96MB Low End VPS Community Member Review Part 3 – DireVPS 4GB RAM OpenVZ
Preface
The low end VPS market has received quite a bit of “shock” recently when DireVPS, which is an subsidiary of OpenITC/XenVZ, announced that they would be selling what they called “carefully oversold” VPS, offering 4GB of RAM at a price of less than 7USD per month. Soon after that, we saw a lot more offering from other VPS providers offering VPS at such an incredibly low price. Clearly DireVPS was the leader in this change and how have they been doing recently? The most valuable contributor of 96MB, jcaleb, has decided to sign up with them and take a look. Thanks jcaleb and without further to do, let’s take a look at his review:
Introduction
2GB OpenVZ has been more and more common nowadays, that many providers shoots up that offer from time to time. But last February (2013), OpenITC surprised the LET/LEB community by giving a new landmark to high RAM offer at LEB Prices: a whopping 4GB RAM, 100GB disk, and 2TB BW for just under $7 USD. It’s under their new brand DireVPS.
Despite the very generous amount of resources, it was received with skepticism/criticism and did not sold well as discussed in here. In my opinion, the fault is with how they promoted the new brand. The website is full of red flags, that will really scare away potential customers, instead of attract them.
Although the owners does not seem to be marketing genius, I still believe that DireVPS is worth giving a shot. As this is the same group of people that is running XenVZ – a brand with high reputation and trusted by many.
Disclaimer: I am doing this review for recreational purposes. I am not receiving any compensation from OpenITC/DireVPS in free service or financial terms. Although I am one of 14 people sean gave a free month of DireVPS service, for giving community feedback. I did not claim the free VPS, and did not contact OpenITC. I have paid for the VPS, under a different name, to be able to write this review.
General Information and Background
The offer is sweet and simple. The main attraction is their high amount of RAM, disk space, and bandwidth. They also have IPv6, which is very good news! The catch is that they don’t have support and they offer no refund.
The turn-off’s for me, are in their FAQ:
their support policy.
and most importantly, their disclaimer in the home page:
I will not expound my opinion on above. It is what it is, and its upto the readers to interpret their meaning.
Signing up
They have the same sign up page for all the brands under OpenITC. Some of the sign-up options below are not relevant, as your base package already have large resources.
You can buy more IP’s and also control panel license.
The welcome email looks something like this. They don’t create your VPS instance right away. You have to provision it yourself.
They don’t use SolusVM, but their own control panel. In my opinion, it is also easy to use, unlike other custom control panel that I have tried.
Provisioning your VPS is simple and straightforward.
The choice of OS templates are just basic. But they do have Ubuntu 12.04 which is very important to many people nowadays.
Test on the VPS
For the tests carried out below, I have used Ubuntu 12.04 32 bit OS. I switch from 32/64 bit when doing Unix benchmark and geekbench, and report whichever is higher.
Checking memory when OS template was initially loaded reveals it’s a .32 kernel with 1GB vSwap memory. The template is trimmed down, as their XenVZ brand have low memory resources. But minimal template does not matter to us, we have so many.
free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 4096 14 4081 0 0 8 -/+ buffers/cache: 5 4090 Swap: 1024 0 1024
Top showing the processes running.
top - 17:54:21 up 0 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 Tasks: 16 total, 1 running, 15 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 Mem: 4194304k total, 14776k used, 4179528k free, 0k buffers Swap: 1048576k total, 0k used, 1048576k free, 8696k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 root 20 0 3348 1744 1280 S 0 0.0 0:00.09 init 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd/3220 3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper/3220 118 root 20 0 2772 708 528 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 upstart-udev-br 124 root 20 0 2788 996 724 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 udevd 156 root 20 0 2784 636 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 udevd 157 root 20 0 2784 636 356 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 udevd 174 root 20 0 2172 560 492 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 sh 187 root 20 0 2784 512 368 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 upstart-socket- 219 root 20 0 6628 2356 1924 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 sshd 239 root 20 0 2564 828 668 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 cron 272 syslog 20 0 2348 736 600 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 syslogd 293 root 20 0 9592 3096 2464 S 0 0.1 0:00.08 sshd 305 root 20 0 3428 1772 1424 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 bash 316 root 20 0 2088 452 388 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 sleep 317 root 20 0 2668 1168 972 R 0 0.0 0:00.00 top
And htop output:
Hard drive space confirms we have 100GB to work with.
