96MB Low End VPS Review Part 61-FileMedia
My recent VPS reviews have been focused on mostly the VPS that are located in North America and despite all the similarities between the VPS services provided in Europe and Americas, the specifications provided, at the same price level, could varies quite a bit simply due to the cheaper bandwidth cost and the existence of some really low-cost DCs such as OVH and Hetzner. As such, I will start a review today on FileMedia, which is a German-based VPS provider offering KVM VPS.
Basic Information and Set Up
I noticed FileMedia when they have made a post on LowEndTalk to provide a free test VPS for three months for a review. As per the the advertisement, here is server that is on the offer:
Although I have been in Germany a few times as a tourist, I have to confess that I knew next to nothing about the language, however, thanks to the similarities between the European languages, it was actually not that difficult for me to figure out the VPS has 1 single CPU core capped at 500MHz, 256MB of RAM, 15GB of hard drive, 1TB of bandwidth at 1Gbit port and unlimited at 10Mbit port. There is one IPv4 addresses provided for free (extra cost 1.49Euro per month) and two IPv6 addresses that comes by default. It is actually pretty interesting in the way they give out the IPv6 addresses though since majority of the VPS providers would offer at least a /112 block, if not more, of IPv6 address.
Provision of the VPS was instant and I have received the New Server Information the moment that the invoice was generated, however, it was a little difficult for me to read because everything was in German:
Thankfully, the welcome email is a pretty standard email which most of the people are able to read it.
However, the language start to get challenging again once I logged into my WHMCS account, which is using secured HTTP protocol:
As you can see, although I have selected English as the interface language in WHMCS, many items in the interface remains in German language. It is understandable as FileMedia is primarily a Germany-based business.
Language aside, I am actually quite glad to see how detailed the service listing is, and the VPS control buttons seem to be working as well. Unlike most of the providers which have the graphs listed directly under the My Services, FileMedia actually used a pop-up to display the resource usage:
I think this is a great approach since the system no longer need to render a graph every time this page is opened, thus save some system resources as well.
The SolusVM control panel FileMedia uses is on non-standard HTTPS port with an user name that you are assigned to (which contains a 8 digit number that makes it really difficult to remember), and once logged in, a pretty standard interface shows up:
The reconfigure networking tab is useful if you have had any changes made to the IP address and once clicking on that button, a pop up showed up:
In the Reinstall tab, there are quite a few OS templates available, but as we have expected, the explanations are all in German:
Other than many flavors of Linux distributions, one of the highlights would be the availability of Windows 2008 and 2012, although with just 256MB of RAM, I am pretty certain that I won’t be able to use any of the two distributions available.
Interesting enough, there seems to be a lot more CD images available once you click on the CD ROM tab:
