96MB Low End VPS Review Part 49 – 123 Systems 192MB Yearly
123Systems.Net is probably one of the most controversial VPS providers in the low end VPS industry. On one hand, they are definitely selling some really cheap VPS that is many of us use for backup purposes (I have yet to see another provider offering a 128MB box for 10USD per year and 192MB VPS for 15 USD). However, they are also (in)famous on WHT for their notoriously slow response speed (see the most recent episode here). As a result, I have decided to take a look and see how things are going with them.
Basic Information and Set Up
I have actually been waiting relatively patiently for a while for the 128MB RAM VPS box to come on stock, however unfortunately it did not happen, and finally I decided to spend an extra 5 USD and get a 192MB RAM VPS instead, and according to their advertisement on WHT, here is what I get:
The order page is pretty standard WHMCS order page served on HTTPS protocol:
There are quite a few selectable items on the operating systems to be installed on:
The backup space seems to cost quite a bit:
Even with the cheapest option of 10GB of backup space, it comes to almost 5 USD per month.
The control panel pricing is pretty standard, with Directadmin costing about 5.08USD per month (I am not sure why there is the 8 cents, probably to cover the Paypal fees?) and CPanel costing 16.95USD per month. On a side note, if your provider sells the CPanel/WHM license for more than 15USD per month, you can always get it from some CPanel resellers such as LicensePal (Disclaimer: I have never used it). Also, you will need minimum 512MB of RAM to make CPanel to work properly, more if you would like to run multiple websites on it.
Each additional IP address cost 3 USD per month, which is not exactly cheap these days:
Full management is 360USD per year, which comes down to 30USD per month and 1TB of bandwidth cost 49USD per month.
If you look at all the prices above, they are not exactly cheap, so I would think they either would prefer to profit from the addons or is a nice way to suggest you not to get any addons above.
However, the nice part comes in the last section of the sign up form:
As you can see, all these addons are for one time fee only, meaning that if you are willing to pay for it once, the addons are applied to your server forever. Therefore, it really make sense if you would like to keep the server for a long time. However, you need to bear in mind that this is not an “upgrade”, but just an addon, meaning that even, say, I have paid 65USD to get an extra 1024GB of RAM, my hard drive space is still limited to 10GB and my CPU priority is probably still one of the lowest, and therefore it is by no means comparable to the 1024MB VPS that they are offering for 45USD per year (which comes to 3.75USD per month, still cheaper than most of the VPS providers that I know of):
I was actually pretty surprised to see even for the 1GB RAM VPS, it has to be prepaid for a whole year as well. More often than not, we see the smallest VPS from providers that require annual payment since the profit margin is thin, however most of the larger box should at least offer a monthly payment. I guess that is one way that 123Systems do to keep the cost down.
Note that besides personal information, they actually ask a few more security details when you sign up with them:
The only other place that I have seen offering security code and abuse email contact is XenVZ and you can not enter the code yourself. Although I am not sure if the abuse email will indeed gets send to my specified email address nor when they would make use of the security code, I definitely believe it is a nice feature to have.
123Systems uses 2Checkout for payment processing and the provision of the VPS is almost instant, I received my Paypal confirmation email at 1:26PM and the new VPS information server comes 2 minutes after, which is a pretty standard WHMCS email with nothing fancy other than my user ID, which is in the 5 digits range. I guess they must have quite a few VPS running then.
Their WHMCS system is using HTTPS protocol and once logged in, you will see your server under My Services.
Note that unlike many other providers, which have many buttons and graphs available, 123Systems only has four buttons to control the VPS that is shown on the WHMCS interface. However, it is also worth noting that they have an automatic enabling of TUN, which probably make sense considering that many people would probably use their box for VPN purposes.
Although the link written on the email for SolusVM access is a HTTP link, it automatically redirect to the HTTPS site on port 5656 and once logged in, a pretty standard SolusVM interface is shown:
Note that at least when 123Systems mentioned 192MB of memory, they meant 192MB of dedicated memory and another 192MB of burstable memory, which is better than many hosts who advertise xxx amount of RAM and turns out to the dedicated RAM is only half of it.
