Abdullah from WebHorizon posted a call for testers on LowEndSpirit for a new Intel Xeon based VPS line in Singapore. Testing a server in Singapore is always a pleasure- I typically get 40-45 ms in results when I run ping test, which are one of the lowest among all the servers I have tested. Only ReadyDedis in Mumbai or Digital Ocean in Bengaluru are faster, for obvious reasons.The testing involved the VPS setup process, accessing the features through Virtualizor, and finding quirks or bugs if any. But first, here are the specifications of the VPS I tested:
Category: VPS Review
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First impressions and Benchmarks : Inception Hosting 512 MB VPS
During Black Friday 2020, Anthony Smith from Inception Hosting posted a series of offers on LowEndSpirit, ranging from a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with KVM to storage servers. In this post, you will find my first impressions and Benchmarks for a 512 MB VPS by Inception Hosting. One Combination in particular intrigued me. It was as follows:4 V CPU/ 512 MB RAM KVM for 12 Euros a year.
Considering the price range for KVM servers these days, twelve Euros for 512 MB RAM VPS seems a little expensive.But the network that this server is hosted on, and reputation of the provider, along with 4 vCPUs made it a compelling reason to try out.This is not the first time I signed up for a multi-vcore server: last year, I had GB, 4 vCPU service from Virmach. This deal from Black Friday 2019 I hardly use just because the processor was highly underpowered. The current specs seemed to present a case for themselves. Ordering the server was pretty easy- I already have an account with existing services from Inception Hosting (3 NATs and 2 storage servers). Setup was fairly quick- I received VPS details within 15 minutes of making payment.Initial Hiccups with VPS
The server did present its fair share of woes. First of all, creating an encrypted disk resulted in a series of failures. Next, I was unable to set up a SSL certificate, no matter how hard I tried. Using Webinoly,my favourite command line script, I was unsuccessful in installing SSL certificate using LetsEncrypt. Slickstack and Openlitespeed were also a no-go.amar@lonstor:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 226M 0 226M 0% /dev tmpfs 49M 5.3M 43M 11% /run /dev/mapper/lonstor--vg-root 24G 2.8G 20G 13% / tmpfs 242M 0 242M 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 242M 0 242M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup /dev/vda1 236M 86M 138M 39% /boot tmpfs 49M 0 49M 0% /run/user/1000 amar@lonstor:~$ free -m total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 482 117 121 29 243 134 Swap: 511 317 194Finally, I was able to get WordOps, another script based installer that uses LEMP (Linux + Nginx + MySQL + PHP) stack, up and running. A stock wordpress site and SSL were all configured. It did take a few trial and errors. WordOps however did install a lot of graphical interfaces for monitoring and other features, which I decided to do away with. I have retained the screenshots of those errors and will probably write about them later. Running WordPress with four vCPUs and when the content is going to get delivered from CDN, one can expect a smooth performance. My aim is to install WordPress cache, and I’m going to try out the script posted by user Daniel15, creator of DNStools.ws. In a post on LowEndTalk, he has talked about optimizing Nginx using this script while using WordPress cache. I will also write about the experience with installing WordPress separately- there is a whole series planned around that. You may want to read up about the first part of that series on LES Blog.Benchmark Results for KVM by Inception Hosting
So, with this, let’s take a look at the performance of this particular VPS. I ran the standard benchmarks with the usual suspects: YABS, nench.sh and bench.monster for speed test. The results from benchmarks are posted below. Here a few observations from the VPS: system is stable, no major surprises there. Network seems to be pretty stable. I have not seen too many spikes over the past week.
