VPS Specs I should look for.

General Stuff about Armagetron, That doesn't belong anywhere else...
Post Reply
Moofie
Core Dumper
Posts: 125
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:36 am
Location: Ohio
Contact:

VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by Moofie »

So, if I was thinking about renting a VPS for hosting a few servers, what specs should I look for? Memory, RAM, Bandwith that kinda thing. Enough to comfortably host 5-7 servers.
User avatar
AI-team
Shutout Match Winner
Posts: 1020
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:17 pm
Location: Germany/Munich
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by AI-team »

no vps will fit your needs, if you want to host 6 servers you need atleast 2 strong root servers (assuming that not all 6 server are frequented at the same time)
  
 
"95% of people believe in every quote you post on the internet" ~ Abraham Lincoln
 
 
User avatar
compguygene
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2342
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:09 pm
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by compguygene »

Ai raises the most valid points. Here is what my testing of VPS's has shown me. Xen servers with 512mb memory seem to be optimal. I have actually hosted 5-7 or a few more servers than that in such an environment. However, it never works if more than 2 or 3 are actually filled with people. I prefer Xen over OpenVZ for several reasons. This site talks about the how the memory model of Xen leads to more predictability. Also, I have seen a lot more overselling of low-end openVZ VPS's where you start out with a solid VPS, but once they fill their servers, the VPS gets to be unstable for Armagetron servers at best. Similar problems can happen with a poor Xen provider, but they are less likely. Xen, for about 3 years now, also has hardware hooks directly to the hosting hardware that at this point the vast majority of providers use, so with those optimizations you do get some better performance. In summation, Xen provides you with a Dedicated Area of memory.
The best Xen providers will also dedicate a single processor core to a 512mb VPS. If a provider says that their Xen VPS's use a shared processor core model, you should avoid that. What happens is that other VPS's will start to gobble up processor cycles and your VPS can start to kinda lag. If you do go with a Xen VPS with 1GB ram and 2 processor cores, I have seen that support 4-5 servers occupied concurrently, but sometimes kinda laggy, depending on the number of people in the servers. You do better with 2 512mb VPS's in that scenario.
I hope that this helps. Feel free to ask tons of questions.
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
epsy
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2003
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:02 pm
Location: paris
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by epsy »

A small dedicated server should suit your needs, except if all 7 servers would be busy at the same time.
User avatar
compguygene
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2342
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:09 pm
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by compguygene »

As a practical matter, small dedicated servers to be found in the US (I think moofie is a U.S. player if I remember correctly), the only ones that you will find < $60-80 per month generally use one of several low-power Intel chips. I have used these servers, and have gotten better performance from a good VPS. There is only one exception I have found, Joe's Data Center. Check out the $40/month server. I had one for a while, it was excellent! Personally, I am happy using the Amazon EC2 servers which are free. There are only 3 limitations. For most people, the setup is way too geeky, but if you want to do it, I can walk you through it. You can get one free server per Amazon account/email address. That is why I have 7 accounts, 7 servers currently that I host from. Because they are cloud servers, rarely you get crazy bad pings while the server is being moved from one physical server to another, which is why I put up backup servers for tournaments.
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
Moofie
Core Dumper
Posts: 125
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:36 am
Location: Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by Moofie »

Ah, I had a badass dedicated server that I owned, but nowadays it seems as if something breaks off it every week :/. Maybe I'll check out those dedicated servers, comp
User avatar
compguygene
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2342
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:09 pm
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by compguygene »

If the Kansas City location is good for you, Joe's Data Center can't really be beat in terms of price/performance.
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
Moofie
Core Dumper
Posts: 125
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2012 1:36 am
Location: Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by Moofie »

Kansas City would be great, but the only thing I see is it says the $40/month is hosted in Denmark... seems a bit far away, especially since I am in America.

EDIT: So I am actually thinking it may just be a code-name type thing, because others had names such as Northwood and Agena. My bad if that's right.
User avatar
compguygene
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2342
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:09 pm
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by compguygene »

Joe's Data Center wrote:AMD Opteron Dual-Core 2Ghz
(Denmark)

2GB Ram
250GB Hard Drive
2TB of Bandwidth
5 Usable Ip's (/29)
Server grade Hardware (Supermicro)

$40
Tha'ts not a Denmark location, that is a "Denmark" processor.
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
User avatar
delinquent
Match Winner
Posts: 760
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:07 am

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by delinquent »

Seeing the low(ish) price of OEM parts nowadays, and the fact that I built a fairly high specification tower for less than £150 ($250?) Would it not be worthwhile building up a machine or two that you can use instead? Admittedly the price seems high in the beginning, but if your server ends up being active for more than a few months it may be cheaper in the long run, and providing you have good bandwidth (I'm going off the fact that in the UK fiber optic is pretty much the medium of choice for new connections, and my last broadband connection gave me a result of 19 ms to google.com, plus 143MB/s download, 76.6MB/s upload) you can pretty much get away with it? Fair enough it may take a short amount of time, but if you look hard enough you can find some pretty nice equipment for a very low price - I got an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card for a fiver, and an unbranded but very fast external wifi card for a single british pound (300MB/s wifi connection and only adding 3 ms to the total - can you believe it???) all of which slot nicely into a foxconn mobo that I got for nothing from a local PC repair store.

And, when you're done with your servers, you can sell them on as desktop PC's for tidy profit - job done!
epsy
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2003
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:02 pm
Location: paris
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by epsy »

delinquent wrote:143MB/s download, 76.6MB/s upload
My goodness, what British ISP is so generous on caps?
User avatar
delinquent
Match Winner
Posts: 760
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:07 am

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by delinquent »

Actually Virgin Media is pretty good, (about 80Mb/s down) but I had talktalk's fiber service, and I happened to live about a mile away from the exchange, not that that affects fiber much. God I miss it, It's coming back damn soon.

I may have to get my degree and my (job) career first...
epsy
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2003
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:02 pm
Location: paris
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by epsy »

Hmm, I have VM too, but I guess their NetGear router is being the bottleneck here >.>
User avatar
compguygene
Adjust Outside Corner Grinder
Posts: 2342
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:09 pm
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Contact:

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by compguygene »

You guys should always remember that compared to something in a datacenter, you are always 2 hops more in, 2 more hops out, that "last mile" connection to your home always costs at least 4 hops total and possible a bottleneck for throughput. So, if only because of network hops you generally do better with something in a datacenter.
Armagetron: It's a video game that people should just play and enjoy :)
https://bit.ly/2KBGYjvCheck out the simple site about TheServerPharm
User avatar
delinquent
Match Winner
Posts: 760
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2012 3:07 am

Re: VPS Specs I should look for.

Post by delinquent »

Some people get the 50mb/s package from VM, even if they have signed up to the 100mb/s package, I don't know why. Loads of people complained about it, but VM just fobbed them off with "speeds are not guaranteed" and now all the complaints and criticisms on their forums have mysteriously dissapeared.

The reason I get such a nice speed is because I have four wall outlets. One of these was connected to a PCI card that did, essentially, the same job as a fiber modem, but without the need of extra cabling etc. Using this card and the software supplied, it is possible to make some tweaks and some modifications.
Post Reply