96MB Low End VPS Review Part 69–Prometeus Biz Xen 5
There are a few providers in the low end VPS community which are constantly ranked among the top providers, such as BuyVM, Ramnode and Prometeus. Unlike other providers, who seem to focus exclusively on the low end VPS market, Prometeus is also caters to the more serious business clientele by offering what they call the “Biz” plans. Those plans are most likely slightly more expensive than the regular plans, but should have less number of VPS to share the physical server and has more restrictions in terms of what can be run on the server to ensure the best service experience for everyone. However, is it really as good as what have claimed to be? Let’s take a look.
Basic Information and Set Up
Thanks to LowEndBox, I was able to take advantage of the special offer from Prometeus on their Biz Xen plans, which is normally outside of the “low end” VPS range:
As you can see, the disk space offered is quite small compare to the “typical” 512MB RAM VPS offers, however this is because they do not oversell the hard drive space.
The promo code also works on all other Biz Xen plans, so if you need something more than 512MB of RAM, you can get it with a nice discount as well although it would be out of the LEB (7USD per month) range even with the annual discount.
The sign up process is pretty standard and I was able to get the VPS the moment my Paypal invoice payment confirmation email arrives. The root password assigned was random and the SolusVM username is assigned by the system.
Their WHMCS system is using the secured HTTPS protocol and once logged in, the service is shown under My Services:
As you can see, there are several buttons available that you could use to control the VPS, and they all seems to work:
Clicking on the View Graph button only brought up the traffic graph:
The SolusVM interface of Promteus is also on HTTPS protocol, and once logged in, a pretty standard SolusVM interface was shown:
There are quite a few OS installation options, which not only includes the base OS but a few of them with the desktop pre-installed as well, however there is no turnkey template available:
Instant rDNS is available since Prometeus own the IP block:
And even though they do not provide backup space within the SolusVM control panel, Prometeus does offer 25GB of offsite backup space for free with every single Xen 1-5 plan. The account is DirectAdmin based but there is not much to configure there:
As you can see, you are only allow to have one FTP account, and you are allowed to have 25GB of space and 100GB of bandwidth. You can, however, add your own domains and subdomains there although I am not sure if hosting a website is allowed in this case since the space is meant for use with backups.
Test on the VPS
Unlike other major providers who are mostly offering multiple locations, Prometeus is focused in one location: CDLan datacenter in Millan, Italy (which is one of the largest campus/internet exchange in Italy as per LowEndBox). The VPS comes with 512MB of RAM and 512MB of swap space, 20GB of hard drive space and I have installed Debian 6 32bit for testing purposes.
When the OS was first loaded, about 15MB of RAM was used, which is slightly larger than the standard OpenVZ RAM usage:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 500 64 436 0 3 45
-/+ buffers/cache: 15 485
Swap: 511 0 511
Top shows some standard processes are running:
top - 00:44:56 up 13:26, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks: 56 total, 1 running, 55 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: 512948k total, 65848k used, 447100k free, 3508k buffers
Swap: 524280k total, 0k used, 524280k free, 46660k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1173 root 20 0 8268 2880 2360 S 0 0.6 0:00.07 sshd
1140 root 20 0 8268 2868 2352 S 0 0.6 0:00.03 sshd
1143 root 20 0 3952 2660 1352 S 0 0.5 0:00.17 bash
1176 root 20 0 3952 2652 1348 S 0 0.5 0:00.16 bash
557 root 20 0 27324 1428 1032 S 0 0.3 0:00.02 rsyslogd
1194 root 20 0 2344 1128 904 R 0 0.2 0:00.00 top
848 root 20 0 5504 976 584 S 0 0.2 0:00.02 sshd
861 Debian-e 20 0 6528 932 616 S 0 0.2 0:00.02 exim4
615 root 20 0 2304 868 680 S 0 0.2 0:00.06 cron
150 root 16 -4 2268 744 404 S 0 0.1 0:00.03 udevd
1 root 20 0 2044 720 624 S 0 0.1 0:00.70 init
197 root 18 -2 2264 668 332 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 udevd
198 root 18 -2 2264 668 332 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 udevd
880 root 20 0 1716 572 492 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
881 root 20 0 1716 572 492 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
883 root 20 0 1716 572 492 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
885 root 20 0 1716 568 492 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
And htop output:
About 803MB of hard drive space was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 20G 803M 18G 5% / tmpfs 251M 0 251M 0% /lib/init/rw udev 241M 24K 241M 1% /dev tmpfs 251M 4.0K 251M 1% /dev/shm
And 1% of INodes are used:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 2621440 24955 2596485 1% / tmpfs 64118 4 64114 1% /lib/init/rw udev 61455 390 61065 1% /dev tmpfs 64118 3 64115 1% /dev/shm
When the full LNMP stack was loaded, 47MB of RAM was used:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 500 471 29 0 20 403
-/+ buffers/cache: 47 453
Swap: 511 0 511
Top showing the LNMP stack:
top - 09:55:53 up 14:37, 1 user, load average: 0.04, 0.42, 0.55
Tasks: 58 total, 1 running, 57 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: 512948k total, 483356k used, 29592k free, 21396k buffers