There is also instant rDNS available:
Furthermore, and to my surprise, they actually offer 5 central backup slots on the server and they seem to work, this feature is rarely seen available on the ultra-low end servers and it is definitely something great to have.
EDIT: The backup seems to have failed in the end, so I am not sure if it is just me who jinxed the backup by writing it on the blog or it does not work, has any other user of 123Systems tried it?
EDIT2: Tried again and still failed, I guess it is just there but does not work:
EDIT3: As per Chester L. from 123Systems:
There are quite a few OS templates for installations and pretty much covered the latest versions of all major Linux distributions:
In particular, there are quite a few Ubuntu distributions available.
It is also interesting to see that there are quite a few templates with the .tar.gz as part of the template name. Although I have not tested them out myself, I certainly hope they are not just some compressed tarballs but actual templates that are available for installation.
Furthermore, CentOS 6 is not available, which could be a disappointment for the CentOS fans, although Debian 6 templates are good enough for me.
Test on the VPS
As I have mentioned before, the test VPS that I have bought is a 192MB VPS, 2 CPU cores, 500GB of bandwidth and 10GB of hard drive drive space. Although in all advertisement by 123Systems, I was only able to see that they are located in Dallas, Taxes, a traceroute is easy enough to know they are located in the data centre of Limestone Networks:
I used a Debian 6 32 bit OS template for testing and when the OS template was first loaded into the VPS, 16MB of memory was used:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 384 16 367 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 16 367
Swap: 0 0 0
Top showing the processes running:
top - 19:11:02 up 6 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks: 14 total, 2 running, 12 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: 393216k total, 16740k used, 376476k free, 0k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1644 root 18 0 8540 3020 2468 R 0 0.8 0:00.09 sshd
1412 root 18 0 5240 2600 1264 S 0 0.7 0:00.00 apache2
1414 www-data 19 0 5240 1924 580 S 0 0.5 0:00.00 apache2
1698 root 15 0 2956 1608 1288 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 bash
1609 root 15 0 9988 1552 500 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 sendmail-mta
1706 root 15 0 2324 1064 872 R 0 0.3 0:00.00 top
1624 root 18 0 5484 968 576 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 sshd
1434 root 18 0 2284 844 660 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 cron
1583 root 25 0 2388 836 668 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 xinetd
1383 root 18 0 8664 788 448 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 saslauthd
1402 root 18 0 1888 780 648 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 anacron
1 root 15 0 2024 676 584 S 0 0.2 0:00.25 init
1398 root 15 0 1732 632 504 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 syslogd
1384 root 18 0 8664 504 164 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 saslauthd
And htop output for the htop fans:
A little bit more than 400MB of hard drive space was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs 10G 413M 9.6G 5% / tmpfs 192M 0 192M 0% /lib/init/rw tmpfs 192M 0 192M 0% /dev/shm
And the inodes are set to pretty standard values:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/simfs 5242880 26160 5216720 1% / tmpfs 49152 4 49148 1% /lib/init/rw tmpfs 49152 1 49151 1% /dev/shm
When the full LNMP stack is loaded up, 63MB of RAM was used:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 384 63 320 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 63 320
Swap: 0 0 0
Top output showing the full stack running:
top - 09:25:06 up 1:03, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.08
Tasks: 21 total, 2 running, 19 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: 393216k total, 64944k used, 328272k free, 0k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
21584 www 25 0 14992 10m 428 S 0 2.8 0:00.00 nginx
21565 mysql 19 0 33944 4644 2040 S 0 1.2 0:00.00 mysqld