Archlinux 2012.10.06 Dual archlinux-2011.08.19-core-i686.iso archlinux-2011.08.19-core-x86_64.iso archlinux-2011.08.19-netinstall-i686.iso archlinux-2011.08.19-netinstall-x86_64.iso asg-8.980-7.1.iso CentOS 5.4 64Bit Full DVD CentOS 5.4 64Bit Netinstall CentOS 5.5 32Bit Full DVD CentOS 5.5 64Bit Full DVD2 CentOS 5.5 64Bit LiveCD CentOS 5.5 64Bit Netinstall CentOS 6.0 32Bit DVD CentOS 6.0 32Bit Netinstall CentOS 6.0 64Bit DVD1 CentOS 6.0 64Bit DVD2 CentOS 6.0 64Bit LiveCD CentOS 6.0 64Bit LiveDVD CentOS 6.0 64Bit Minimal CentOS 6.0 64Bit Netinstall Citrix XenServer 5.6.0 Clearos Enterprise 5.2 Service Pack 1 CloudLinux-5.6-i386-CD.iso CloudLinux-5.6-x86_64-CD.iso CloudLinux-6.1-i386-DVD.iso CloudLinux-6.1-x86_64-DVD.iso Debian 5.0 Lenny 32Bit Netinstall Debian 5.0 Lenny 64Bit Netinstall Debian 6.0 32Bit Debian 6.0 64Bit Eisfair 1.7.3 1.24 CD Elastix-1.6.0-x86_64-bin-29oct2009.iso Elastix-2.0.3-x86_64-bin-15nov2010.iso Fedora 12 64Bit Netinstall Fedora-17-i386-DVD.iso Fedora-17-i386-netinst.iso Fedora-17-i686-Live-Desktop.iso Fedora-17-i686-Live-KDE.iso Fedora-17-x86_64-DVD.iso Fedora-17-x86_64-Live-Desktop.iso Fedora-17-x86_64-Live-KDE.iso Fedora-17-x86_64-netinst.iso Flexiant 2.0.1 Install DVD FreeBSD 7.2 32Bit DVD FreeBSD 7.2 64Bit BootOnly FreeBSD 8.0 32Bit FreeBSD 8.0 64Bit FreeNAS 0.7.1 64Bit FreeNAS 0.7.2.5255 64Bit FreeNAS 8.0 32Bit FreeNAS 8.0 64Bit Gentoo 2010 64Bit GParted Live 0.13 GRML 2010.04 32Bit GRML 2010.04 64Bit Grml 2011.05 32Bit Grml 2011.05 64Bit Hurd 32 Bit mini-20110227.iso Hurd 32Bit mini-20110215 ipfire-2.11.i586-full-core55.iso KNOPPIX_V6.4.3CD-2010-12-20-DE.iso Mikrotik 5.21 mini-20110308.iso NexentaStor Community 3.1.0 Open-Xchange Appliance Edition 6.20 64 Bit 16.12.2011 OpenBSD 4.6 64Bit OpenFiler 2.3 64Bit Openfiler 2.99 64 Bit openmediavault_0.2.5_amd64.iso OpenSolaris 2009.06 x86 OpenSUSE 12.1 Netinstall 64Bit OpenSuse GNOME LiveCD 64Bit OpenSuse KDE4 LiveCD 64Bit pbxinaflash-x86_64-17554.iso Ping 3.02 LiveCD Proxmox 2.0 Stable 2.0-4b59ea39-23 Proxmox VE 2.0 Beta3 SmartOS 13.07.2012 StackOps 0.3 Installer Iso Starface 4.05 systemrescuecd-x86-3.1.0.iso Turnkey Domain Controller 2009.10 Hardy x86 Turnkey Fileserver 2009.10 Hardy x86 Turnkey TorrentServer 2009.10 Hardy x86 Ubuntu 10.04.1 Desktop 64Bit Ubuntu 10.04.1 Server 32Bit Ubuntu 10.04.1 Server 64Bit Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop 32Bit Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop 64Bit Ubuntu 10.10 Server 64Bit Ubuntu 11.04 32Bit Desktop Ubuntu 11.04 64Bit Desktop Ubuntu 9.10 32Bit Desktop Ubuntu 9.10 64Bit Desktop Ubuntu 9.10 64Bit Server ubuntu-12.04-alternate-amd64.iso ubuntu-12.04-alternate-i386.iso ubuntu-12.04-dvd-amd64.iso ubuntu-12.04-dvd-i386.iso ubuntu-12.04-server-amd64.iso ubuntu-12.04-server-i386.iso VMWARE ESXi 4.1 VMware ESXi Installer 5.0.0 64 Bit Vyatta Community Edition Version 5 Vyatta LiveCD VC6.4 32Bit Vyatta LiveCD VC6.4 32Bit Virtual Vyatta LiveCD VC6.4 64Bit Vyatta LiveCD VC6.4 64Bit Virtual Windows 7 Home Premium 32Bit Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit Deutsch Windows Home Server German inkl. SP3 Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 32Bit Deutsch Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise 64Bit Deutsch CD1 Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise 64Bit Deutsch CD2 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 32Bit mit SP2 CD 1 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 32Bit SP2 CD 2 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 32Bit SP2 VL CD 1 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 32Bit SP2 VL CD 2 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 64Bit mit SP2 CD 1 Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard 64Bit SP2 CD 2 Windows Server 2008 64 Bit Alle Versionen Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard/Enterprise/Datacenter 64 Bit Windows Server 2008 Web 64Bit Deutsch Zenlive 7.0
In fact, there are so many CD images that rather than taking many screenshots, I simply decided to open up the HTML code and listed it here.
