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Time4VPS IOPS reduction in storage server.
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Time4VPS IOPS reduction in storage server.

I am not sure if this was posted before, searched couldn't find it.

@time4vps said:

iKocka said: When opened a support ticket their reply was that they are aware of the issue and they plan to upgrade their storage in the next few months.

Could you please send me a PM regarding this incident. We already upgraded our storage arrays and IOPS is increased to 400 IOPS. No issues reported regarding "slow storage server".

This was posted by them back in March however when I put in a support ticket today asking about an observable hard limit, support told me they are capping storage servers at 200 IOPS.

This is essentially limiting my port as well to 200 instead of 400 while doing copies between their storage servers.

http://oi63.tinypic.com/ff4ok6.jpg

Take that into consideration before purchase now. Here is what support replied in response.

@time4vp said: yes, our storage server have 200 IOPS limit. Standard servers has IOPS limit equal to CPU unit multiple by 100.

Comments

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    Hello,

    What operations you perform in storage server? 99.5% of our clients are satisfied with current IOPS limit.

  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    I am copying files between two different storage servers. I am overall happy with the service. But you didn't announce the change that you reduced the IOPS to me as a customer and people should know that you changed it.

    You said 400 when people questioned it and made no announcement about the reduction by 50%. Anyone who would be researching your services should know what they are getting.

    The 200 IOPS limit is also limiting my overall transfer speeds between your storage services to 200mbit even though you advertise 400mbit. I don't have a problem with that, but again, this should be known information.

    I bought services based on a certain level of performance expectation, the services aren't performing to the stated claims made by you, and all I am saying is people should take that into consideration when reviewing your offer. Overall, I am still satisfied with the services, however the price to performance ratio has gone down now.

    Thanked by 1rm_
  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    Here is detailed information about IOPS and I/O:

    https://billing.time4vps.eu/knowledgebase/article/95/iops-and-i-o-speed-for-each-vps-and-storage-instance/

    Could you clarify: are you sending one big file or bunch of small files? Usually customers are able to push maximum port speed for internal transfers without IOPS limitation.

  • @Hadriel said:
    The 200 IOPS limit is also limiting my overall transfer speed

    Yes that is correct. T4V' limitations are going to be troubles for users!

  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    @time4vps said:
    Here is detailed information about IOPS and I/O:

    https://billing.time4vps.eu/knowledgebase/article/95/iops-and-i-o-speed-for-each-vps-and-storage-instance/

    Could you clarify: are you sending one big file or bunch of small files? Usually customers are able to push maximum port speed for internal transfers without IOPS limitation.

    I am doing a rsync transfer of files that are as large as 20GB each and it is capping the speed between storage servers at ~200mbit. I have even started a rsync from 1 storage box to 2 other storage boxes and the sending box is the screen shot posted. The max is ~200mbit. The smallest file size is ~3GB.

    I appreciate the link, and thank you for publicly posting that. However, for anyone who purchased services, especially on a 2 year plan, after you stated 400 iops, of which I purchased 6, is just sort of misleading is all. I am still overall happy with the services.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    andrew said: Yes that is correct. T4V' limitations are going to be troubles for users!

    Limitations are in place to offer stable and reliable services for our customers. If current IOPS limit troubles you - contact us and we will review your case. Every limit can be changed according to our customer feedback and actions with services.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    Hadriel said: The max is ~200mbit. The smallest file size is ~3GB.

    Could you please limit transfer only for one file (for example 10 GB) and observe VPS status?

  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    @time4vps said:

    Hadriel said: The max is ~200mbit. The smallest file size is ~3GB.

    Could you please limit transfer only for one file (for example 10 GB) and observe VPS status?

    I will do that and post an update after the current syncs are done. However, when I had one sync going, the max between storage servers on your internal connection was 25MB/s.

    Here is a pic of the current rate for the record http://i67.tinypic.com/11w4l1u.jpg

    Thanked by 2time4vps Shade
  • Yeah I'm starting to research different locations to move away from time4vps due to this. Even though I don't need the extra iops I don't like knowing I'm being extremely capped now.

    They probably will end up losing a large amount of customers.

    Thanked by 1NickMNXio
  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    @doughnet said:
    Yeah I'm starting to research different locations to move away from time4vps due to this. Even though I don't need the extra iops I don't like knowing I'm being extremely capped now.

    They probably will end up losing a large amount of customers.