Swap: 524280k total, 0k used, 524280k free, 412988k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
19314 www 20 0 15740 10m 456 S 0 2.2 0:00.01 nginx
17635 mysql 20 0 34444 5084 2448 S 0 1.0 0:00.02 mysqld
1176 root 20 0 3956 2248 940 S 0 0.4 0:00.19 bash
1173 root 20 0 8408 1552 996 S 0 0.3 0:01.38 sshd
19342 root 20 0 2504 1200 956 R 0 0.2 0:00.01 top
557 root 20 0 27324 1044 648 S 0 0.2 0:00.02 rsyslogd
2285 root 20 0 5556 920 536 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 sshd
8149 root 20 0 2436 920 728 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 cron
2560 Debian-e 20 0 6556 852 544 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 exim4
19313 root 20 0 5528 792 296 S 0 0.2 0:00.00 nginx
1 root 20 0 2064 604 520 S 0 0.1 0:00.74 init
17533 root 20 0 1876 588 500 S 0 0.1 0:00.01 mysqld_safe
150 root 16 -4 2268 544 204 S 0 0.1 0:00.03 udevd
197 root 18 -2 2264 516 180 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 udevd
198 root 18 -2 2264 516 180 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 udevd
2613 daemon 20 0 2196 440 312 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 atd
880 root 20 0 1716 396 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
881 root 20 0 1716 396 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
883 root 20 0 1716 396 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
885 root 20 0 1716 392 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
879 root 20 0 1716 388 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
882 root 20 0 1716 388 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
884 root 20 0 1716 388 316 S 0 0.1 0:00.00 getty
And htop output:
2.2GB of hard drive space was used:
df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 20G 2.2G 17G 12% / tmpfs 251M 0 251M 0% /lib/init/rw udev 241M 24K 241M 1% /dev tmpfs 251M 4.0K 251M 1% /dev/shm
And 4% of INodes were used:
df -i Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 2621440 80278 2541162 4% / tmpfs 64118 4 64114 1% /lib/init/rw udev 61455 390 61065 1% /dev tmpfs 64118 3 64115 1% /dev/shm
Uptime shows the VPS is mostly idle:
uptime 00:52:50 up 13:34, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
VMStats 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 0 434868 4580 57132 0 0 0 0 5 1 0 0 100 0
There are two CPU cores assigned to this VPS, and the CPU is E5-2620 with no throttle of the CPU:
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 : 1999.999 cache size : 15360 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr pae cx8 sep cmov pat clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht nx constant_tsc nonstop_tsc pni pclmulqdq ssse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes avx hypervisor bogomips : 3999.99 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 : 1999.999 cache size : 15360 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr pae cx8 sep cmov pat clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht nx constant_tsc nonstop_tsc pni pclmulqdq ssse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes avx hypervisor bogomips : 3999.99 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
Meminfo output:
cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 512948 kB MemFree: 8420 kB Buffers: 20092 kB Cached: 447280 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 49668 kB Inactive: 435744 kB Active(anon): 6200 kB Inactive(anon): 11876 kB Active(file): 43468 kB Inactive(file): 423868 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB HighTotal: 0 kB HighFree: 0 kB LowTotal: 512948 kB LowFree: 8420 kB SwapTotal: 524280 kB SwapFree: 524280 kB Dirty: 0 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 18012 kB Mapped: 5876 kB Shmem: 36 kB Slab: 15328 kB SReclaimable: 12728 kB SUnreclaim: 2600 kB KernelStack: 488 kB PageTables: 496 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 780752 kB Committed_AS: 76260 kB VmallocTotal: 335864 kB VmallocUsed: 844 kB VmallocChunk: 334864 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 524288 kB DirectMap2M: 0 kB
And time sync:
time sync real 0m0.041s user 0m0.004s sys 0m0.004s
For the network test, I was initially using the wget tests, however the download speed looks more like a Gbit port to me:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2013-07-18 10:20:26-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 158.58.172.129 Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|158.58.172.129|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[=======================================================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 73.6M/s in 1.4s 2013-07-18 10:20:28 (73.6 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
Testing again (exactly a month later, as I am writing this post!), shows slower speed, however is definitely higher than what I would normally see on a 100mbit port:
wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2013-08-18 22:57:47-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 158.58.172.129 Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|158.58.172.129|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 28.3M/s in 3.5s 2013-08-18 22:57:51 (28.3 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
As such, I’ve decided to use the aget to test download a 1GB file to see how the full port speed is like:
The first test is to download the ThinkBroadband test file, which is located in Epsom, UK (in the previous posts I’ve always described them as in London, UK. However Epsom is about 45 minutes drive from London, UK, so they are actually not that far apart in the view of the Internet.