There is also instant rDNS entry:
And for IPv6 as well:
On the Driver’s tab though, you only get a single option, and I am not sure why there is only Windows Virtio drivers available there:
Other than offering VPS service, there is also a 50-domain DNS service offered by FileMedia to the VPS users:
Test on the VPS
The test VPS that I have obtained 500MHz of CPU, 256MB of RAM and 15GB of hard drive space, and it has 1TB of bandwidth at 1Gbit and unmetered at 10mbit after that. The VPS is located at the data centre of ISPpro Internet at Jena, Germany and I have installed, as usual, Debian 6 32 bit for testing purposes.
When the OS was first loaded, 15MB of RAM was used, which is slightly less than the usual OpenVZ template:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 248 94 154 0 38 40
-/+ buffers/cache: 15 233
Swap: 483 0 483
Top showing the processes running:
top - 14:01:54 up 23:40, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks: 57 total, 1 running, 56 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: 254836k total, 97268k used, 157568k free, 39612k buffers
Swap: 495608k total, 0k used, 495608k free, 41540k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
2762 root 20 0 8264 2864 2344 S 0.3 1.1 0:00.07 sshd
2766 root 20 0 5508 2812 1468 S 0.0 1.1 0:00.18 bash
1028 root 20 0 27452 1564 1048 S 0.0 0.6 0:00.14 rsyslogd
2786 root 20 0 2336 1120 904 R 0.3 0.4 0:00.01 top
1370 root 20 0 5500 972 584 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.14 sshd
353 root 16 -4 2412 944 404 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.02 udevd
1362 Debian-e 20 0 6520 932 616 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.01 exim4
869 statd 20 0 1940 784 656 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 rpc.statd
1089 root 20 0 3788 772 604 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.05 cron
1 root 20 0 2036 708 616 S 0.0 0.3 0:01.20 init
526 root 18 -2 2388 664 240 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 udevd
527 root 18 -2 2388 664 240 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 udevd
1108 root 20 0 2336 628 352 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 dhclient
1054 root 20 0 1708 588 480 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 acpid
1387 root 20 0 1712 572 492 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 getty
1390 root 20 0 1712 572 492 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 getty
1391 root 20 0 1712 572 492 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 getty
And htop output:
About 680MB of hard drive was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 15G 680M 13G 5% / tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /lib/init/rw udev 121M 112K 120M 1% /dev tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /dev/shm
And the inodes are set to pretty standard values:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/sda1 952848 25362 927486 3% / tmpfs 31854 5 31849 1% /lib/init/rw udev 30745 543 30202 2% /dev tmpfs 31854 1 31853 1% /dev/shm
When the full LNMP stack was loaded, to my surprise, only 38MB of RAM was used, which is a lot smaller than most of the cases I have seen in OpenVZ VPS:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 248 243 5 0 9 195
-/+ buffers/cache: 38 209
Swap: 483 0 483
Top showing the processes running:
top - 04:14:47 up 1 day, 53 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.35, 0.47 Tasks: 67 total, 1 running, 66 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.4%id, 3.6%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 254836k total, 249800k used, 5036k free, 9836k buffers Swap: 495608k total, 356k used, 495252k free, 200024k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 4627 www 20 0 15004 10m 428 S 0.0 4.3 0:00.00 nginx 4606 mysql 20 0 33948 4620 2020 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.02 mysqld 4618 root 20 0 24124 4548 1404 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.04 php-cgi 4619 www 20 0 24124 4140 996 S 0.0 1.6 0:00.00 php-cgi 4620 www 20 0 24124 4140 996 S 0.0 1.6 0:00.00 php-cgi 4621 www 20 0 24124 4140 996 S 0.0 1.6 0:00.00 php-cgi 4622 www 20 0 24124 4140 996 S 0.0 1.6 0:00.00 php-cgi 4623 www 20 0 24124 4140 996 S 0.0 1.6 0:00.00 php-cgi 2766 root 20 0 5508 2296 952 S 0.0 0.9 0:00.21 bash 4658 root 20 0 2336 1140 904 R 1.8 0.4 0:00.01 top 1028 root 20 0 27452 1116 600 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.14 rsyslogd 2762 root 20 0 8404 1108 532 S 0.0 0.4 0:01.94 sshd 4626 root 20 0 4792 716 272 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 nginx 4632 root 18 -2 2408 680 224 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 udevd 353 root 16 -4 2412 672 272 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.02 udevd 1370 root 20 0 5500 640 252 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.14 sshd 4504 root 20 0 1752 544 460 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 mysqld_safe
And htop output:
1.9GB of hard drive space was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 15G 1.9G 12G 14% / tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /lib/init/rw udev 121M 112K 120M 1% /dev tmpfs 125M 0 125M 0% /dev/shm
