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No, as they (hopefully) don't oversell they will make sure their nodes aren't overloaded, this goes for all their nodes.
If you need a dedicated CPU you can abuse you could try @drserver .
Putting more than 30 2GB plans on a 64GB box is not an issue. The issue would be putting that amount of plans on a RAID1 array. The disk IO is likely to be terrible.
I didn't think that having a webserver with no mail and no mysql running - just static html and php serving was considered 'abuse' at this level for a VPS. I honestly thought my 6 year old 'bargain-bin' dedicated server with 2gb of RAM (I think it is a Xeon 3040 or 3050) was overkill (even with collecting mail and running a mysql server with medium usage). That is why I am here asking.
I will get another dedicated, if that is what I 'need'. Thing is, I can get a few VPS's and have mirrored servers sharing a load with failover - or just 1 dedicated server. But if a dedicated server is what I need to make my site run smoothly, that is what I will get.
I'd recommend Digital Ocean or RamNode (with the 42% off coupon). In my experience it costs $15 to $20 per month for a 2GB VPS with good, reliable performance. However, its possible a 2GB VPS closer to $7 to $10 will work well enough for you. Generally those in that range will be more oversold and may slow down occasionally when node is under heavier usage. May be fine though if you don't mind it occasionally slowing down some (but remaining functional). Being more expensive doesn't necessarily mean not oversold though as it could just be overpriced.
Assuming you are comparing RamNode's SSD/SSD Cached options go with SSD if it is enough storage for your needs. Their SSD Cached is still good though and I wouldn't be worried about going with that instead if you'd like the extra space that you'll get for the same price.
Thank you @Zen! And thank you everyone!
Just as a side note, my "trouble tickets" include:
top - 09:31:15 up 6 days, 14:12, 3 users, load average: 6.37, 3.16, 1.61Tasks: 68 total, 1 running, 67 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.1%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 76.7%id, 23.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.2%st
Mem: 2097152k total, 415492k used, 1681660k free, 0k buffers
Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 97704k cached
and current mpstat
09:33:04 AM CPU %usr %nice %sys %iowait %irq %soft %steal %guest %idle
09:33:13 AM all 0.50 0.00 0.00 24.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 75.00
09:33:14 AM all 0.25 0.00 0.25 28.32 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 71.18
09:33:15 AM all 0.50 0.00 0.00 31.25 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 68.25
09:33:16 AM all 0.75 0.00 0.00 34.75 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.00 64.25
09:33:17 AM all 0.25 0.00 0.25 29.65 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 69.85
09:33:18 AM all 0.50 0.00 0.50 35.25 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 63.75
09:33:19 AM all 0.75 0.00 0.25 42.50 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 56.00
09:33:20 AM all 1.00 0.00 0.50 38.25 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.00 60.00
09:33:21 AM all 1.50 0.00 0.50 28.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 70.00
09:33:22 AM all 0.25 0.00 0.25 27.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 72.50
09:33:23 AM all 0.25 0.00 0.25 30.50 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.00 68.75
But my provider says that the node is 'fine' - and they son't see the problem. Even though the site is completely unresponsive.
Haha that's not what I meant, didn't accuse you of abusing CPU. I'm saying you can abuse the cpu/100% all day with drserver.
42.5% IOwait isn't fine - it literally means that a third of the time the server asks for IO, it's told to wait ! Our Vms are monitored for example, and we consider more than 1% IOwait a problem!
@catalystium - oh gotcha.
Yeah I didn't think so. But this surely can't be from my traffic. If it is - these plans can't handle anything.
2GB RAM VPS = $2
4GB RAM VPS = $4
If OP pays 2$ for 2gig of ram vps, it's 'you get what you paid for' situation, no more, no less.
@Addict Stick with a top 10 provider...if you are concerned about other tenants on the same node, I'd lean towards Xen virtualization as it tends to have better resource isolation (by default) than KVM/OpenVZ. Prometeus or Inception Hosting (both top 10) have a ton of experience with Xen and give a predictable (strong) performance.
Sorry, just copped the $2 for 2GB RAM
At that price you should be running in ram 
I'd like to know who this is aswell.
You should probably give secrets a second chance, let me show you why.
So you don't care about your customers enough to try to make a reasonable profit? People want to pay you for your time, when you accept so little money in return that they know you don't really have a motivation to stick around forever, they won't be confident in your services.
You're so confident in your business that you plan to upgrade some stuff...IF you get the money. What? So you don't actually have any money to invest and you're not even confident that you may get it eventually?
Sorry I'm sure you didn't mean to come across quite as badly as I read it but come on people, at least try to run a business. This is why the companies on the top of the polls here stay up there, they are professional and confident.
Running in RAM? Does a VPS actually support a ramdisk?
If it does. How big is the sites files? Assuming the ram is something descent, mirroring the whole static site onto ramdisk might already imporve it's performance. Assuming the ramdisk is a disposable copy.
Ramnode should work fine for you.. I'm running a forum with approx. 300-600 concurrent viewers and a MySQL db with 40q/s on a 256mb OVZ plan from Ramnode for ~3$ per month.
I would definitely go with ramnode
First of all, we want to see how things go, as we're only in business about 3 months yet, we're not making big investments, just the required ones first, we do hope to get profit and we see costumers joining, but isn't this what every company has when they're first starting? We have sufficient money to last, we're just trying to explore the market first and we're here to last.
