96MB Low End VPS Community Member Review Part 2 – CatalystHost OpenVZ
Preface
It was always great to see yet another refreshing review from one of the 96MB readers, jcaleb. The last host reviewed by him was Prometeous, which is arguably one of the oldest and most respected player in the low end VPS market. The host to be reviewed today, on the other hand, is a relatively new entrant in the play field. Without further delay, let’s take a look at this great review.
As per the last review, only slight formatting have been done by me, so all credits goes to jcaleb. Thanks jcaleb!
LET/LEB is now crowded with so many host, all trying to stand out and be successful. One company that caught my attention is CatalystHost, as they are very proud of the quality of their service and how they treat their customers.
Quoting the owners in their LET offer.
As always, the most important thing that I want to do is thank our clients. I couldn’t do this without you, obviously. Catalyst is all about you. Your success is my success. Your failure is my failure. We’re in this together. It doesn’t matter what plan you subscribe to, you are paying me to look out for you. I’m not doing you any favors, you’re doing me the favor by giving me the chance to serve you and your clients.
Has your VPS provider let you down? Are you ready to move to a provider that wants to treat you like a paying customer? Do you feel that “unmanaged” is too often cited as an excuse for providing inadequate service?
Well I’m not here to sweet talk you. I’m not here to make myself out to be perfect. In fact, I’m going to tell you every mistake I’ve made as a VPS provider. I’m going to tell you what happened and how I resolved it. You want some insight into how I manage my nodes? Look no further.
Although I can’t find the posts, I’m quite sure that they mentioned many times before that they take care of their customers very well. It is interesting to test if they really provide good support, as they brag in the community.
Disclaimer: I am doing this review for recreational purposes, and as a gratitude to LET/LEB/96mb community. I am not receiving any compensation from CatalystHost in service or financial terms. I have paid for the VPS to be able to write this review.
VPS Plans
CatalystHost only provides OpenVZ packages. Below are their regular prices, which I find to be priced very good, even without discounts.
But they do offer promotions from time to time at LET/LEB. Below are their most recent offer at LEB.
Customer Service and Support
I wish to start with my experience with their customer service as my main motivation for the review is to try their support.
I did not use my real identity, and I purchased their Trenta plan using regular prices from their website, for them not to suspect that I am from LET/LEB or WHT. That could possibly give bias to how they answer their tickets.
I submitted 9 tickets in total, and I tried my best to try different times of the day. My first 8 tickets were answered very fast, mostly within a few minutes. The longest one is 12 minutes, if I’m not mistaken. But my 9th ticket took 1 hour and 12 minutes, as I luckily caught their sweet spot as mentioned here.
I did not try to be an annoying customer. I feel there’s no point to it. I just made myself look like a normal customer with little technical knowledge. I did space out my tickets on different days, to make it look that I was trying to work out my problems, and shooting tickets from time to time to seek guidance and help.
Tickets are answered by Jarland, Ryan, and Don. I have experience from many providers by now, and I find CatalystHost to be the most helpful, warm, and patient. I’m really impressed! If you are interested, I am sharing my tickets and their response, so you can judge their response for yourself:
My last ticket from them is about refund, which Ryan gave quickly without any hint of resistance. As I ask for pro-rated refund, they charged me approximately $3.6 for 1 week worth of service. Which is the right computation as 1 month is $15. As proof of refund:
Setup
Signing process does not make you select OS or upgrade items and the provision is instant.
The welcome email looks something like this:
If ipv6 is important for you, I’m sad to say that they seem not to support it yet.
CatalystHost uses VirtPanel to control their VPS. There is nothing to worry, it’s still user friendly.
By default, no OS is installed on your VPS. You have to login to the control panel and rebuild to be able to install for the first time.
The choice of OS templates are not that many, but they do cover the major ones (Centos 5&6, Debian 5, and Ubuntu 12.04). It is worth to note that they have some Turnkey’s available, which is a big time saver. They also have images of pre-installed FlashStreaming server (not sure if this is Red5, crtmpd, or other), and ZPanel. I love the fact that they have ArchLinux, that distro has a good following also.
Test on the VPS
As mentioned above, the test VPS I have purchased has 2048MB of RAM with 512 Mb vSwap, 50GB Diskspace and 1TB of bandwidth, the VPS is located at Dallas, Texas. For the tests carried out below, I have used Debian 6 32 bit OS.
Since we are working with high resource VPS, I will skip traditional testing that concerns minimal disk/memory VPS.