    If you don't mind sharing your research that would be great. Just a cursory glance the cheapest I have found is Hetzner's storage servers. Even with the setup fee the price comes out to 3.26 euro per TB(no VAT), for the 60TB box if you put it in raid 5. That is a 50% increase in price but the performance I think would be much better.

  • You all need that much IOPS on your storage server? Guess I am doing something wrong then. :P

    Thanked by 1vimalware
  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    @Bochi said:
    You all need that much IOPS on your storage server? Guess I am doing something wrong then. :P

    For copy actions? Yes.

    http://i65.tinypic.com/sayzjs.png

    That is what my IOPS look like otherwise so most of the time its idle for IOPS.

    So lets look at the service provided, I consider it mostly cold storage because who knows when/if something like ACD goes away.

    I have 10 total storage servers with them for a variety of reasons, one is mostly because you can't go above 4TB.

    What I am doing in the original screen shot is moving one set of archives over to a different storage machine. This should be considered no different than retrieving an archive if you have a disaster recovery taking place.

    This isn't about me not being happy with their cold storage option, its about being sold one thing and them changing it without notification to current customers.

    It decreased my recovery time by 1/2 in the event of a complete onsite data failure.

    You might ask well why are you rotating files? Because the newer nodes seem to perform more poorly than the older nodes incoming uploads. I only have anecdotal evidence that suggests this. It could just be older nodes are full with little activity and new ones are being filled up. That just makes sense.

  • @Hadriel said:

    This isn't about me not being happy with their cold storage option, its about being sold one thing and them changing it without notification to current customers.

    It decreased my recovery time by 1/2 in the event of a complete onsite data failure.

    Valid point, agree with that.
    Let's hope then they treat that as feedback and communicate such changes to the existing customers in the future.

    However, as you already said: Really liked their service in all aspects, for my last >14 months with them.

  • @Bochi said:

    @Hadriel said:

    This isn't about me not being happy with their cold storage option, its about being sold one thing and them changing it without notification to current customers.

    It decreased my recovery time by 1/2 in the event of a complete onsite data failure.

    Valid point, agree with that.
    Let's hope then they treat that as feedback and communicate such changes to the existing customers in the future.

    However, as you already said: Really liked their service in all aspects, for my last >14 months with them.

    Great service, but this not honest kind of attiude make me out.
    "let's sell a service and change some things after they buy"

  • pbgbenpbgben Member, Host Rep

    Unless another credible host has popped up recently, T4V is still the cheapest storage provider on the market in this category, If I looked at a 3yr payback on hardware to do a similar thing I would be hard pressed to match it using new gear.

    It's not right to make changes without informing your customers, but then again, its better they set a limit then to not have one at all and get unstable IOPS.

    Thanked by 1NickMNXio
  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    Well as requested here is the results.

    You can clearly see when the multiple file copies stopped and the remaining single rsync command started. This is again from one storage node to another inside their own network. A significant amount of up and down in the transfer speeds. Not one time did I come close to 400mbit as was offered at the time of sign up and not the 400 IOPS either.

    So at this point I will leave it up to @time4vps to comment here further if they wish or we can take it to their ticketing system if they want to trouble shoot something further, but I think this is their offer now, so just be aware of it when choosing the storage services. I feel that the IO cap is set to 25MB and not 50MB as their document states. But they will need to review that.

    The average file sizes were 8-9GB which was as close to 10GB as I had that I needed to move at this time.

    http://imgur.com/a/sAE9r

    I don't think the offer is unfair for new users but with the amount of praise and recommendation they get here I think people need to know the limitations of the service as of today and not posts from March.

    Additionally, I hope they consider this in the future if they make additional changes to their services especially since people, like myself, are signing up and prepaying for 2 years of service under a certain level of expectation.

    I might have chosen a different service after trying out their service under the current offering. You can even check my post history where I did a comparison to Delimiter's(Who?) slot hosting and where things started to break even between the two.

    With servers in Poland and Netherlands I only get ~200mbit pulling down backups, but I had considered expanding with them when KVM is delivered but if I get no efficiency increases by doing that, whats the point.

    I have been overall happy with the service as cold storage, their documentation, and the support response for the amount I am paying. But I would be lying if I would refer someone to them now without mentioning this experience.

    Thanked by 2imok time4vps
  • This is exactly why I got rid of the bigger storage server that I had with them, and chose to keep the cheapest 500GB one.

    I basically think of it as extremely cheap and less reliable alternative to OVH hubic with slightly better speeds at times.