21575 root 18 0 22620 4544 1404 S 0 1.2 0:00.00 php-cgi
21576 www 20 0 22620 4144 1004 S 0 1.1 0:00.00 php-cgi
21577 www 20 0 22620 4144 1004 S 0 1.1 0:00.00 php-cgi
21578 www 25 0 22620 4144 1004 S 0 1.1 0:00.00 php-cgi
21579 www 25 0 22620 4144 1004 S 0 1.1 0:00.00 php-cgi
21580 www 25 0 22620 4144 1004 S 0 1.1 0:00.00 php-cgi
1664 root 15 0 8684 3100 2484 R 1 0.8 0:02.15 sshd
1666 root 15 0 2956 1652 1328 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 bash
1626 root 15 0 9988 1540 500 S 0 0.4 0:00.00 sendmail-mta
20438 root 18 0 2672 1216 1008 S 0 0.3 0:00.00 mysqld_safe
21663 root 16 0 2324 1100 896 R 0 0.3 0:00.00 top
1641 root 18 0 5484 964 576 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 sshd
1434 root 15 0 2284 848 664 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 cron
1583 root 25 0 2388 832 668 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 xinetd
1383 root 18 0 8664 788 448 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 saslauthd
21583 root 18 0 4780 720 276 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 nginx
1 root 18 0 2024 672 580 S 0 0.2 0:00.38 init
1398 root 15 0 1732 632 528 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 syslogd
1384 root 18 0 8664 504 164 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 saslauthd
And htop output as well:
About 1.6GB of hard drive space was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/simfs 10G 1.6G 8.5G 16% / tmpfs 192M 0 192M 0% /lib/init/rw tmpfs 192M 0 192M 0% /dev/shm
And the inodes values:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/simfs 5242880 69318 5173562 2% / tmpfs 49152 4 49148 1% /lib/init/rw tmpfs 49152 1 49151 1% /dev/shm
VMStat shows the box is pretty idle:
vmstat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 1 0 0 323648 0 0 0 0 2555 1350 0 1484 8 2 89 1
So is the output of uptime:
uptime 10:23:27 up 2:01, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.01
I do not think there is any weird beancounters settings:
cat /proc/user_beancounters
Version: 2.5
uid resource held maxheld barrier limit failcnt
8228: kmemsize 2768015 5770168 2147483646 2147483646 0
lockedpages 0 427 999999 999999 0
privvmpages 16119 53649 98304 98304 0
shmpages 642 672 49152 49152 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
numproc 22 33 999999 999999 0
physpages 7245 34723 0 2147483647 0
vmguarpages 0 0 49152 2147483647 0
oomguarpages 7245 34723 49152 2147483647 0
numtcpsock 7 22 7999992 7999992 0
numflock 4 24 999999 999999 0
numpty 1 2 500000 500000 0
numsiginfo 0 10 999999 999999 0
tcpsndbuf 374288 2333088 214748160 396774400 0
tcprcvbuf 114688 9557816 214748160 396774400 0
othersockbuf 11640 42792 214748160 396774400 0
dgramrcvbuf 0 26080 214748160 396774400 0
numothersock 14 25 7999992 7999992 0
dcachesize 0 0 2147483646 2147483646 0
numfile 516 1423 23999976 23999976 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
dummy 0 0 0 0 0
numiptent 25 25 999999 999999 0
CPUinfo shows that there are two cores assigned to the VPS, however each core is throttled to only half of the clock speed, which is makes “two” cores essentially two half-cores:
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 26 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz stepping : 5 cpu MHz : 1130.500 cache size : 8192 KB 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 syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc ida nonstop_tsc pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm bogomips : 4522.00 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: [8] processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 26 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz stepping : 5 cpu MHz : 1130.500 cache size : 8192 KB 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 syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc ida nonstop_tsc pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm bogomips : 4522.00 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: [8]
I am curious as to why they can’t just offer a full CPU core instead. Quite frankly speaking most of the programs that runs on low end VPS does not really use multi-threading and therefore having one full core is definitely a lot useful than having two half-cores.