And the pretty standard iNodes values:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/sda1 952848 74061 878787 8% / tmpfs 31854 5 31849 1% /lib/init/rw udev 30745 543 30202 2% /dev tmpfs 31854 1 31853 1% /dev/shm
Uptime shows the VPS has not been used a lot:
uptime 14:00:27 up 23:39, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
And vmstat shows there is no iowait:
vmstat procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 0 356 4804 9852 200144 0 0 7 29 18 16 1 0 99 0
CPUinfo shows a single CPU core was assigned to the VPS:
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6) stepping : 3 cpu MHz : 3392.292 cache size : 4096 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 4 wp : yes flags : fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 cl flush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx lm up pni cx16 hypervisor lahf_lm bogomips : 6784.58 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
RAM info did not show anything interesting:
cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 254836 kB MemFree: 8144 kB Buffers: 8240 kB Cached: 199420 kB SwapCached: 324 kB Active: 42352 kB Inactive: 191388 kB Active(anon): 12184 kB Inactive(anon): 14020 kB Active(file): 30168 kB Inactive(file): 177368 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB HighTotal: 0 kB HighFree: 0 kB LowTotal: 254836 kB LowFree: 8144 kB SwapTotal: 495608 kB SwapFree: 495252 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 25852 kB Mapped: 7292 kB Shmem: 124 kB Slab: 9516 kB SReclaimable: 6124 kB SUnreclaim: 3392 kB KernelStack: 560 kB PageTables: 664 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 623024 kB Committed_AS: 111608 kB VmallocTotal: 765956 kB VmallocUsed: 5848 kB VmallocChunk: 752340 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 4096 kB DirectMap4k: 12276 kB DirectMap4M: 249856 kB
And time sync:
time sync real 0m0.048s user 0m0.004s sys 0m0.000s
I was not too impressed with the disk I/O speed though, in fact, such speed is considered pretty low by the standard today:
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, 38.0617 s, 28.2 MB/s
Testing again showed significant improvements, however the results is still not so satisfactory:
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, 27.6352 s, 38.9 MB/s
IOPing showed some pretty unstable results as well:
--- . (ext3 /dev/disk/by-uuid/7487fae1-4134-447b-8b2f-abe843c5d5ca) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9080.0 ms, 127 iops, 0.5 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.4/7.8/16.3/6.1 ms
And test again:
--- . (ext3 /dev/disk/by-uuid/7487fae1-4134-447b-8b2f-abe843c5d5ca) ioping stati stics --- 10 requests completed in 9058.5 ms, 190 iops, 0.7 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 0.0/5.3/16.4/5.6 ms
The download speed was pretty impressive – if the port is on 100mbit connection instead of the advertised 1Gbit connection:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-11-13 04:36:51-- 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 18.3M/s in 5.6s 2012-11-13 04:36:57 (17.8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
Testing again showed similar results:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-11-13 04:45:04-- 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 18.7M/s in 5.3s 2012-11-13 04:45:10 (18.7 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
Furthermore, since FileMedia has mentioned that they uses 1Gbit port, I have decided to use aget to test out the multi-threaded download, and the results is more consistent with the 100mbit port than 1Gbit could offer:
The first download test is from ThinkBroad, with their server located in London, UK in the Telehouse DC owned by NetConnex:
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] ................................ [64% completed] ................................... [69% completed] ..................................... [74% completed] ........................................ [79% completed] .......................................... [84% completed] ............................................. [89% completed] ............................................... [94% completed] .................................................. [99% completed] .................................................. [100% completed] Download completed, job completed in 60 seconds. (17476 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
Testing again showed even worse 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] ........................... [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 305 seconds. (3437 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
The next test file used was from HostDime in their Orlando, Florida location:
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 205 seconds. (4875 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
Testing again showed similar results:
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 306 seconds. (3266 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
As you can see, from the download tests alone, it is very difficult for me to justify that it is actually using a 1Gbit port.