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs 100G 415M 100G 1% / varrun 2.0G 40K 2.0G 1% /run varlock 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /var/lock none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /run/shm
And the iNodes are set to pretty high values:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/simfs 52428800 23395 52405405 1% / varrun 524288 47 524241 1% /run varlock 524288 1 524287 1% /var/lock none 524288 1 524287 1% /run/lock none 524288 1 524287 1% /run/shm
The VPS is fairly stable and little used, as shown in the output of uptime:
uptime 17:59:10 up 5 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
vmstat shows no IOwait as well, which is also a good sign:
vmstat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 0 0 4179608 0 8980 0 0 0 2 0 100617 0 0 100 0
CPUInfo shows there are four CPU cores available but throttled only to 800 MHz per core. This could be either good news or bad news, depending on how you think of it.
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 44 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 800.024 cache size : 12288 KB physical id : 1 siblings : 8 core id : 0 cpu cores : 4 apicid : 32 initial apicid : 32 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 11 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat epb dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4266.79 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 44 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz stepping : 2 cpu MHz : 800.024 cache size : 12288 KB physical id : 1 siblings : 8 core id : 10 cpu cores : 4 apicid : 52 initial apicid : 52 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 11 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat epb dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4266.79 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
Meminfo:
cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 4194304 kB MemFree: 4179612 kB Cached: 9004 kB Active: 10596 kB Inactive: 1540 kB Active(anon): 2100 kB Inactive(anon): 1032 kB Active(file): 8496 kB Inactive(file): 508 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 1048576 kB SwapFree: 1048576 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 3132 kB Shmem: 2600 kB Slab: 2548 kB SReclaimable: 1368 kB SUnreclaim: 1180 kB tim
Disk I/O is fast
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, 4.23812 s, 253 MB/s
Testing again showed almost the same result:
16384+0 records in 16384+0 records out 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 4.2675 s, 252 MB/s
The ioping results are very consistent as well.
ioping -c 10 . 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=1 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=2 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=3 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=4 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=5 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=6 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=7 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=8 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=9 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=10 time=0.1 ms --- . (simfs /vps/3220) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9002.8 ms, 9132 iops, 35.7 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.1/0.1/0.0 ms
Testing again showed similar results:
ioping -c 10 . 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=1 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=2 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=3 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=4 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=5 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=6 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=7 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=8 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=9 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /vps/3220): request=10 time=0.1 ms --- . (simfs /vps/3220) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9002.8 ms, 8347 iops, 32.6 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.1/0.1/0.0 ms
Using the FreeVPS benchmark script, shows the network network speed. It seems capped at 100mbps and not impressive when outside UK.
bash bench.sh CPU model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz Number of cores : 2 CPU frequency : 800.024 MHz Total amount of ram : 4096 MB Total amount of swap : 1024 MB System uptime : 13 min, Download speed from CacheFly: 8.18MB/s Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 4.61MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 2.68MB/s Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 2.20MB/s Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 11.2MB/s Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 8.96MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 1.59MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 2.93MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 2.07MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 4.04MB/s I/O speed : 257 MB/s
Testing again shows relatively same results:
bash bench.sh CPU model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz Number of cores : 2 CPU frequency : 800.024 MHz Total amount of ram : 4096 MB Total amount of swap : 1024 MB System uptime : 18 min, Download speed from CacheFly: 3.43MB/s Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 4.76MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 3.08MB/s Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 1.98MB/s Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 11.2MB/s Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 9.09MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 1.28MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 3.46MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 2.40MB/s Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 3.26MB/s I/O speed : 255 MB/s
For benchmarks, the throttled CPU affected the result, if you would compare with other providers.
