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Desired memory for low end VPSs
slowservers
Member, Host Rep
Hi LET,
Host nodes for Slow Servers are definitely on the small side, and they are a bit unusual. This manifests in plans and pricing.
I was wondering about making a fairly small adjustment to my node configuration and if it's something that would actually interest customers or not.
I designed the hosts to use as little power as possible, to be built off old hardware, and to work well with my choice of hypervisor (OpenBSD.) This is a bit of an unusual set of criterea.
This a reference node looks like this:
CPU: Opteron 4162EE (6 core, 1.7GHz)
Memory: 32GiB ECC
Storage: 1TB Samsung 850 PRO or 1TB Velicoraptor
This gives me multiples of 1GB of memory per 32GB of storage, which is certainly above average. I don't do the whole alacarte CPU/memory/disk -- it doesn't work well with small hosts.
One major limitation is that OpenBSD's VMM can only issue one vCPU, so anything genuinely CPU heavy is out. Another limitation is that OpenBSD's scheduling isn't great, and if every core is pegged, performance drops rapidly. So keeping a fairly generous core to VPS ratio is important.
While I've seen Xen run and schedule 256MB VPSs admirably (with 4 vCPUs, what the host had!), it just isn't OpenBSD's forte at the moment. And OpenBSD itself, if a guest, will swap much less than 768MB just on kernel relinking. So this puts me in an unusual category of low power/performance, but not capable of lots of very low power servers (think Tierhive.)
Ultimately, my pricing is simple, but high: $6/GB of memory, per 32GB disk. $1.50/month extra for IPv4.
What I realized is that for a small increase in power use, I could double the host memory with registered dimms (so 64GB per node instead of 32GB.) This wouldn't be that expensive up front. I'd have to double check power usage, but I'm guessing it would add a few watts. Now with this, I wouldn't want to host more VPSs. I would just offer more memory for roughly the same amount of money, basically.
The current smallest size is 768MB. So I might end up with a larger minimum size of 1.5GB of memory. Unless I increased disk space, it would then be 1GB memory/16GB disk.
So the smallest $4.50/month plan would get bumped up from 768MB to 1.5GB memory with 24GB of disk.
On the larger end of things, it becomes less useful -- when are you going to use more than 16GB of memory with one vCPU? I do currently use a 16GB / 512GB disk / 1 vCPU server succeessfully as a Monero now (on a Velociraptor, nonetheless!) Doubling that memory to 32GB seems useless in this application.
I could potentially add an extra drive at the same time, also increasing power usage but not tremendously. At that point I don't think I'd give twice as much for the same price -- I'd have to evaluate it.
I know a lot of people are happy with 512MB memory servers. Some are happy with 1GB. And some want more. But the ones that want more, do you also need more CPU to go with it? Or would this make my offering more usable?
Thank you!
PS: Here's my current reference node: https://slowservers.net/hosts/loki/
And some ramblings on pricing, if you just can't get enough of this long form content: https://slowservers.net/gemlog/2026-04-25-on-pricing.gmi
- Would you be considerably more interested in this server plan or another?21 votes
- 1 vCPU / 768MB memory / 24GB disk for $4.50/month19.05%
- 1 vCPU / 1.5GB memory / 24GB disk for $4.50/month38.10%
- 1 vCPU / 1.5GB memory / 48GB disk for $5.00/month42.86%
- Would you be considerably more interested in this server plan or another?21 votes
- 1 vCPU / 16GB memory / 512GB disk: $96/month9.52%
- 1 vCPU / 32GB memory / 512GB disk: $96/month4.76%
- 1 vCPU / 16GB memory / 256GB disk: $48/month9.52%
- 1 vCPU / 16GB memory / 512GB disk: $48/month52.38%
- 1 vCPU / 32GB memory / 1TB disk: $96/month23.81%
- Should I double memory capacity?21 votes
- Yes, it's worth a few more watts76.19%
- No, save every watt!23.81%
- Should I double disk capacity and memory?21 votes
- Yes, this would influence my buying decisions.57.14%
- No, it's not worth the power.4.76%
- Slow Servers is stupid.38.10%
- How much would you pay for 1 vCPU / 1.5GB / 24GB disk? ($1.50/month extra for IPv4)21 votes
- $7/year61.90%
- $3/month4.76%
- $4/month14.29%
- $5/month4.76%
- $6/month0.00%
- $7/month4.76%
- These are all too expensive!9.52%
- What is the smallest useful server memory for you?21 votes
- 256MB23.81%
- 512MB14.29%
- 768MB4.76%
- 1GB28.57%
- 1.5GB0.00%
- 2GB14.29%
- Bigger..14.29%
Comments
I was looking at your services the other day
I really like the idea and goal, but the 1vCPU limit seems to be the only killer.
Why not use something like Proxmox that's still free, open source, etc but can handle at least assigning multiple vCPU? Or look for a patch for your software? I saw in the website that it says the issue is your software you use.. but that's probably a HUGE issue for clients.
The old hareware recycling is GREAT. I really love this idea and it's awesome. But -- if you offer plans with huge RAM and Disk, the CPU cores need to match up somehow to make it work. Otherwise, the RAM becomes hard to even use what you paid for. If that makes sense?
Anyways - I really do love your project
Much love
8 MB RAM for 1$ year when?
I wouldn't consider buying any vps under 1GB of ram. 1GB is minimum.
Having 16GB with 1 vCPU just doesn't make any sense considering you can get more vCPU from other providers.