meminfo does not show anything too interesting:
cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 393216 kB MemFree: 328812 kB Buffers: 0 kB Cached: 0 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 0 kB Inactive: 0 kB HighTotal: 0 kB HighFree: 0 kB LowTotal: 393216 kB LowFree: 328812 kB SwapTotal: 0 kB SwapFree: 0 kB Dirty: 94380 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 0 kB Mapped: 0 kB Slab: 0 kB PageTables: 0 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB CommitLimit: 0 kB Committed_AS: 0 kB VmallocTotal: 0 kB VmallocUsed: 0 kB VmallocChunk: 0 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
However we do not see any sign of overselling from the output of vzfree:
vzfree
Total Used Free
Kernel: 2048.00M 2.64M 2045.36M
Allocate: 384.00M 62.95M 321.05M (192M Guaranteed)
Commit: 192.00M 30.91M 161.09M (44.9% of Allocated)
Swap: 0.00M (0.0% of Committed)
Time sync results is pretty usual as well:
time sync real 0m0.154s user 0m0.000s sys 0m0.038s
For such a cheap VPS, I really could not expect a lot from the disk I/O and the dd output seems to confirm this:
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, 30.466 s, 35.2 MB/s
Testing again shows pretty much the same results:
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, 29.768 s, 36.1 MB/s
IOPing is, however, pretty consistent, I only get one extraordinary long ioping time out of each group of 10 readings I took:
ioping -c 10 . 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=1 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=2 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=3 time=4.5 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=4 time=0.4 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=5 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=6 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=7 time=0.3 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=8 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=9 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=10 time=0.3 ms --- . (simfs /dev/simfs) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9020.1 ms, 1470 iops, 5.7 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.2/0.7/4.5/1.3 ms
And testing again:
ioping -c 10 . 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=1 time=0.1 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=2 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=3 time=0.4 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=4 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=5 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=6 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=7 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=8 time=0.2 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=9 time=4.5 ms 4096 bytes from . (simfs /dev/simfs): request=10 time=0.3 ms --- . (simfs /dev/simfs) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9019.2 ms, 1501 iops, 5.9 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.7/4.5/1.3 ms
I was somehow under the impression that the VPS is running with 100mbit port, however it seems that I was incorrect, the VPS actually showed very impressive results from the downloading test:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-06-02 09:46:55-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175 Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[=======================================================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 67.8M/s in 1.5s 2012-06-02 09:46:57 (67.8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
As you can see, this is more like the output of a Gbit line rather than the 100mbit line. Testing again showed similar results:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-06-02 09:47:41-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175 Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[=======================================================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 67.2M/s in 1.5s 2012-06-02 09:47:43 (67.2 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
I decided to do a bit more testing with the download speed using aget and see how it works. However, the initial download speed from HostDime’s 1GB test file did not go as good as I thought:
aget -n 10 http://72.29.70.131/1gbfile.tgzAttempting to read log file aget-1gbfile.tgz.log for resuming download job... Couldn't find log file for this download, starting a clean job... Head-Request Connection established Downloading /1gbfile.tgz (1023410176 bytes) from site 72.29.70.131(72.29.70.131:80). Number of Threads: 10 .. [4% completed] ..... [9% completed] ....... [14% completed] .......... [19% completed] ............ [24% completed] ............... [29% completed] ................. [34% completed] .................... [39% completed] ...................... [44% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ........................... [54% completed] .............................. [59% completed] ................................ [64% completed] ................................... [69% completed] ..................................... [74% completed] ........................................ [79% completed] .......................................... [84% completed] ............................................. [89% completed] ............................................... [94% completed] .................................................. [99% completed] .................................................. [100% completed] Download completed, job completed in 780 seconds. (1281 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
As you can see, the speed is barely above 1MB/s.
Testing again did not show anything better.
