the point where your 6GB of RAM isn't 6GB at all, because there isn't even that much free memory left on the system. You start running into memory allocation errors and all sorts of nonsense.

As far as performance, KVM will outperform XEN any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Less overhead. OpenVZ will outperform both.

So me personally? I would go with the KVM option. You get more disk space and almost double the RAM. The only downside to that plan is the 100mbps port speed. Most hosts offer 1Gbps these days. That said, most people will also never max out their 100mbps port, so it might really be a moot point. ;)
 
Hello,

Have you tried to optimize what you already have?
Sure there's always the choice of purchasing a better server. But this only makes sense after you tried to optimize everything from bottom to top and the server cannot still handle all the tasks it gets.

Kind regards,
George.
 
Hello,

Have you tried to optimize what you already have?
Sure there's always the choice of purchasing a better server. But this only makes sense after you tried to optimize everything from bottom to top and the server cannot still handle all the tasks it gets.

Kind regards,
George.
What I have runs quite well and is optimised, I dont strictly need to move but am up for renewal in May. My peak season starts in early march through October. So if I have to renew it makes sense to do that now now and move my Server before the season starts and have a few months overlap. It brings me into a timeframe where I can make moves before the season starts each year as well.

I doubt I will stay with my current provider as i can get more for the same price elsewhere and may as well make that move. I also am currently on HDD and I wants to move an SSD system which should improve IO. If I know I am going to move, then I may as well just do that now and in one go.

Dan
 
Top Bottom