Also the pricing per month is just too expensive.
With such a low end node, you are much better off selling the whole node like NOCIX/WholesaleInternet
I think a VPS should have at least 64 MB of RAM, at least 512 MB of storage, cost no more than $7 per year, use KVM virtualization, and include NAT IPv4 + IPv6.
Any plans to also offer Shared Webhosting one day?
I think it's difficult to run more than a couple services with at least 512MB & I wouldn't consider any server with less. Would rather have more servers on the very cheap end of the price range than on the very high end (this is LowEndTalk, after all).
Thank you! I appreciate that!
OpenBSD was an idealistic choice, mostly. There's some things about it that are easier and maybe better for VPS hosting. I just like OpenBSD a lot in general, and working with something that I like is nice.
I think virtual SMP (more than one vCPU) support will come eventually, just not sure when. Disk performance is a major issue on OpenBSD as well. It's usable, just not competitive.
I've used Xen before and would probably use it, if not OpenBSD. I might consider it on some different hardware. Of course if a couple things could be remedied on OpenBSD, it would make it a lot more practical.
I might actually be expanding quite a bit with some newer hardware being generously offered for free, so for that buildout I might do things differently -- we will see. I still have to get it, sort through it, and test it out.
Yeah, that's understandable. It does work for Monero nodes, it's just not performant.
I understand that. I'm used to selling in the KYC-free space where prices are a lot higher.
That would be interesting to sell dedicated servers. I'd have to really work on my networking setup to use vlans and have sufficient filtering at the router level. I wonder how much demand there would be.
Sounds like a great option through Tierhive!
Actually, I would like to! Probably very basic, static only hosting though.
That's what I was thinking, that most of you would rather have more cheaper servers than a few bigger servers. I used to lean towards the many-small camp, now I think I prefer a bigger server (or two) per point of presence. Of course as small as can handle the load is nice as well.
1vCPU 512MB RAM 3GB SSD KVM virtual technology that's awesome
It’s a tough sell because there are plenty of KYC free providers here and many are expecting lowest prices and the best deals here on LET.
Thank you to everyone for your feedback!
I am lowering prices and will be adjusting hosts for double memory+disk capacity. It turns out that 32GB to 64GB of memory uses about 3 more watts. And going from a 1TB to a 2TB SSD should use a negligible increase in power.
For the curious: https://slowservers.net/gemlog/2026-06-06-price-reduction.gmi
(Or on Gemini: gemini://slowservers.net/gemlog/2026-06-06-price-reduction.gmi )
It's still not cheap, but it is cheaper.
Depends entirely on the workload, but my rough rule: 1GB is fine for a single service (small site, bot, DNS), 2GB once you add a database, 4GB+ if you're running Docker with a few containers. Swap helps for occasional spikes but you don't want to lean on it. Honestly RAM is the spec I'd upgrade before CPU for most low-end use.
Yes, give us those **real ** lowendVPS back: 256MB RAM, 3GB disk, 1vCPU and IPv4/IPv6 for 5 USD per year. Missing those old discussions from +10 years ago when we were optimizing debian for prividing DNS, nginx/php etc.
My needs have changed over the years, but I'm generally not interested in anything with less than 2 GiB memory these days.
After I've installed Elastic Agent, Nessus Agent and my RMM, I'm losing 300/400MB anyway.
While it might not be overly practical i'll give you a thought to play with that (i think) would kind of fit your business model: Try to acquire a bunch of solar panels/batteries so you have a supply of cheap energy, get some relatively fat fiber line (something like a gbit - price probably depends a lot on your location but maybe it's feasible?), connect a bunch of cool retro servers to your cheap energy and make them available to the world over some GRE tunnel or similar (to avoid DDoS problems on your uplink - not exactly free but also shouldn't totally kill your budget). Voila you've build a reasonably functional shed DC.
Obviously getting enough panels and batteries would be a noticeable investment and probably makes the whole thing uneconomical unless you can get some kind of killer bargain but in general i think it would fit the overall vibe nicely and maybe allow you to get a bunch of competitive deals online. Obviously the setup has a couple downsides (mainly reliability wise and to a certain degree available bandwidth - 100mbit ports aren't exactly great but would still allow 10 boxes on your line before you even oversell anything) but i'm pretty certain people would look beyond that if the price is right.
Something like a dual 2637v2 is still a nice box if you aren't paying much for it and such a config with 16-32GB RAM and a bunch of smallish disks for ghetto raid shouldn't really cost much more than (maybe) $100 to build (could probably be cheaper given a bunch of good catches on parts). With a tiny bit more of an investment (like 2643, 2673, 2667, ...) the resulting box could actually even still be somewhat impressive.
IPv4 for $5/year is really pushing it, but I see what you mean. That would be a lot more possible if I were using Xen. Arbitrarily, I chose OpenBSD, which I'm not as comfortable loading up after my testing. It just doesn't schedule as nicely.
I think that's already done well with TierHive, though. Some great discussions on LES about tiny server configurations.
I was looking into hosting hardware on my property and wanted to have actually off-grid (minus the fiber) power. I had an Atom-based configuration, initially, but VMM did not work on it. It would've been really cool, and amazingly low power, but missing the right processor extension. Also not much of that hardware available, sadly.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get fiber here. I had one opportunity to host in the nearest town that would've more of a shed situation (maybe with some solar potential) but it never panned out in the end.
Now this area isn't that great for solar. It's doable, but going to need a lot more panels than some areas. On the bright side, cooling needs are lower, so that can help.