    For those interested, I moved to a bunch of cheap KS-2e boxes to use purely as storage servers that I bought during the flash sale. Total VFM.

  • @K4Y5 said:
    This is exactly why I got rid of the bigger storage server that I had with them, and chose to keep the cheapest 500GB one.

    I basically think of it as extremely cheap and less reliable alternative to OVH hubic with slightly better speeds at times.

    For those interested, I moved to a bunch of cheap KS-2e boxes to use purely as storage servers that I bought during the flash sale. Total VFM.

    Hubic is limited to 20mbit/s, good luck with that garbage.

  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member
    edited October 2016

    @IHaveADarkPassenger said:

    @K4Y5 said:
    This is exactly why I got rid of the bigger storage server that I had with them, and chose to keep the cheapest 500GB one.

    I basically think of it as extremely cheap and less reliable alternative to OVH hubic with slightly better speeds at times.

    For those interested, I moved to a bunch of cheap KS-2e boxes to use purely as storage servers that I bought during the flash sale. Total VFM.

    Hubic is limited to 20mbit/s, good luck with that garbage.

    How difficult is it to read the complete post, comprehend and then respond to it?

    To make my point clear, reliability has got nothing to do with speed, and for what it's worth, file operations are faster on hubic.
    As far as the network speed is concerned, I did say that T4V storage boxes offer better speeds.

    I never did say that I still use, as you s eloquently phrased, garbage that OVH sells as 'Hubic'.

    Thanked by 2Junkless doghouch
  • trewqtrewq Administrator, Patron Provider
    edited October 2016

    Far out you guys have high expectations for cheap backup servers. For me as long as I can pull at 2MB/s on needing to restore, 1MB/s for copying over backup and have 99.99% data durability then I'm a happy camper.

    Why do you need more for backups?

  • @K4Y5 said:

    @IHaveADarkPassenger said:

    @K4Y5 said:
    This is exactly why I got rid of the bigger storage server that I had with them, and chose to keep the cheapest 500GB one.

    I basically think of it as extremely cheap and less reliable alternative to OVH hubic with slightly better speeds at times.

    For those interested, I moved to a bunch of cheap KS-2e boxes to use purely as storage servers that I bought during the flash sale. Total VFM.

    Hubic is limited to 20mbit/s, good luck with that garbage.

    How difficult is it to read the complete post, comprehend and then respond to it?

    To make my point clear, reliability has got nothing to do with speed, and for what it's worth, file operations are faster on hubic.
    As far as the network speed is concerned, I did say that T4V storage boxes offer better speeds.

    I never did say that I still use, as you s eloquently phrased, garbage that OVH sells as 'Hubic'.

    Thank you for checking, but I did read the entire thread and your praise for Hubic is quite funny considering it would never work for the OP's needs, not by a long shot.

    Hubic may have faster operation speeds, but it is damn near meaningless when you cannot upload/download faster than 20Mbit/s. Prior to OVH re-adding the 20Mbit/s limitation (It was disabled for quite some time) Hubic actually had a lot of issues with performance and reliability (Uploads would fail, files uploaded but never showed in the UI, files disappearing randomly and lots more fun).

    Have a gander at the OVH forums.

    I also had personal experience with it as well, it was garbage and had nothing but issues most of the time.

  • @IHaveADarkPassenger ..... but he's not using HubiC? I know that it's OVH, but @K4Y5 never mentioned it?

    Thanked by 1K4Y5
  • @trewq said:
    Far out you guys have high expectations for cheap backup servers. For me as long as I can pull at 2MB/s on needing to restore, 1MB/s for copying over backup and have 99.99% data durability then I'm a happy camper.

    It's more that OP wasn't told that what he paid for was halved.. the then 400 IOPS is now down to 200..

    He clearly kept saying the service is great, he just wanted to be told and for others to know..

  • trewqtrewq Administrator, Patron Provider

    @ATHK said:

    @trewq said:
    Far out you guys have high expectations for cheap backup servers. For me as long as I can pull at 2MB/s on needing to restore, 1MB/s for copying over backup and have 99.99% data durability then I'm a happy camper.

    It's more that OP wasn't told that what he paid for was halved.. the then 400 IOPS is now down to 200..

    He clearly kept saying the service is great, he just wanted to be told and for others to know..

    Yeah, I more than agree with you on that front.

    I'm pretty sure I was thinking about another thread when I wrote the above and thought everyone was complaining that they should be getting a gazillion IOPS. Just ignore me, I obviously need more sleep.