aget -n 10 http://72.29.70.131/1gbfile.tgzAttempting to read log file aget-1gbfile.tgz.log for resuming download job... Couldn't find log file for this download, starting a clean job... Head-Request Connection established Downloading /1gbfile.tgz (1023410176 bytes) from site 72.29.70.131(72.29.70.131:80). Number of Threads: 10 .. [4% completed] ..... [9% completed] ....... [14% completed] .......... [19% completed] ............ [24% completed] ............... [29% completed] ................. [34% completed] .................... [39% completed] ...................... [44% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ........................... [54% completed] .............................. [59% completed] ................................ [64% completed] ................................... [69% completed] ..................................... [74% completed] ........................................ [79% completed] .......................................... [84% completed] ............................................. [89% completed] ............................................... [94% completed] .................................................. [99% completed] .................................................. [100% completed] Download completed, job completed in 780 seconds. (1281 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
However, it turned out that 123Systems was actually not at fault for this particular one, since when I tried to download the file from ThinkBroadBand in UK, which is technically further from the VPS, the speed turned out to be quite decent:
aget -n 10 http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zipAttempting to read log file aget-1GB.zip.log for resuming download job... Couldn't find log file for this download, starting a clean job... Head-Request Connection established Downloading /1GB.zip (1073741824 bytes) from site ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com(80.249.99.148:80). Number of Threads: 10 .. [4% completed] ..... [9% completed] ....... [14% completed] .......... [19% completed] ............ [24% completed] ............... [29% completed] ................. [34% completed] .................... [39% completed] ...................... [44% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ........................... [54% completed] .............................. [59% completed] .............................. [59% completed] ................................ [64% completed] ................................... [69% completed] ..................................... [74% completed] ........................................ [79% completed] .......................................... [84% completed] ............................................. [89% completed] ............................................... [94% completed] .................................................. [99% completed] .................................................. [100% completed] Download completed, job completed in 48 seconds. (21845 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
As you can see, now the speed is about 20MB/s, which is a lot better than with HostDime. Testing again showed similar results:
aget -n 10 http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zipAttempting to read log file aget-1GB.zip.log for resuming download job... Couldn't find log file for this download, starting a clean job... Head-Request Connection established Downloading /1GB.zip (1073741824 bytes) from site ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com(80.249.99.148:80). Number of Threads: 10 .. [4% completed] ..... [9% completed] ....... [14% completed] .......... [19% completed] ............ [24% completed] ............... [29% completed] ................. [34% completed] .................... [39% completed] ...................... [44% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ......................... [49% completed] ........................... [54% completed] .............................. [59% completed] ................................ [64% completed] ................................... [69% completed] ..................................... [74% completed] ........................................ [79% completed] .......................................... [84% completed] ............................................. [89% completed] ............................................... [94% completed] .................................................. [99% completed] .................................................. [100% completed] Download completed, job completed in 52 seconds. (20164 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
Uploading speed, on the other hand, is not that great, with the fastest uploading speed from my test VPS in QuickWeb VPS in Chicago, IL:
wget 64.31.18.16/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-06-02 10:19:13-- http://64.31.18.16/100mb.test Connecting to 64.31.18.16:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 3.04M/s in 31s 2012-06-02 10:19:45 (3.18 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
With the Quickweb VPS in Los Angeles, CA, the speed barely hit above 1MB/s:
wget 64.31.18.16/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-06-01 22:19:58-- http://64.31.18.16/100mb.test Connecting to 64.31.18.16:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 1.05M/s in 93s 2012-06-01 22:21:31 (1.08 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
Finally, with my test VPS with XenVZ in Maidenhead, UK, the speed is even lower:
wget 64.31.18.16/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-06-02 10:20:57-- http://64.31.18.16/100mb.test Connecting to 64.31.18.16:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 699K/s in 1m 55s 2012-06-02 10:22:52 (890 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
With low specification of the VPS, I did not expect it to score too wel in the benchmark tests and quite frankly speaking I was a little surprised when the Unixbench score turned out to be close to 800 points, considering it is running just on one CPU core essentially (although I am not sure if they have any bonus points for having two half cores since then the parallel tests would add a few points):
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
# # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ######
# # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # #
# # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # #
#### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
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: ******: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-274.3.1.el5.028stab094.3 -- #1 SMP Thu Sep 22 13:24:07 MSD 2011
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968")
CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
03:34:18 up 3:29, 1 user, load average: 0.16, 0.03, 0.01; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Wed Mar 07 2012 03:34:18 - 04:02:46
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 11082854.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2375.8 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2823.3 lps (29.4 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 387473.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 103103.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 891312.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 749965.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 179057.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 8630.4 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3186.5 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 444.7 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 588030.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 11082854.0 949.7
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2375.8 432.0
Execl Throughput 43.0 2823.3 656.6
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 387473.6 978.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 103103.5 623.0
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 891312.9 1536.7
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 749965.3 602.9
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 179057.8 447.6
Process Creation 126.0 8630.4 685.0
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3186.5 751.5
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 444.7 741.2
System Call Overhead 15000.0 588030.7 392.0
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 682.3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Wed Mar 07 2012 04:02:46 - 04:32:57
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 11616826.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 4718.5 MWIPS (10.1 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 3234.7 lps (29.8 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 412129.3 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 116971.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 809093.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 771229.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 222069.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 8716.1 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3574.5 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 482.0 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 613709.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 11616826.3 995.4
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 4718.5 857.9
Execl Throughput 43.0 3234.7 752.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 412129.3 1040.7
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 116971.8 706.8
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 809093.9 1395.0
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 771229.8 620.0
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 222069.8 555.2
Process Creation 126.0 8716.1 691.8
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3574.5 843.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 482.0 803.3
System Call Overhead 15000.0 613709.7 409.1
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 770.1
Testing again showed slightly worse but still reasonable scores:
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
# # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ######
# # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # #
# # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # #
#### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