aget -n 10 http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip Attempting 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] .. [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 51 seconds. (20560 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
Testing again shows very consistent results:
aget -n 10 http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip Attempting 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] [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 41 seconds. (25575 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
As you can see, the download speed is pretty consistent.
I have also used the Hostdime’s test file located in Orlando, Florida:
aget -n 10 http://72.29.70.131/1gbfile.tgz Attempting 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 49 seconds. (20396 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
Testing again shows fairly consistent results:
aget -n 10 http://72.29.70.131/1gbfile.tgz Attempting 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] [9% completed] ....... [14% completed] .......... [19% completed] ............ [24% completed] ............... [29% completed] ................. [34% completed] .................... [39% completed] .................... [39% 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 52 seconds. (19219 Kb/sec) Shutting down...
As you can see, through both tests, the port speed is fairly consistent at 20MB/s. Even though the speed itself is not the most amazing that I’ve seen (however still fairly impressive), the consistency is definitely something great.
For the upload tests, I’ve had a bit of panic there as I do not recall myself having other VPS in Europe other than the one from Prometeus itself, which is obviously not good if I am testing the upload speed using a VPS within the same network. Fortunately, Anthony Smith from Inception Hosting has offered me a VPS to play around a long time ago, which was really helpful in this case.
The first test is on my VPS with Quickweb in Chicago, IL:
wget 194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2013-08-18 16:36:16-- http://194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 194.14.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 977K/s in 1m 45s 2013-08-18 16:38:01 (973 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
As you can see, the upload speed is slightly less than 1MB/s, which is not bad but is certainly not the best speed I’ve seen.
Second test is done on my test VPS with ChicagoVPS in Los Angeles, California, which is on the west coast:
wget 194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2013-08-18 12:54:41-- http://194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 194.14.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 362K/s in 4m 42s 2013-08-18 12:59:23 (364 KB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
As you can see, the test speed is significantly worse than along the east coast, and is at 364KB/s.
Finally, the test VPS with Inception Hosting in Amsterdam, Netherlands. As both VPS (the uploading and downloading) have 1GBit port, and also because both are located within the same continent, the speed is significantly better when compare against the other upload tests.
wget 194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test -O /dev/null --2013-08-18 17:10:58-- http://194.14.xxx.xxx/100mb.test Connecting to 194.14.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 6.25M/s in 16s 2013-08-18 17:11:14 (6.16 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
DD tests shows very consistent disk I/O speed:
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, 7.15632 s, 150 MB/s
Testing again showed almost exact identical speed:
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, 7.15632 s, 150 MB/s
The new version of ioping shows the speed in microseconds (a thousandth of a millisecond), which will give us a better picture than just using the milliseconds:
ioping -c 10 . 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=1 time=186 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=2 time=358 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=3 time=415 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=4 time=326 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=5 time=315 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=6 time=334 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=7 time=313 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=8 time=656 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=9 time=327 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=10 time=394 us --- . (ext3 /dev/xvda1) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9.0 s, 2.8 k iops, 10.8 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 186 us / 362 us / 656 us / 113 us
As you can see, the roundtrip time for the ioping varies slightly between 0.2ms to 0.6ms, and that is fairly fast by any standard.
ioping -c 10 . 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=1 time=267 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=2 time=396 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=3 time=300 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=4 time=308 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=5 time=234 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=6 time=263 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=7 time=739 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=8 time=262 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=9 time=294 us 4.0 kb from . (ext3 /dev/xvda1): request=10 time=249 us --- . (ext3 /dev/xvda1) ioping statistics --- 10 requests completed in 9.0 s, 3.0 k iops, 11.8 mb/s min/avg/max/mdev = 234 us / 331 us / 739 us / 142 us
The results for the second tests is fairly similar to that of the first, indicating the results are fairly consistent.
