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When looking for a budget VPS the thing I value the most is..
Hello,
When looking for a budget VPS people tend to expect maximum performance and service in all stats (CPU,RAM, BW, Network, Support..). We all know this can't really be the case when going for a budget VPS. So what is the one thing you value the most when going for a budget VPS?
Speaking for myself I always look for high amount of Ram when going for a budget vps. I also don't bother to find the most reputable provider as it is a thing of 5$/mo and the tasks I assign to my budget vps can easily be transferred to another host and are not crucial if lost during a RAID failure or another unfortune event.
The Poll
- What is the #1 thing you look out for when choosing a budget VPS?56 votes
- The tasks I assign to my budget VPS usually need a lot of RAM.8.93%
- The tasks I assign to my budget VPS need a blazing fast CPU.7.14%
- The tasks I assign to my budget VPS need a very fast network port (1 Gbit/s)14.29%
- I only buy from reputable providers and value good customer Support over all.60.71%
- I will feature my POV in the comments.8.93%
Comments
I will be happy to buy from new hosts that look promising, but there is a certain expectation that has to be hit before I do so.
Good customer support isn't a must, as most of the time I would just open a support ticket to 'enable FUSE' or whatever stuff, if it's OVZ. Otherwise when it's a KVM, I would never ever open tickets, unless I have problems with it.
Instead of good customer support (I don't give a fuck if you call me a wanker in support tickets, but please keep the professionalism at a certain level), I value good communication w/ customers a whole lot more. It, in fact, is what I care the most about.
I might be asking too much and maybe some providers here are doing VPS selling as a hobby or side source of income, but when shit happens and maybe the entire hostnode is down, I must be well notified via a mass email to ALL affected clients that has enough transparency on what happened. I should NEVER have to open a ticket and ask "when will my VPS be up again?".
Having a fast CPU and high RAM is fine, but often I worry about how some hosts (what's that one that just deadpooled again called?) and how they make their plans, as sometimes it seems simply unsustainable. I do not want to be asked to move to another plan when the hosts decides that the plan they have been providing is not feasible in a long run
I would say, having a nice proportion for resources in budget VPSes is pretty important (but it's a whole different story when talking about budget NAT VPSes though).
Network port speed is fine, give me 100mbps (like what my Kimsufi has) and I'm still happy, as long as the PEERING is decent for my visitors/clients/self. I don't need a VPS with a 1Gbps port speed but the routes are congested as hell.
Also, for bandwidth allowance, I feel it's important for providers to state the price for overages (in blocks of 100GB?). If a connection is "unmetered", I hope it really is, and not be asked to pay or get throttled if I use over any limits they have.
That's what I gotta say about this - shoot me any questions you have, through here or via PM!
theroyalstudent
Where's the "impulse buy, don't actually need any of it" option?
For me,
Network connectivity/stability (not necessary the maximum speed), and peering relationships are very important. Without this, the essence of hosting is defied - it forms the framework for any online service.
Support and customer service - This is an important element for any business. Customers depend on friendly relationships anytime, there could be issues or questions that need attention. Self-management platforms have clearly made processes easier for clients.
Usual things to look out for:
*Transparency
*Response times
*Clear communication - English or an alternative language suited to the customer.
*Knowledgeable, friendly and does not waffle on - not actually resolving the issue.
High RAM and demand for CPU is not really needed for virtual machines on 'standard' cases. Only specialised applications such as game software may require such resources. So I'll say there may be no actual purpose for the maturity of buyers for high RAM (talking like 3-4GB on $5/VM - wasted. It may be more of impulse buying.
Personally, I would not trust any packages with high amount of RAM or CPU allocations on KVM or OpenVZ, as it may mean over-commitment for budget prices. It is most certainly doable, depending on the market.
When you say 'budget', also don't usually cloud or HA infrastructure.
Well, I wouldn't say I'd only buy based on reputation, but I think that reputation is a good starting point when selecting your first VPS. It makes very little sense to save a few bucks initially only to end up spending a lot of time dealing with trouble tickets.
Once you have sufficiently reliable hosting, everything else is fungible. I have services that require a mix CPU/RAM/network resources, and I'll seek out plans that best match those needs. I really wish a lot more providers would switch towards selling resource pools, or other more configurable ways of setting up VPSes, because the cookie-cutter setups never quite match the way I need things configured (here is where I lament the loss of RamNode's 128MB offerings simply because IPv4 prices are rising).
That said, I'd put RAM at the highest priority, because it is a hard limit (especially when using OpenVZ and you can't increase the swap); you run out of RAM and your VPS is probably just going to shut down completely. Next priority is CPU, because the longer you take to process something, the more time you're using RAM to do it. Last priority is networking, because you already have to have your RAM/CPU in order before you can consider processing a large number of transactions (unless you're running something network-intensive like a file server).
Reputation. That weeds out at least 98% of the market.
Reputation is the main thing.
CPU = First, RAM = Second and Network = Third.
Good for resource intensive apps.
CPU = First, Network = Second and RAM = Third.
Good for network tunnel services (VPN, SSH & Proxy).
Unmanaged = Less support
Managed = More squad :v
Reputation & Exp = Good for long-term business.
Everything turns around the reputation .
These are the common steps:
I guess ram is the most important part. But I'm looking for unmetered BW too. You can provide 1gbit unmetered vps if you can find server from unmetered network.
No.1 factor for me is uptime - I will choose a VPS host with a proven reliability track record over price/performance/bandwidth considerations every time ..
Thanks for all the feedback so far
For me, it's not much about the reputation of a provider (which is mainly a function of one's publicly posted reviews), but rather about how I can be confident that my data is in safe hands (that the provider won't suddenly disappear, that sufficient hardware redundancy is in place and that any network outage or hardware issue will be adequately dealt with). As such, a provider that has been in operation for few years, that is sizeable enough (is sufficiently valuable not to disappear overnight) and that transparently indicate how they operate and what hardware they use, but has no review, would have my vote.
I'm looking for CPU speed RAM network speed and support service.
I don't think I could specifically pick 1 thing. I obviously want to be confident the provider will not disappear suddenly i.e. a promise / guarantee to give reasonable notice. I want reliable uptime and service and I want a good mix of fast CPU/RAM and network for the price.
I, unlike perhaps some other LET members, also expect support queries to be answered within 12 hrs. It's unmanaged but when I need to ask a support query, I need to and I'd like it solved or responded to.
Where's the "impulse buy, don't actually need any of it" option?
Where's the uptime option? I don't care about any of the other options if the host is down.