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: *****: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-274.3.1.el5.028stab094.3 -- #1 SMP Thu Sep 22 13:24:07 MSD 2011
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968")
CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5520 @ 2.27GHz (4522.0 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
04:40:33 up 4:35, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 1.31, 2.13; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Wed Mar 07 2012 04:40:33 - 05:08:52
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 11001347.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2352.0 MWIPS (10.3 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2983.2 lps (29.2 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 402220.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 115922.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 780595.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 735670.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 178097.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 8299.6 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3287.9 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 475.0 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 593380.3 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 11001347.2 942.7
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2352.0 427.6
Execl Throughput 43.0 2983.2 693.8
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 402220.6 1015.7
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 115922.9 700.4
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 780595.6 1345.9
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 735670.5 591.4
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 178097.8 445.2
Process Creation 126.0 8299.6 658.7
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3287.9 775.4
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 475.0 791.6
System Call Overhead 15000.0 593380.3 395.6
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 688.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Wed Mar 07 2012 05:08:52 - 05:39:15
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 11321906.4 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 4645.8 MWIPS (10.3 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2983.6 lps (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 359942.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 96441.1 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 885391.1 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 772376.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 218239.6 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 8424.5 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3488.2 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 472.9 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 610947.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 11321906.4 970.2
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 4645.8 844.7
Execl Throughput 43.0 2983.6 693.9
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 359942.8 908.9
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 96441.1 582.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 885391.1 1526.5
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 772376.5 620.9
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 218239.6 545.6
Process Creation 126.0 8424.5 668.6
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3488.2 822.7
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 472.9 788.1
System Call Overhead 15000.0 610947.0 407.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 741.2
The Geekbench score is actually pretty decent with more than 3200 points:
System Information
Platform: Linux x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)
Operating System: Linux 2.6.32-274.3.1.el5.028stab094.3 i686
Model: Linux PC (Intel Xeon E5520)
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: Intel Xeon E5520
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 5
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 1.13 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 0.00 B
L1 Data Cache: 0.00 B
L2 Cache: 256 KB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 0.00 Hz
Memory: 7.55 GB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: Intel Xeon E5520
Processor Cores: 2
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 1647 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3347 |||||||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 1738 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 1949 |||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1866 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2063 ||||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 1513 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 1576 ||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1415 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 1714 ||||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 2898 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2874 |||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 1934 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2121 ||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 3204 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3658 ||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3673 ||||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 4477 |||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 2238 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2265 |||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 3198 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2804 |||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 5404 |||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 5880 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 4578 ||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4896 |||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 3946 |||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 6883 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 3250 |||||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 2950 |||||||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 5916 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 3638 ||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4554 ||||||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 3392 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4388 |||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 3280 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4248 ||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 3356 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3104 ||||||||||||
Integer Score: 2050 ||||||||
Floating Point Score: 3595 ||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 4589 ||||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 3745 ||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 3268 |||||||||||||
Testing again showed slightly better results:
System Information
Platform: Linux x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)
Operating System: Linux 2.6.32-274.3.1.el5.028stab094.3 i686
Model: Linux PC (Intel Xeon E5520)
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: Intel Xeon E5520
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 5
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 1.13 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 0.00 B
L1 Data Cache: 0.00 B
L2 Cache: 256 KB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 0.00 Hz
Memory: 7.55 GB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: Intel Xeon E5520
Processor Cores: 2
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 1644 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2442 |||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 1848 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2101 ||||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1833 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 1972 |||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 1558 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 1550 ||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1432 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 1498 |||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 2904 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3117 ||||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 1985 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2191 ||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 3254 |||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3459 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3820 |||||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 5022 ||||||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 2190 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2227 ||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 3202 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2763 |||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 5288 |||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 5834 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 4952 |||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 5220 ||||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 3943 |||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 7231 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 3427 |||||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 3151 ||||||||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 5976 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 3325 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3958 |||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 3191 ||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4222 ||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 3241 ||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4246 ||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 3311 |||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3069 ||||||||||||
Integer Score: 1991 |||||||
Floating Point Score: 3671 ||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 4745 ||||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 3570 ||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 3287 |||||||||||||
As you can see, this score is not bad for an essentially single core CPU.