I tested this VPS using YABS and bench.monster. YABS or Yet Another Benchmarking Script
curl -sL yabs.sh | bash -s -- -9
Note: I used the ‘-9’ flag to run both Geekbench 4 and 5.Sat Dec 19 13:50:16 GMT 2020
Basic System Information: ——————————— Processor : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v4 @ 2.40GHz CPU cores : 4 @ 2399.996 MHz AES-NI : ✔ Enabled VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled RAM : 482.7 MiB Swap : 512.0 MiB Disk : 24.0 GiBfio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50): --------------------------------- Block Size | 4k (IOPS) | 64k (IOPS) ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- Read | 2.10 MB/s (525) | 29.32 MB/s (458) Write | 2.12 MB/s (530) | 29.69 MB/s (464) Total | 4.22 MB/s (1.0k) | 59.02 MB/s (922) | | Block Size | 512k (IOPS) | 1m (IOPS) ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- Read | 56.64 MB/s (110) | 67.84 MB/s (66) Write | 59.74 MB/s (116) | 72.36 MB/s (70) Total | 116.38 MB/s (226) | 140.21 MB/s (136) iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv4): --------------------------------- Provider | Location (Link) | Send Speed | Recv Speed | | | Clouvider | London, UK (10G) | 794 Mbits/sec | 896 Mbits/sec Online.net | Paris, FR (10G) | 639 Mbits/sec | 486 Mbits/sec WorldStream | The Netherlands (10G) | 672 Mbits/sec | 512 Mbits/sec Biznet | Jakarta, Indonesia (1G) | 695 Mbits/sec | 38.0 Mbits/sec Clouvider | NYC, NY, US (10G) | 698 Mbits/sec | 127 Mbits/sec Velocity Online | Tallahassee, FL, US (10G) | 732 Mbits/sec | 200 Mbits/sec Clouvider | Los Angeles, CA, US (10G) | 785 Mbits/sec | 73.8 Mbits/sec Iveloz Telecom | Sao Paulo, BR (2G) | 698 Mbits/sec | 123 Mbits/sec Geekbench releases can only be downloaded over IPv4. FTP the Geekbench files and run manually.bench.monster
curl -LsO bench.monster/speedtest.sh; bash speedtest.sh -asia
—————————————————————————Region: Asia https://bench.monster v.1.5.5 2020-12-10 Usage : curl -LsO bench.monster/speedtest.sh; bash speedtest.sh -Asia
Virt/Kernel : Dedicated / 4.19.0-13-amd64 CPU Model : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v4 @ 2.40GHz CPU Cores : 4 @ 2399.996 MHz x86_64 16384 KB Cache CPU Flags : AES-NI Enabled & VM-x/AMD-V Disabled Load Average : 0.13, 0.03, 0.01 Total Space : 24G (2.9G ~13% used) Total RAM : 482 MB (128 MB + 181 MB Buff in use) Total SWAP : 511 MB (338 MB in use) Uptime : 8 days 20:4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASN & ISP : AS62240, Inception Hosting Organization : Inception Hosting Limited Location : Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, United Kingdom / GB Region : England --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Performing Geekbench v4 CPU Benchmark test. Please wait... curl: no URL specified! ## Geekbench v4 CPU Benchmark: Single Core : (POOR) Multi Core : ## IO Test CPU Speed: bzip2 : 87.3 MB/s sha256 : 140 MB/s md5sum : 405 MB/s RAM Speed: Avg. write : 1623.8 MB/s Avg. read : 3037.9 MB/s Disk Speed: 1st run : 305 MB/s 2nd run : 358 MB/s 3rd run : 295 MB/s ----------------------- Average : 319.3 MB/s ## Asia Speedtest.net Location Upload Download Ping --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nearby 550.96 Mbit/s 456.20 Mbit/s 9.864 ms --------------------------------------------------------------------------- India, New Delhi (GIGATEL) 113.05 Mbit/s 106.26 Mbit/s 144.768 ms India, Mumbai (SevenStar) 128.24 Mbit/s 89.40 Mbit/s 120.816 ms India, Bengaluru (I-ON) 72.01 Mbit/s 35.63 Mbit/s 155.789 ms Sri Lanka, Colombo (Telecom PLC) 27.75 Mbit/s 54.83 Mbit/s 238.535 msnench.sh