    Thanked by 1ATHK
  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member
    edited October 2016

    @doghouch said:
    @IHaveADarkPassenger ..... but he's not using HubiC? I know that it's OVH, but @K4Y5 never mentioned it?

    There! Precisely.

    @IHaveADarkPassenger said:

    @K4Y5 said:

    @IHaveADarkPassenger said:

    @K4Y5 said:
    This is exactly why I got rid of the bigger storage server that I had with them, and chose to keep the cheapest 500GB one.

    I basically think of it as extremely cheap and less reliable alternative to OVH hubic with slightly better speeds at times.

    For those interested, I moved to a bunch of cheap KS-2e boxes to use purely as storage servers that I bought during the flash sale. Total VFM.

    Hubic is limited to 20mbit/s, good luck with that garbage.

    How difficult is it to read the complete post, comprehend and then respond to it?

    To make my point clear, reliability has got nothing to do with speed, and for what it's worth, file operations are faster on hubic.
    As far as the network speed is concerned, I did say that T4V storage boxes offer better speeds.

    I never did say that I still use, as you s eloquently phrased, garbage that OVH sells as 'Hubic'.

    Thank you for checking, but I did read the entire thread and your praise for Hubic is quite funny considering it would never work for the OP's needs, not by a long shot.

    Hubic may have faster operation speeds, but it is damn near meaningless when you cannot upload/download faster than 20Mbit/s. Prior to OVH re-adding the 20Mbit/s limitation (It was disabled for quite some time) Hubic actually had a lot of issues with performance and reliability (Uploads would fail, files uploaded but never showed in the UI, files disappearing randomly and lots more fun).

    Have a gander at the OVH forums.

    I also had personal experience with it as well, it was garbage and had nothing but issues most of the time.

    I think you had trouble understanding sarcasm, or you define praise differently than most people do?

    I'll still try to dumb it down a bit and explain again - I was trying to compare two types of apples (A & B) that I have eaten at some point, and made a general observation -" While apple 'A' looks good, apple 'B' tastes better"

    Now, that doesn't mean I am praising either of them, or have any intention of eating either of them anytime soon, as I have found a third type of apple ('C', for the sake of argument) that looks and tastes better than both of them.

    Now, this third type of apple 'C' is what I am really praising.

    You misconstrued the observation, and chose to selectively believe that I was praising apple A and NOT apple B, when in reality I was just comparing apples 'A' & 'B', while praising apple 'C' all along.

    Hope that clears things up.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    Hadriel said: Well as requested here is the results.

    Please contact us at [email protected] in order to find reasonable solution to your problem.

    Certain parameters like IOPS, I/O are optimized constantly based on our service usage. Our ultimate goal - satisfactory service to all our customers.

    We will definitely not bother our whole clientele with each performance optimization tweak we do, this would be unreasonable and unnecessary, unless it directly impacts service price or availability.

    At the moment we see that only @Hadriel facing issues regarding IOPS limitation, all other members complain that X now is less than Y. But is this fact caused you a problem personally? If yes - please contact our support to discuss and find solution.

    We are very flexible and client feedback is our key to success. Thank you for bringing up to attention IOPS problem.

  • I have a 500gb service with time4vps and very happy. For the price, I don't have high expectations. I just use it for light things.

  • I'm quite happy with my 512GB backup VPS with T4V, but I think OP raises a good point about disaster recovery time. That would be a reasonable use-case for these servers, so perhaps T4V might consider some sort of a temporary lifting of IOPS restrictions when needed for restoring from backups -- like maybe once per month or something? Just a thought.

  • HadrielHadriel Member
    edited October 2016

    @time4vps said:
    >

    I have contacted your support group and they said there is nothing they can do. Which, again, is fine as I still think the service is fair.

    I disagree with you that it is unnecessary to notify customer of changes to service that are of this magnitude. No matter what I do, I can not hit the 400mbit limit of the port which is still being offered.

    Please make sure the limitation page is updated to reflect the 25MB IO limit of storage and not the 50MB that is listed.

    Please consider offering a scaling level of IO/IOPS depending on the size of storage purchased. As it stands right now, after asking for larger blocks such as 4 or 8TB, it is better to have the smaller nodes because I can pull from both and get better performance.

    Also, thank you for the dialog.

  • time4vpstime4vps Member, Host Rep

    Hadriel said: No matter what I do, I can not hit the 400mbit limit of the port which is still being offered.

    This is the problem and we will find solution to it. Could you please PM me ticket number.

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