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # # # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ###### # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # # Version 5.1.3 Based on the Byte Magazine Unix Benchmark Multi-CPU version Version 5 revisions by Ian Smith, Sunnyvale, CA, USA January 13, 2011 johantheghost at yahoo period com 1 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Process Creation 1 2 3 1 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3 1 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3 2 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Process Creation 1 2 3 2 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3 2 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3 ======================================================================== BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3) System: 57: GNU/Linux OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-042stab072.10 -- #1 SMP Wed Jan 16 18:54:05 MSK 2013 Machine: x86_64 (x86_64) Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968") CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz (4266.8 bogomips) Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz (4266.8 bogomips) Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization 18:11:22 up 1:08, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01; runlevel 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 03 2013 18:11:22 - 18:39:53 2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests Dhrystone 2 using register variables 12249470.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Double-Precision Whetstone 1989.5 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples) Execl Throughput 1580.5 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 359012.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 97759.7 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 997133.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Pipe Throughput 703305.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Pipe-based Context Switching 108396.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Process Creation 5620.4 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3401.9 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 448.7 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples) System Call Overhead 796506.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 12249470.7 1049.7 Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 1989.5 361.7 Execl Throughput 43.0 1580.5 367.6 File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 359012.9 906.6 File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 97759.7 590.7 File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 997133.5 1719.2 Pipe Throughput 12440.0 703305.1 565.4 Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 108396.1 271.0 Process Creation 126.0 5620.4 446.1 Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3401.9 802.3 Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 448.7 747.9 System Call Overhead 15000.0 796506.7 531.0 ======== System Benchmarks Index Score 612.7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 03 2013 18:39:53 - 19:10:50 2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests Dhrystone 2 using register variables 12068016.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Double-Precision Whetstone 3979.0 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples) Execl Throughput 1565.6 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 361951.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 97285.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1004438.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Pipe Throughput 704878.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Pipe-based Context Switching 105103.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Process Creation 5461.1 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3378.9 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 444.3 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples) System Call Overhead 786294.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 12068016.8 1034.1 Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 3979.0 723.5 Execl Throughput 43.0 1565.6 364.1 File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 361951.5 914.0 File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 97285.5 587.8 File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1004438.9 1731.8 Pipe Throughput 12440.0 704878.3 566.6 Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 105103.2 262.8 Process Creation 126.0 5461.1 433.4 Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3378.9 796.9 Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 444.3 740.5 System Call Overhead 15000.0 786294.8 524.2 ======== System Benchmarks Index Score 643.7
Testing again showed similar results:
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # # # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ###### # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # # Version 5.1.3 Based on the Byte Magazine Unix Benchmark Multi-CPU version Version 5 revisions by Ian Smith, Sunnyvale, CA, USA January 13, 2011 johantheghost at yahoo period com 1 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3 1 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Process Creation 1 2 3 1 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3 1 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3 2 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3 2 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Process Creation 1 2 3 2 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3 2 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3 ======================================================================== BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3) System: 57: GNU/Linux OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-042stab072.10 -- #1 SMP Wed Jan 16 18:54:05 MSK 2013 Machine: x86_64 (x86_64) Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968") CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz (4266.8 bogomips) Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5630 @ 2.13GHz (4266.8 bogomips) Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization 19:19:14 up 2:16, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 1.11, 1.99; runlevel 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 03 2013 19:19:14 - 19:47:42 2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests Dhrystone 2 using register variables 12217326.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Double-Precision Whetstone 2000.5 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples) Execl Throughput 1590.0 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 354646.2 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 96583.7 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 996923.1 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Pipe Throughput 717088.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Pipe-based Context Switching 108656.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Process Creation 5584.5 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3398.8 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 446.5 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples) System Call Overhead 794744.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 12217326.3 1046.9 Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2000.5 363.7 Execl Throughput 43.0 1590.0 369.8 File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 354646.2 895.6 File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 96583.7 583.6 File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 996923.1 1718.8 Pipe Throughput 12440.0 717088.7 576.4 Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 108656.7 271.6 Process Creation 126.0 5584.5 443.2 Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3398.8 801.6 Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 446.5 744.2 System Call Overhead 15000.0 794744.2 529.8 ======== System Benchmarks Index Score 612.3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 03 2013 19:47:42 - 20:18:42 2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests Dhrystone 2 using register variables 12066140.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Double-Precision Whetstone 3971.6 MWIPS (10.0 s, 7 samples) Execl Throughput 1573.7 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 357243.3 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 95900.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 997728.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Pipe Throughput 702558.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Pipe-based Context Switching 104997.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) Process Creation 5482.8 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3391.1 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples) Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 446.7 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples) System Call Overhead 792904.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples) System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 12066140.8 1033.9 Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 3971.6 722.1 Execl Throughput 43.0 1573.7 366.0 File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 357243.3 902.1 File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 95900.8 579.5 File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 997728.6 1720.2 Pipe Throughput 12440.0 702558.0 564.8 Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 104997.3 262.5 Process Creation 126.0 5482.8 435.1 Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3391.1 799.8 Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 446.7 744.5 System Call Overhead 15000.0 792904.3 528.6 ======== System Benchmarks Index Score 642.9
Naturally, Geekbench scores are also affected.