Disk Usage is as expected:
df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/simfs 50G 573M 50G 2% /
tmpfs 1.0G 0 1.0G 0% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs 1.0G 0 1.0G 0% /dev/shm
The iNodes are set to pretty high values
df -i
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/simfs 12800000 35350 12764650 1% /
tmpfs 262144 4 262140 1% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs 262144 1 262143 1% /dev/shm
Uptime is good:
uptime
15:14:34 up 6 min, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00
Vmstat is good:
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 1777200 0 265656 0 0 0 225 0 78 1 0 98 0
CPUInfo shows there are four CPU cores available and none of them are throttled:
cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 2000.086 cache size : 15360 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 12 core id : 0 cpu cores : 6 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 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 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4000.17 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 1 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 2000.086 cache size : 15360 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 12 core id : 1 cpu cores : 6 apicid : 2 initial apicid : 2 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 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 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4000.17 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 2 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 2000.086 cache size : 15360 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 12 core id : 2 cpu cores : 6 apicid : 4 initial apicid : 4 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 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 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4000.17 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: processor : 3 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 45 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 2000.086 cache size : 15360 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 12 core id : 3 cpu cores : 6 apicid : 6 initial apicid : 6 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 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 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4000.17 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
Meminfo:
cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 2097152 kB MemFree: 1777228 kB Cached: 265656 kB Active: 166572 kB Inactive: 133700 kB Active(anon): 32536 kB Inactive(anon): 2080 kB Active(file): 134036 kB Inactive(file): 131620 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 524288 kB SwapFree: 524288 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 34616 kB Shmem: 35896 kB Slab: 19580 kB SReclaimable: 16396 kB SUnreclaim: 3184 kB
Disk I/O is fast for a non-SSD offer
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, 3.82962 s, 280 MB/s
Testing again showed similar result:
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, 3.63183 s, 296 MB/s
The ioping result is good.
ioping -c 10 .
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=1 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=2 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=3 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=4 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=5 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=6 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=7 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=8 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=9 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=10 time=0.2 ms
--- . (simfs /vz/private/675) ioping statistics ---
10 requests completed in 9002.8 ms, 6196 iops, 24.2 mb/s
min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.2/0.2/0.0 ms
Testing again showed similar results:
ioping -c 10 .
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=1 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=2 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=3 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=4 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=5 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=6 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=7 time=0.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=8 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=9 time=0.2 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/675): request=10 time=0.1 ms
--- . (simfs /vz/private/675) ioping statistics ---
10 requests completed in 9002.4 ms, 6807 iops, 26.6 mb/s
min/avg/max/mdev = 0.1/0.1/0.2/0.0 ms
Using the FreeVPS benchmark script shows good network, capable of 1Gbps instead of the usual 100mbps.
bash bench.sh
CPU model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Number of cores : 4
CPU frequency : 2000.086 MHz
Total amount of ram : 2048 MB
Total amount of swap : 512 MB
System uptime : 1 day, 23:49,
Download speed from CacheFly: 82.9MB/s
Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 26.2MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 109MB/s
Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 6.36MB/s
Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 3.77MB/s
Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 10.6MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 6.19MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 29.9MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 30.0MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 35.0MB/s
I/O speed : 413 MB/s
Testing again shows relatively same results:
bash bench.sh
CPU model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Number of cores : 4
CPU frequency : 2000.086 MHz
Total amount of ram : 2048 MB
Total amount of swap : 512 MB
System uptime : 1 day, 23:50,
Download speed from CacheFly: 86.7MB/s
Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 41.8MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 103MB/s
Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 6.47MB/s
Download speed from Linode, London, UK: 4.20MB/s
Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 10.5MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 6.05MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 30.2MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 34.1MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 35.6MB/s
I/O speed : 396 MB/s
Since this VPS has 4 unthrottled CPU cores, the Unixbench score is very good at more than 2,000 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
4 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Process Creation 1 2 3
4 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3
4 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3
========================================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)
System: al514: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-042stab074.10 -- #1 SMP Fri Mar 1 09:18:44 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 E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 3: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
14:58:41 up 3 min, 1 user, load average: 0.38, 0.12, 0.04; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 17 2013 14:58:41 - 15:26:32
4 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 22575359.6 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2512.8 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2402.1 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 451115.7 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 106240.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1135602.2 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 939465.4 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 84847.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 6999.2 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 6038.2 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1868.0 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 1227785.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 22575359.6 1934.5
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2512.8 456.9
Execl Throughput 43.0 2402.1 558.6
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 451115.7 1139.2
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 106240.6 641.9
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1135602.2 1957.9
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 939465.4 755.2
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 84847.2 212.1
Process Creation 126.0 6999.2 555.5