For the benchmarks, I was a little surprised with the Unixbench score:
# # # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
# # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # # #
# # # # # # ## ##### ##### # # # # ######
# # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # #
# # # ## # # # # # # # ## # # # #
#### # # # # # ##### ###### # # #### # #
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: xxxxx: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem -- #1 SMP Sun May 6 04:39:05 UTC 2012
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT
11:58:04 up 16:39, 1 user, load average: 14.13, 7.88, 4.06; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Thu Jul 18 2013 11:58:04 - 12:26:01
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 14774065.8 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2062.2 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 1209.8 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 254842.9 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 68113.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 722578.3 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 424943.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 53169.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 2291.4 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 2965.2 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 558.9 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 468667.9 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 14774065.8 1266.0
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2062.2 374.9
Execl Throughput 43.0 1209.8 281.4
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 254842.9 643.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 68113.5 411.6
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 722578.3 1245.8
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 424943.1 341.6
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 53169.2 132.9
Process Creation 126.0 2291.4 181.9
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 2965.2 699.3
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 558.9 931.5
System Call Overhead 15000.0 468667.9 312.4
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 452.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Thu Jul 18 2013 12:26:01 - 12:54:00
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 29390055.4 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 4118.3 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2430.5 lps (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 303148.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 83926.2 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 962925.3 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 851513.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 107030.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 4551.7 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 4535.1 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 593.9 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 861449.0 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 29390055.4 2518.4
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 4118.3 748.8
Execl Throughput 43.0 2430.5 565.2
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 303148.8 765.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 83926.2 507.1
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 962925.3 1660.2
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 851513.1 684.5
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 107030.0 267.6
Process Creation 126.0 4551.7 361.2
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 4535.1 1069.6
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 593.9 989.9
System Call Overhead 15000.0 861449.0 574.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 741.5
Testing again gives similar results:
========================================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)
System: xxxxxx: GNU/Linux
OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem -- #1 SMP Sun May 6 04:39:05 UTC 2012
Machine: i686 (unknown)
Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT
CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.0 bogomips)
Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT
11:02:09 up 15:43, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01; runlevel 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Thu Jul 18 2013 11:02:09 - 11:30:06
2 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 15662318.1 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 2079.8 MWIPS (10.3 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 1291.9 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 271230.5 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 71523.4 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 778123.4 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 439153.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 55155.4 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 2399.4 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 3095.1 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 586.1 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 478474.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 15662318.1 1342.1
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 2079.8 378.1
Execl Throughput 43.0 1291.9 300.4
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 271230.5 684.9
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 71523.4 432.2
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 778123.4 1341.6
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 439153.7 353.0
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 55155.4 137.9
Process Creation 126.0 2399.4 190.4
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 3095.1 730.0
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 586.1 976.9
System Call Overhead 15000.0 478474.2 319.0
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 473.7
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Thu Jul 18 2013 11:30:06 - 11:58:04
2 CPUs in system; running 2 parallel copies of tests
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 30996169.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone 4164.5 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput 2514.3 lps (29.9 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 311047.6 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 85164.8 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 1000258.3 KBps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput 871429.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching 106924.7 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation 4411.3 lps (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 4338.0 lpm (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 555.6 lpm (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead 844979.2 lps (10.0 s, 7 samples)
System Benchmarks Index Values BASELINE RESULT INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables 116700.0 30996169.2 2656.1
Double-Precision Whetstone 55.0 4164.5 757.2
Execl Throughput 43.0 2514.3 584.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks 3960.0 311047.6 785.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks 1655.0 85164.8 514.6
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks 5800.0 1000258.3 1724.6
Pipe Throughput 12440.0 871429.2 700.5
Pipe-based Context Switching 4000.0 106924.7 267.3
Process Creation 126.0 4411.3 350.1
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent) 42.4 4338.0 1023.1
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent) 6.0 555.6 926.1
System Call Overhead 15000.0 844979.2 563.3
========
System Benchmarks Index Score 743.8
As you can see, the benchmark score is not exactly high. In fact, it is probably one of the less impressive ones, particularly considering that there are two CPU cores assigned to this VPS.