I added this test afterwards. Note that this is an add-on, and was not scheduled to be a part of the review.------------------------------------------------- nench.sh v2019.07.20 -- https://git.io/nench.sh benchmark timestamp: 2020-12-19 22:34:38 UTC ------------------------------------------------- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v4 @ 2.40GHz CPU cores: 4 Frequency: 2399.996 MHz RAM: 482Mi bash: line 156: swapon: command not found Swap: - Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-13-amd64 x86_64 Disks: vda 25G HDD CPU: SHA256-hashing 500 MB 3.875 seconds CPU: bzip2-compressing 500 MB 6.374 seconds CPU: AES-encrypting 500 MB 1.914 seconds ioping: seek rate min/avg/max/mdev = 88.2 us / 356.1 us / 427.3 ms / 5.43 ms ioping: sequential read speed generated 4.40 k requests in 5.00 s, 1.07 GiB, 879 iops, 219.9 MiB/s dd: sequential write speed 1st run: 190.73 MiB/s 2nd run: 213.62 MiB/s 3rd run: 304.22 MiB/s average: 236.19 MiB/s IPv4 speedtests your IPv4: 185.121.24.xxxx Cachefly CDN: 96.25 MiB/s Leaseweb (NL): 22.82 MiB/s Softlayer DAL (US): 3.96 MiB/s Online.net (FR): 15.76 MiB/s OVH BHS (CA): 5.38 MiB/s No IPv6 connectivity detectedYou can find the command and the details from here.Wrapping up
Let us talk briefly about the overall experience. Inception Hosting does not usually allow upgrades or stacking of special offers. Thus, you are limited with what you buy. So make your buying decision wisely. Let me also state that two days after purchasing this VPS plan, there was a new offer with SSD Cache, and that plan was two euros cheaper. I am pretty happy with this system, and do not see a need to reach out to the provider for an upgrade or changing the plan. This VPS is on an annual plan. I may decide not to renew it and get a different one next year. But that is a remote possibility today. The server, after all, is fully equipped for what it does.
This review is a part of the series of Benchmark and reviews for Virtual Private Servers. You can find similar posts from Index page where my other reviews are catalogued.Update November 2021: As mentioned in my closing thoughts, I have not renewed this service.
Update February 2022
While updating the blog folder on my computer, I came across this YABS result from May 2021. Posting here for sake of nostalgia and as an archive.YABS-Inception Hosting 512 MB, Location- UK
Tue May 18 13:29:32 UTC 2021 Basic System Information: --------------------------------- Processor : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v4 @ 2.40GHz CPU cores : 4 @ 2399.996 MHz AES-NI : ✔ Enabled VM-x/AMD-V : ❌ Disabled RAM : 480.5 MiB Swap : 961.0 MiB Disk : 24.5 GiB fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50): --------------------------------- Block Size | 4k (IOPS) | 64k (IOPS) ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- Read | 1.70 MB/s (426) | 22.91 MB/s (358) Write | 1.73 MB/s (433) | 23.31 MB/s (364) Total | 3.44 MB/s (859) | 46.22 MB/s (722) | | Block Size | 512k (IOPS) | 1m (IOPS) ------ | --- ---- | ---- ---- Read | 75.43 MB/s (147) | 87.24 MB/s (85) Write | 79.44 MB/s (155) | 93.05 MB/s (90) Total | 154.87 MB/s (302) | 180.29 MB/s (175) iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv4): --------------------------------- Provider | Location (Link) | Send Speed | Recv Speed | | | Clouvider | London, UK (10G) | 819 Mbits/sec | 911 Mbits/sec Online.net | Paris, FR (10G) | busy | 738 Mbits/sec WorldStream | The Netherlands (10G) | busy | 787 Mbits/sec Biznet | Jakarta, Indonesia (1G) | busy | 71.2 Mbits/sec Clouvider | NYC, NY, US (10G) | 822 Mbits/sec | 277 Mbits/sec Velocity Online | Tallahassee, FL, US (10G) | 807 Mbits/sec | 384 Mbits/sec Clouvider | Los Angeles, CA, US (10G) | 666 Mbits/sec | 166 Mbits/sec Iveloz Telecom | Sao Paulo, BR (2G) | 383 Mbits/sec | 259 Mbits/sec
This post was updated on 2022-03-07 -
Benchmarking Servers Galore VPS- Melbourne Australia