Testing again showed relatively same results:
Benefits of High RAM
Even if you have throttled CPU, depending on your application, the high RAM and fast IO can more than make up for it
A simple example I did is just restoring a production MySQL database. From default MySQL config, it takes 5 minutes.
root@57:~# ls -lh total 115M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 115M Mar 4 18:31 big.sql root@57:~# pv big.sql | mysql -u root -pXXXX big 115MB 0:05:09 [ 380kB/s] [======================================================================>] 100%
Changing a bit the memory configuration, makes the same operation almost twice faster.
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1024M root@57:~# pv big.sql | mysql -u root -plonganisa6 big 115MB 0:03:12 [ 610kB/s] [======================================================================>] 100%
This is just a simple example, as I am only making a point. I believe experienced system administrators can utilize this high amount of RAM to run servers a magnitude of 10 or 100 faster, than a VPS with 256 or 512mb RAM. As there is room for lots and lots of caching.
The Big Question
I have to admit, the reason why I was intrigued to review DireVPS, is because there was a comment in LET doubting will DireVPS really allow you to use your allocated resources?. So I spent a whole month with DireVPS, to give my experience.
First, I pulled some files and back-ups from my other VPS to fill up 92% of my allocated disk space. I waited a few days, if I will receive any complaint from my host.
angel@57:~/test1$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs 100G 92G 8.5G 92% / varrun 2.0G 56K 2.0G 1% /run varlock 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /var/lock none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 2.0G 0 2.0G 0% /run/shm
Having no problem using disk space, next I run multiple copies of Java programs, each consuming around 500mb each, to fill up around 3.5GB of RAM. Since no one is consuming the services of the Java program, the load is minimal. Only memory is used. I let this sit for about 1 week.
root@57:~# free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 4096 3517 578 0 0 75 -/+ buffers/cache: 3441 654 Swap: 1024 76 947
Since I was not terminated yet, I tried to test a little bit more. I wrote a Java program to consume around 500mb again and also do processing. Lots of math computation, read hundred gigs of data, and write a few gig of data. Repeated every few minutes. Running multiple copies to fill up 3.5GB Ram and about 2.0 load average. I let this run again for about a week.
After a week, I modified my programs to use a little more load. Again, I let it sit for about a week, using resource more or less what is shown below.
I stopped monitoring my VPS after 3 weeks of usage, and just let what I was running in there. I just monitored my email if I will get notice of termination, which did not happen.
Customer Service and Support
Although DireVPS has no support, they do update their customers through email with important events and information.
Personally, I find it really difficult to swallow their support policy, above all the things I read in their website. Sure, I am responsible for my VPS as it is unmanaged. But there are gray areas where you really need to communicate with your provider. It is intriguing to know if they will really ignore any ticket you submit to them, and be completely unreasonable.
After 3 weeks of using their service, I finally found a reason to contact them without needing help with setting up my VPS. I have an issue with their control panel always showing 0GB bandwidth used, when I am sure to have consumed alot already.
After 2 days of submitting a ticket in their contact form, I have not received a reply. I was disappointed, but decided to submit again a ticket just to be fair. To my delight, I received a reply after about 7hrs.
Conclusion
DireVPS, hands down offers great value for money. Lots of RAM, disk space, and bandwidth all for under $7 USD. And by testing them for a month, it was shown that they will allow you to use them. Although I admit that I have not tested the bandwidth, as I am out of ideas on how to consume 2TB in under a month.
Although CPU is throttled and network is just okay, Disk IO is fast and overall performance of the VPS is satisfactory. Discussing with 96mb, we believe this is because they have not sold well, and the node I was on is not overloaded. I hope performance will not degrade much, when they become popular.
Although their website is more likely to discourage you than to convince you to sign-up, they have shown that they are very reasonable. Personally, I recommend their service, as long as you are okay with no support. Perhaps not for production, but for personal and development purposes. (E.g. as Continuous Integration server (Jenkins) that requires lots of memory and disk space.) There is no need to worry that they will just terminate your VPS with no just reason.
What is the point of purchasing this if you can’t run anything? That TOS is entirely too limiting.
yes, but it seems they dont care what you run as long as you dont affect others
For me, that vps is quiet reasonable, although I don’t do java or C heavily, but if you limiting for bandwith in your ISP and not dealing with torrent, this service was good.