Customer Service and Support
As I have mentioned before, most of the time when I came across 123Systems online, it was when people complaining about their services and how long it takes for their tickets to get responded, I am not sure if it was just me being really lucky or they have done something after all the complaints, but I am definitely very comfortable with the speed they are responding to tickets. My first tickets asking them whether it is possible to downgrade my box from a 192MB VPS to a 128MB one was sent in at 19:23 and was responded at 19:32 on the same day, bared 9 minutes later. My second tickets asking them about the backup slots was sent in today (which is a Saturday), and the request was sent in at 09:01am. At 09:32am, I received an automated reply:
And the ticket was finally responded at 14:00. Considering this is a Saturday, I would say 5 hours of ticket response time is not bad. I particularly liked the automated reply after 30 minutes of no response. Quite frankly speaking I am not even sure if 123Systems does care about ticket priority but it is always good to know, even from a robot, that someone will eventually look into this.
Conclusion
I am not going to lie and claim 123Systems is the best VPS providers in the world. They are not, the disk I/O is not really that great, the 2 half-core setup is a bit weird, and the upload speed could definitely gives further improvements. Furthermore, it could be just me getting lucky with the tickets and Chester L responded my tickets relatively fast. However, considering that they are selling the 128MB version at 10USD per year and the 192MB VPS at 15USD per year (and not to mention they stock up more often than BuyVM), I am happy with the service that they have rendered to me. Indeed probably I would not want to put 96MB.com on the VPS, however as a backup box for my data, this is definitely worth every penny of my 15USD.
nice review,
So, Sir. What’s The Best & Cheap VPS in your Opinion ?
Thank’s
@salvatore: Thanks a lot! To be honest you have given me a really difficult question. And after carefully thinking about it for the whole morning, I really think it is something I’ll have to say: depends. It depends on what you need for. Use 123Systems for example, I would think I would be insane if I want to put 96MB.com on it, however for the backup of the backup of the backup of 96MB.com and a few other websites that I have, 123Systems is really “cheap” and I think it serves its purpose. As such, one of my “best and cheap” VPS for backup of backup of backup purposes is probably them. On the other hand, I know my VPS in Quickweb is not cheap (trust me, I spent a lot time to bargain with Roel to get a package) and honestly with the amount of money 96MB is making, it is not even enough to support this server alone. However I still decided to get a VPS from them? Why? Because I know they will be there when there is a problem with the server and there won’t be random reboots whatsoever happened to the server. I tried to go cheap with it before and used some other budget providers and received more complaints than I’d like to hear. Therefore, for the “best and cheap” VPS to have 96MB.com lives on, I’d recommend Quickweb. Obviously, if one day 96MB ever grows as big as LEB or LET, then I would even probably consider Linode to be “best and cheap” for what I need then.
Hope that helps and once again, thanks a lot for reading through my review!
try iperweb when they release promo from time to time. they released 128mb kvm for $14/year. you cant beat that. right now they havy 1gb kvm for 37.5/6mos, thats under $7/mo.
so they have unheard of prices, and very good rep. that’s my take
@Review for them coming soon(tm) as well
you should. they are in the top 3 for 2012 LET poll, a new power house in the market =)