ServerMania’s New SSD Cached Linux VPS Review

I bought a 2GB RAM VPS at the Los Angeles Data Center with the following specifications:

2GB RAM VPS specifications:
• 2 GB Guaranteed RAM
• 2 GB vSwap RAM
• 100 GB SSD RAID-10
• 4 IP Addresses
• 3000 GB Bandwidth
• 100 Mbps Network Speed

The price is $56 per year

Here is a quick review of the various parameters of the VPS (the VPS is empty as of now):

To check the load on the VPS and whether it is oversold:

root@xyz:~# top
top - 07:18:00 up 26 days,  6:35,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks:  32 total,   1 running,  31 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  0.0 us,  0.0 sy,  0.0 ni,100.0 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:   2097152 total,   175192 used,  1921960 free,        0 buffers
KiB Swap:  2097152 total,    28172 used,  2068980 free,    69944 cached

  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S  %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
    1 root      20   0 24168 1572  896 S   0.0  0.1   0:17.28 init
    2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd/3094
    3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 khelper/3094
   95 root      20   0 17192  440  340 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 upstart-udev-br
  126 root      20   0 50008 1120 1008 S   0.0  0.1   1:15.52 sshd
  129 root      20   0 21532  772  664 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 udevd
  163 messageb  20   0 23768  528  360 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 dbus-daemon
  167 root      20   0 21528  296  252 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 udevd
  168 root      20   0 21528  296  252 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 udevd
  228 root      20   0 15148  320  216 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 upstart-socket-
  364 postfix   20   0 44264 2720 2136 S   0.0  0.1   0:00.00 smtp
  367 postfix   20   0 27168 1648 1360 S   0.0  0.1   0:00.00 bounce
  368 root      20   0 17560 1376 1040 R   0.0  0.1   0:00.00 top
  525 root      20   0 14932  740  732 S   0.0  0.0   0:00.00 xinetd
  534 root      20   0 19072  840  720 S   0.0  0.0   0:01.96 cron
  567 syslog    20   0 12712  744  616 S   0.0  0.0   1:21.79 syslogd
  592 bind      20   0  234m 4772 2156 S   0.0  0.2   0:00.54 named

To check the RAM usage:

root@xyz:~# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2048        170       1877          0          0         68
-/+ buffers/cache:        102       1945
Swap:         2048         27       2020
root@xyz:~# ^C

Lets see the CPU processor:

root@xyz:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 60
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v3 @ 3.50GHz
stepping        : 3
cpu MHz         : 2188.125
cache size      : 8192 KB
cpu cores       : 4

Lets see how fast the disk is (I/O):

root@xyz:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 2.5785 s, 416 MB/s

Checking the download speed of the VPS using wget:

root@xyz:~# wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2014-07-05 07:20:28--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `100mb.test'

100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 84.7M/s   in 1.2s

2014-07-05 07:20:29 (84.7 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]

Checking the Upload & Download Speeds using the python tool:

root@xyz:~# python speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from B2 Net Solutions (23.236.252.34)...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by Internode (Los Angeles, CA) [1.21 km]: 6.676 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 884.02 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 139.96 Mbits/s
root@xyz:~#

All-in-one-test using the automated script:

root@xyz:~# bash bench.sh
CPU model :    Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1270 v3 @ 3.50GHz
Number of cores : 2
CPU frequency : 500.000 MHz
Total amount of ram : 2048 MB
Total amount of swap : 2048 MB
System uptime :   26 days, 6:56,
Download speed : (93.1MB/s)
I/O speed : 370MB/s
root@xyz:~#

There is some discrepancy in the parameters. However, it is normal for the readings to fluctuate within limits from minute to minute.

Conclusion: I think it is an extraordinarily good deal for the price. I also have the 4GB RAM VPS at New York (then $88, now $97) which I have covered in this article. If you don’t have one, you should seriously consider it before they raise the price again.