OMFG! Are you f-ing kidding me? I have only 200 active visitors on my site right this second, probably 30 using Mysql, and likely 2-3 q/s. 33% of that is going to my VPS in Chicago which is at a load of 4.6 and no longer responding - so failing over to my dedicated - so it has no traffic. 33% is going to my VPS in Atlanta which is currently below 1.0 on load because it failed over 5 minutes ago - and is getting no traffic. And my dedicated is trucking along taking all the failed over traffic, as has been the case for the past couple of days since I started this mess.
If I told you I have now removed my Chicago VPS traffic and am sending all of it to my L.A. VPS (with the same provider). DNS has switched, so I have a 5 minute countdown before my LA VPS stops responding.
I guess I need to go with ramnode. 3x the traffic with 1/10 the ram. I am still in shock.
Can I safely assume that for me (a novice to low-intermediate server admin) the setup on XEN vs OpenVZ vs KVM is more or less identical for a new VPS? I noticed the ones you recommended appear to be over the pond from me, so I would like to find one in the U.S.
Sent a sales inquiry to ramnode a little while ago, haven't heard back yet - so I still have time to look around.
By the way, my provider offered to move one of my VPS's to another node, which is great - and should be commended. But I don't think it will make a difference. We'll see.
Haha - my LA VPS is starting to load up on traffic. I feel like I'm shooting fish in a barrel, just point a little traffic at them, and down they go.
One of my sites (a vbulletin site) runs on ramnode, currently 214 users online, that's a graph of the usual daily cpu usage:
It's a 1024MB SKVM
Thanks for the recs, guys.
Heh, yeah. It's a really snappy lil' box
I'm running the Minstall script for the setup with nginx. Are you running Apache or similar? Nginx has always been my go-to webserver, it's incredibly fast and stable compared to apache.
Yeah I don't know your setup but unless you've done something wrong it sounds like the provider kinda sucks. Don't get me wrong, you could be horrible at configuration for all I know, but I'm assuming you're not. RamNode is a good choice.
I am using CentOS/Apache/Mysql/Php - and using webmin/virtualmin.
Does minstall work with Webmin/Virtualmin? Though I am half-decent at basic command line stuff, the graphical interface helps me make sure I get everything up and running properly.
I don't think Minstall works directly with Webmin/Virtualmin.. Doesn't that run it's own web server on port 10000? Minstall is ONLY for Debian/Ubuntu, but I know there is CentOS alternatives, but I don't have any experience with them..
But adding domains (vhosts) with minstall is really easy. "bash minstall.sh manage-add-host", then follow the on-screen instructions, such as type in the username, then the domain name itself and choose if you want SSL enabled etc.
Then it's up to you to upload the content to the /home/user/http/hosts/domain.com/ and you're ready to go
Check it out, https://github.com/maxexcloo/Minstall
@XNQ - thank you. I'll look into minstall.
Nope, the number one impact on performance is Disk I/O. Period. The IOPS of a node/host will have the biggest impact on perceived performance. I admin enough VMware boxes running large SQL DB's of various flavours to know what happens when you start reaching the IOPS potential of the storage on a node/host.
(Hint: Performance on all VPS guests goes to shit, with I/O Waits like you see above)
If you are on heavily loaded host and the containers are paging to disk, it affects everybody on that node. It generally gets worse until it gets to the point that everyone is affected.
On our managed VMware VPS services at my employer, we actually disable Virtual Memory/Swap. It has a massive impact on the speed of the machine, and follows the best practise of 'Right-sizing' your workloads. If the workload only needs 512mb of RAM at most, don't give it 2GB. If you are paging heavily, then you need to give it more RAM (and turn off virtual memory/swap).
I have a pair of N40L Microservers at home for a lab. Currently I get better IOPS out of a single 60GB SATA2 SSD than 4x 3TB Toshiba SATA drives in RAID5 hanging off a p410 controller. A machine used to really chug on the SATA array but was super fast once I vMotioned it onto the SSD. And the same amount of RAM, CPU (1.5Ghz AMD Turion Dual core).
Anyway - the whole point of this rant - TRY OTHER PROVIDERS!
My LET experiences with providers:
I currently have a GVH New Year special - it is running cPanel with a lowish traffic XenForo forum and a no-traffic XenForo forum. It goes okay but can get a bit non-repsonsive at times due to server load.
I also have a ReverseHosts 512mb on coupon which I have had a week. Had some major issued getting IPv6 going but Hassan was excellent in getting it sorted. Performance so far has been good but I have not done much on it yet.
Virtualmin kinda assumes safe defaults for hosting, it is unlikely there is a major misconfiguration such as low number of workers or ram for mysql too low.
As for your issues, watch io. It can be improved by caching a lot to ram, especially a proxy to cache the most visited pages until they change. This will heavily reduce io and so the site will be able to stay up under many customers as long as the contend doesnt change after each visit.
You can, of course, use a SSD offering. Xen is pretty easy similar to OVZ in the sense that you load a template and you configure it (Xen-PV). KVM means usually installing from ISO even though templates are available. Please look at www.XenPower.com the ssd version.
Minstall is not updated for debian 7, only works 100% on debian 6.
I made an introduction post to Minstall on my site after speaking with Max on Skype. Some find it useful, some like to learn by themself.