Read my first impressions review for ryzen VPs by. Servers Galore, a provider from Australia. They posted an exclusive offer on LowEndSpirit for their Melbourne, Australia location. Nathan from Servers Galore reached out to me and asked if I would like to test out a unit. Replying in the affirmative was a no brainer, because a Ryzen VPS with NVme disks is always a pleasure to test out.Yesterday I had posted about limiting the number of benchmark tests I would be running starting next month. As luck would have it, I ended up adding one more to the list of servers to run the tests. This is a test unit for 24 hours, therefore I will limit my comments to the first impressions based on the VPS performance.
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Servarica’s Polar Bear Storage: First Impressions
Servarica, a web hosting/ VPS provider from Canada, had posted their offers for Black Friday 2020 Low End Spirit and Low End Talk, among other places. A 2 TB storage plan for US $ 48 a year in particular piqued interest from a lot of folks, and the plan was sold out pretty quickly. I am posting a screenshot of the offer from their website, in case the page is taken down in the future. The link to the offer on LowEndspirit can be accessed here. (more…)
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MaxKVM: AMD Epyc-VPS, Singapore
MaxKVM posted their offer on LowEndSpirit for the new and shiny Singapore location (hosted at Hivelocity). In this post, you will find my first impressions about this service.
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LXC Virtual Private Server by Terrahost
Terrahost are a Norway based webhost, who have been around since 2006. They offer VPS and dedicated servers, as well as colocation. In this review, I will write about their 1 GB LXC based Virtual Private Server (VPS) offered for US $ 13 a year.
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ReadyDedis VPS in Mumbai
ReadyDedis posted an offer on Low End Spirit and Low End Talk about their new Mumbai location. I was intrigued. Good, reasonably priced VPS (Virtual Private Server) plans in India are few, and for a while I have been looking at an option of a VPS in Mumbai. I do not have any servers in India, because the price to specifications ratio does not work well typically. In recent months, this has changed – two other offers for a VPS in Mumbai were posted by Cloudjiffy and Nexaracks recently. (read my benchmarks of Nexaracks VPS ) This offer added a third option.
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Benchmark: Nexaracks KVM VPS in India
Earlier this week, Someshzade from Nexaracks reached out to me with information that they were launching a VPS offer in India. I had earlier tested their VPS from Leapswitch, Mumbai location, and was more than happy to rest out this new test piece.
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Nexaracks VPS in USA: Benchmark Results from YABS
Last week, user Someshzade from Nexaracks reached out at LowEndSpirit. He wanted to know if I would be interested in running Benchmarks and testing out their new VPS. My reply was, hell yes! Withing a few minutes, he sent another message with the VPS details. Default operating system the VPS came with was CentOs, which was not to my liking. In Virtualizor Panel, the options available were : Ubuntu 16,04, CentOS, and Windows . I opted for Ubuntu, even though my personal preference is Debian if available. Anyways, were are not here to discuss the merits or lack of) Linux distributions.
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Nexusbytes, New York : Server Upgrade
Nice way to begin the new year- as an existing user Nexusbytes , I got an upgrade for my 4 vCPU/4 GB RAM plan. Initially I was getting lower disk speeds while running the BM tests. A chat with Jay at Nexusbytes and a couple of reboots later, below are the numbers..