For the Geekbench, the scores are a little better:
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-bigmem i686
Model: Linux PC (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz)
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 45 Stepping 7
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.00 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: 501 MB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Processor Cores: 2
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 1287 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2576 ||||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 1686 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3039 ||||||||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1858 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3551 ||||||||||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 1440 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2397 |||||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1367 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2034 ||||||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 2402 |||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4653 ||||||||||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 1658 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3057 ||||||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 2733 ||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 5246 ||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3193 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 5998 |||||||||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 2029 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2025 ||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 2858 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4305 |||||||||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 6282 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 10207 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 5080 ||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 9474 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 4406 |||||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 7728 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 2892 |||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 1968 |||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 4208 ||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 4548 ||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 7240 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 5042 ||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 7498 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 5768 |||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 8543 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 6283 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6711 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Integer Score: 2357 |||||||||
Floating Point Score: 4581 ||||||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 4240 ||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 6454 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 3921 |||||||||||||||
Testing again and the results is almost the same:
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-bigmem i686
Model: Linux PC (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz)
Motherboard: Unknown Motherboard
Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Processor ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 45 Stepping 7
Logical Processors: 2
Physical Processors: 1
Processor Frequency: 2.00 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: 501 MB
Memory Type: N/A
SIMD: 1
BIOS: N/A
Processor Model: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 0 @ 2.00GHz
Processor Cores: 2
Integer
Blowfish
single-threaded scalar 1276 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2544 ||||||||||
Text Compress
single-threaded scalar 1652 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3125 ||||||||||||
Text Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1822 |||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3526 ||||||||||||||
Image Compress
single-threaded scalar 1464 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2342 |||||||||
Image Decompress
single-threaded scalar 1370 |||||
multi-threaded scalar 2172 ||||||||
Lua
single-threaded scalar 2419 |||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4647 ||||||||||||||||||
Floating Point
Mandelbrot
single-threaded scalar 1659 ||||||
multi-threaded scalar 3135 ||||||||||||
Dot Product
single-threaded scalar 2731 ||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 5257 |||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 3196 ||||||||||||
multi-threaded vector 6159 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
LU Decomposition
single-threaded scalar 2086 ||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 2124 ||||||||
Primality Test
single-threaded scalar 2881 |||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 4514 ||||||||||||||||||
Sharpen Image
single-threaded scalar 6357 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 9406 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blur Image
single-threaded scalar 5081 ||||||||||||||||||||
multi-threaded scalar 9536 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory
Read Sequential
single-threaded scalar 4569 ||||||||||||||||||
Write Sequential
single-threaded scalar 7335 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stdlib Allocate
single-threaded scalar 2752 |||||||||||
Stdlib Write
single-threaded scalar 1787 |||||||
Stdlib Copy
single-threaded scalar 4226 ||||||||||||||||
Stream
Stream Copy
single-threaded scalar 4866 |||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 9314 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Scale
single-threaded scalar 5137 ||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6623 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Add
single-threaded scalar 6089 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6806 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Triad
single-threaded scalar 6632 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
single-threaded vector 6217 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Integer Score: 2363 |||||||||
Floating Point Score: 4580 ||||||||||||||||||
Memory Score: 4133 ||||||||||||||||
Stream Score: 6460 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Overall Geekbench Score: 3902 |||||||||||||||
I think the key strength of this VPS here is not how fast things are performing but rather how stable things are. As we can see, the network speed, disk I/O and even benchmarks are fairly stable, which means even though you won’t be expecting the fastest VPS that you can get at this price, you can be assured that the VPS itself is not going to show some crazy good and bad performance from time to time.
Customer Service and Support
Due to the stability of the VPS itself, I literally had to come up with questions for the sake of testing their support. In the end, my somewhat silly question that I sent in at 03:36am (Milan time?) was responded at 10:09am the next morning. It is definitely not bad considering that it is not something urgent and it was pretty much taken care of at the relatively early part of the next business day.
Conclusion
I was kind of curious how Prometeus managed to surprise us with the business plans, given the fact that their budget plan is already very stable. However, Uncle Sal has managed to impress us with the stability of the BizXen VPS. Granted the VPS is not the fastest we have seen and definitely did not come with jaw-dropping performance. However the VPS itself is very stable with consistent performance in disk I/O as well as network. As such, for those who are going after stability, the BizXen plan could definitely be a great choice. However, you might not be able to get the a reply within a few minutes if it is non-urgent in nature, but with the stable performance of the VPS, even I had a tough time to come up with questions to test their customer support.