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Should I keep/use many small VPS vs stick to the big one?
Genuine question as per subject.
Long story:
I've been hosting essential services in a fairly small VPS (4C6G100G) and some other non-essential services in another box (2C2G35G). Both of them are in regions very close to me in APAC so the ping response is very low (<20ms).
However I purchased another big box (BF2024) provided by GC, it's the biggest I've ever had (I never thought it's remotely possible before joining LET so thanks to LET!) Anyway the spec of this big VPS is 8C32G250G but is in a region slightly further than me compared to the two above with ping response time ~40ms, still very good.
I've once decided to let go the big VPS but since it's non-transferrable I thought of letting it idle until end of billing cycle. But coming to think of that now: I may well move all my services to this big box and scrap/rid the others. However, there're some caveats that causes me to think twice at the beginning.
- I've storage boxes (ranging from 0.5T to 1T) which are in the same region as my smaller VPSes so I can "connect" them as a data storage to my small VPS (they function like local disk with negligible latency (~1ms). Hence I don't need to worry of runing out of storage with services like NextCloud (alike) and Immich as a cloud storage replacement.
- If I connect my storage box to the big VPS it can't function as smooth as point (1) because they're slightly further away with latency ~40ms with one another. Meaning that I might need to settle with just 250G as my total storage.
So point (2) is really my biggest concern going with the big VPS but I kind of fancy the robust power with 8C32G compared to the smaller ones which often struggling for CPU/Mem till a point I need to limit them in my docker configuration 
That's it for the story. Now I would like to have some feedback/comment which one you think worth keeping moving forward. I appreciate your opinions and hope that it can inspire me to think from different perspectives. Thank you in advance ❤
Comments
Tbh the latency to the storage VMs, if you use services that store data remotely a lot, kind of kills it.
Maybe if you could replace the storage VMs with similar deals with low latency to GreenCloud that’s be an optimal solution, but that depends on how good storage deals you’ve got.
2C2G35G and 4C6G100G is not very small in any ways... I still run some stuff on 1C1G15G with very low traffic - with DB and stuff, it is lowend market after all.
Again it depends on your usage, if your main use case is the NextCloud/Immich, you don't really need the 8C32G unless you are hosting a lot of users. If I were you I would do the following:
Again it really depends on your usage and the pricing for them. It is usually not trivial to scale horizontally so having powerful CPU and RAM basically gives you the flexibility in the future. You can combine storage (relatively) easier but not RAM across different instances.
Don't fix what's not broken.
Idling the big box.
Yes I've tried connecting the storage box to the big VPS with the same use case as previous and it's saddening to see it barely moves -- the data stored in storage is causing great delays even in starting up the containers. So yeah I wish I can have a big box in the right region but the offer was just that. Also I don't see the storage from GC or from any provider in HK region also yeah the price point plays an important factor here I don't want to go crazy with non-promo storage price.
Keep the 8C32G250G for stuff that doesn't requires lots of storage, it could run Docker with tons of containers very well. ~40ms is going to be negligible in most of the applications yet the powerful CPU.
Again it really depends on your usage and the pricing for them. It is usually not trivial to scale horizontally so having powerful CPU and RAM basically gives you the flexibility in the future. You can combine storage (relatively) easier but not RAM across different instances.
This is right on spot too! You perfectly summarize what I've on my mind. The very first point is true the way it is now runs perfectly with 4C6G100G + storage box and I can combine the other services in this setup without too much impact to my essential services (I guess). I'm not hosting for other users also, just myself for now. To be honest everything runs smoothly now but as a human I'm often greedy for power, like you mention in your last paragraph, having a powerful CPU/RAM gives me room to host more resource hungry applications in the future and that comes to mind whenever I'm thinking to let go of this big VPS and I kind of feel I would not easily get back the same deal.
It's not when you ping directly to the big VPS. However storage latency of ~40ms is a showstopper as I mentioned above in response to @emgh
Yes this is often true. I'm now more inclined to not changing anything (for now) lol
Well this is true for both servers and real-world.
Lol exactly somehow I justify myself and offset the more amount to pay annually by thinking I've more control over the data I store using my own VPS vs having them stored in google/onedrive etc.
THIS 💯
Small VPS is what @Cam offers (those are worth keeping indefinitely).
A couple of years ago I tried running PHP (WordPress) and Python websites on a 1C1G VPS with HDD only - both worked fast and smoothly.
From across the ocean there was no way to tell the difference with an SSD / NVMe host.
"Relatively" small should be better wording for them
As compared to a big one (8G32G250G) from GC top provider sales!
Note that the price difference between 4C6G100G and 8G32G250G is only $10/yr
WAT? SPECS AND PRICE PLZ?
I like having multiple seperate smaller vms from different providers, it just feels safer.