Upload speed is dependent on the physical location too, first is the upload test from my Quickweb test VPS in Chicago, IL:
wget http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-12-01 17:51:01-- http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 84.23.xxx.xxx:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 722K/s in 3m 10s 2012-12-01 17:54:11 (540 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
My test VPS in Los Angeles, CA, which is along the West Coast, showed slightly worse results:
wget http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-12-02 06:56:37-- http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 84.23.xxx.xxx:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 543K/s in 4m 8s 2012-12-02 07:00:45 (414 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
Finally, my XenVZ test VPS at Maidenhead, UK, showed the fastest speed of all due to physical proximity.
wget http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2012-12-02 06:56:08-- http://84.23.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 84.23.xxx.xxx:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 1.81M/s in 67s 2012-12-02 06:57:15 (1.49 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
As you can see, even in continetal Europe, the network speed is probably less than satisfacotry for a 1Gbit port.
Finally, the benchmark tests, I was actually pretty surprised by the high score considering this VPS has only a single core CPU.
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
# # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ######
# # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # #
# # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # #
#### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
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
========================================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)
System: xxxxx: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-5-686 -- #1 SMP Sun May 6 04:01:19 UTC 2012
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968")
CPU 0: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6) (6784.6 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSCALL/SYSRET
04:51:28 up 1 day, 1:30, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Tue Nov 13 2012 04:51:28 - 05:19:39
1 CPU in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 19854776.6 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 3359.6 MWIPS (9.8 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 6885.5 lps (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 777639.2 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 213955.1 KBps (30.1 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1993313.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 1451173.6 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 372585.9 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 26862.3 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 9167.7 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1218.2 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 1261122.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 19854776.6 1701.4
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 3359.6 610.8
Execl Throughput 43.0 6885.5 1601.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 777639.2 1963.7
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 213955.1 1292.8
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1993313.9 3436.7
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 1451173.6 1166.5
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 372585.9 931.5
Process Creation 126.0 26862.3 2131.9
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 9167.7 2162.2
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 1218.2 2030.4
System Call Overhead 15000.0 1261122.2 840.7
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 1494.5
Testing again showed slightly worse results, but stil fairly impressive:
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
# # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ######
# # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # #
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#### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
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
========================================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)
System: xxxxx: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-5-686 -- #1 SMP Sun May 6 04:01:19 UTC 2012
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="ANSI_X3.4-1968", collate="ANSI_X3.4-1968")
CPU 0: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6) (6784.6 bogomips)
x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSCALL/SYSRET
05:27:56 up 1 day, 2:06, 2 users, load average: 0.22, 0.86, 1.16; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Tue Nov 13 2012 05:27:56 - 05:56:07
1 CPU in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 19946412.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 3374.0 MWIPS (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 7145.2 lps (29.6 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 793521.7 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 223670.0 KBps (30.1 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1976912.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 1451803.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 378572.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 26849.9 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 9158.7 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1193.6 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 1264982.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 19946412.1 1709.2
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 3374.0 613.5
Execl Throughput 43.0 7145.2 1661.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 793521.7 2003.8
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 223670.0 1351.5
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1976912.8 3408.5
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 1451803.5 1167.0
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 378572.7 946.4
Process Creation 126.0 26849.9 2130.9
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 9158.7 2160.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 1193.6 1989.4
System Call Overhead 15000.0 1264982.0 843.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 1507.0
GeekBench results are pretty good too:
System Information
Platform: Linux x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)
Operating System: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 i686
Model: Linux PC (QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6))
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 3
Logical Processors: 1
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 3.39 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 64.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 64.0 KB
L2 Cache: 512 KB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 0.00 Hz
Memory: 249 MB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
Processor Cores: 1