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 6038.2 1424.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 1868.0 3113.3
System Call Overhead 15000.0 1227785.1 818.5
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 884.2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 17 2013 15:26:32 - 15:54:44
4 CPUs in system; running 4 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 89699540.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 10053.0 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 9714.0 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 375154.4 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 97916.7 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1150772.0 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 3659868.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 590721.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 27550.5 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 19016.4 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 2079.2 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 2748498.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 89699540.2 7686.3
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 10053.0 1827.8
Execl Throughput 43.0 9714.0 2259.1
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 375154.4 947.4
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 97916.7 591.6
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1150772.0 1984.1
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 3659868.0 2942.0
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 590721.5 1476.8
Process Creation 126.0 27550.5 2186.6
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 19016.4 4485.0
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 2079.2 3465.3
System Call Overhead 15000.0 2748498.0 1832.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 2146.2
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
4 x Dhrystone 2 using register variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Double-Precision Whetstone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Execl Throughput 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1 2 3
4 x Pipe Throughput 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Pipe-based Context Switching 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Process Creation 1 2 3
4 x System Call Overhead 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4 x Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 1 2 3
4 x Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1 2 3
========================================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)
System: al514: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-042stab074.10 -- #1 SMP Fri Mar 1 09:18:44 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 E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
CPU 3: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.2 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
15:57:04 up 1:02, 1 user, load average: 2.16, 8.30, 6.06; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 17 2013 15:57:04 - 16:24:58
4 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 22586093.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2512.6 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2461.0 lps (29.6 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 468356.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 123338.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1091365.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 941321.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 81396.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 6936.6 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 6024.2 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 1858.4 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 1284477.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 22586093.5 1935.4
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2512.6 456.8
Execl Throughput 43.0 2461.0 572.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 468356.8 1182.7
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 123338.9 745.3
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1091365.5 1881.7
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 941321.0 756.7
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 81396.8 203.5
Process Creation 126.0 6936.6 550.5
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 6024.2 1420.8
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 1858.4 3097.3
System Call Overhead 15000.0 1284477.2 856.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 896.1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 17 2013 16:24:58 - 16:53:00
4 CPUs in system; running 4 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 89225716.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 10043.2 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 9738.8 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 374334.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 104702.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1207235.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 3734383.9 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 593722.5 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 27295.1 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 19232.9 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 2071.2 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 2631795.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 89225716.7 7645.7
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 10043.2 1826.0
Execl Throughput 43.0 9738.8 2264.8
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 374334.5 945.3
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 104702.8 632.6
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1207235.6 2081.4
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 3734383.9 3001.9
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 593722.5 1484.3
Process Creation 126.0 27295.1 2166.3
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 19232.9 4536.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 2071.2 3452.1
System Call Overhead 15000.0 2631795.7 1754.5
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 2162.1
Geekbench scores are good:
Testing again showed relatively same results:
Conclusion
On the technical testing, I find that this VPS is suitable for production purposes. The CPU is not the best, but still very good specially because they are not throttled like what other providers do with their cheap high RAM offers. Disk I/O and network are excellent, which is very important for overall performance. There is also no signs that they overload their servers.
I am very particular of OS choices, as there are open source software that only works on very specific version of a Linux distribution, and to support wide variety of possible users of the VPS service. In addition, my benchmark for OS choices is BuyVM, which boast more than 100 Linux distros. I believe this feature is very important to be a truly awesome company. But I don’t have experience being a provider, so I don’t know how hard it is to include other OS (E.g. Ubuntu 10.04, 11.04, 11.10, etc) in VirtPanel or SolusVM.
It is also worth mentioning that they do weekly backups of your VPS at no extra charge, and they do give free DNS service for only one domain. These are very good add-on service, but I think they have many catching up tasks to do. Many providers now have more, like unlimited domain DNS service, free FTP backup, Offloaded MySQL, and free monitoring service. They maybe still a small company (I’m not sure) that’s why they don’t have these extra services, but I believe they should aspire to, because they truly deserve to be very successful.
For the most important part, the support has been pretty awesome! Responses were very fast and very good. I have experience with other providers, and I truly feel that CatalystHost has the best customer support. Friendly, professional, warm, patient, helpful, reasonable, and walks the extra mile. Jarland and Ryan made me a believer, I think I found myself a new home for my future VPS needs. Knowing that those guys is taking care of my services, will make me sleep much better at night.
Thanks JCaleb for the detailed review. You ROCK
hope you have great success, you guys are awesome!
This is quite interesting being able to run sites with low amounts of ram – I struggled with a 256mb vps so I’m amazed that a site can run on such a small amount of ram
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