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 2181 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2368 |||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 2974 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2922 |||||||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 3130 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3291 |||||||||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 2533 ||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2499 |||||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 2509 ||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2577 ||||||||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 3983 |||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4100 ||||||||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 2884 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2928 |||||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 4687 ||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4967 |||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 5483 |||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 6395 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 3599 ||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3627 ||||||||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 5000 ||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4058 ||||||||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 11307 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 11387 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 8908 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 9008 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 7341 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 10820 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 5276 |||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 6828 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 13729 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 5909 |||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6666 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 6246 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6119 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 5771 |||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6249 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 6415 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4637 ||||||||||||||||||
Integer Score: 2922 |||||||||||
Floating Point Score: 6017 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 8798 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 6001 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 5488 |||||||||||||||||||||
Testing again showed similar results:
System Information
Platform: Linux x86 (32-bit)
Compiler: GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)
Operating System: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 i686
Model: Linux PC (QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6))
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 13 Stepping 3
Logical Processors: 1
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 3.39 GHz
L1 Instruction Cache: 64.0 KB
L1 Data Cache: 64.0 KB
L2 Cache: 512 KB
L3 Cache: 0.00 B
Bus Frequency: 0.00 Hz
Memory: 249 MB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
Processor Cores: 1
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 2229 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2401 |||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 2843 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2686 ||||||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 2964 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3123 ||||||||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 2432 |||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2369 |||||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 2459 |||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2424 |||||||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 4037 ||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4131 ||||||||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 2896 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2941 |||||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 4724 ||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4975 |||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 5635 ||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 6459 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 3619 ||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3699 ||||||||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 5043 ||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3959 |||||||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 11339 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 11424 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 8839 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 8381 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 6990 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 9872 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 5224 ||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 6508 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 13007 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 5541 ||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6404 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 6038 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6328 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 5424 |||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6426 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 6173 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 4864 |||||||||||||||||||
Integer Score: 2841 |||||||||||
Floating Point Score: 5995 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 8320 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 5899 |||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 5346 |||||||||||||||||||||
Customer Service and Support
I did expect too much out of a free testing VPS when it comes to support, however my technical ticket submitted on a Saturday at 23:44pm was answered the next day at 12:10pm. Although it was not the fastest I have ever seen, but for a low cost provider, such time should be acceptable. The best part? Reply was in English and is very formal.
Conclusion
Although primarily a German-based business, I am glad that FileMedia has taken a bold step moving to the international market, although obviously there will still be quite a bit of work ahead in terms of making the whole business a bit more catered towards the non-German speaking population. Disk I/O is not that great and the network speed may not be as good as they have advertised as 1Gbit port, however the benchmarks are pretty impressive and the support is relatively reasonable, and particularly the availability of Windows ISOs make it a good option for people who might need a Windows VPS in Europe.
Very nice they have Debian 7 and Ubuntu 12.10, and other latest iso.
Did you use virtio? For KVMs you tested, whats the average IO?
@jcaleb: Unfortunately there was no option for me to select disk driver 🙁
i thought that was standard with solus
Isnt the language thing the fault of WHMCS, certainly looks like they use it, that or Solus, since half of it is in English.
A lot of those automated Emails are from whmcs, *it* should be smart enough to send an english copy, assuming it even offers the option to include multi-lang welcomes etc, if not, again, WHMCS problem, perhaps it why many hostings are moving away to hostbill
@Nobby6: I would think the template is fully customizable. In case of EDIS for example, they do send their welcome letter in 2 copies, one in German and one in English, I know it is duplicate emails for those who are bilingual in both languages but in reality, we are living in a world with way more German speakers than English speakers.