[HCoop-Discuss] VPS only looks cheap compared to NYC

[Adam Megacz]

Daniel Margolis <dan at af0.net> writes:
> On technical grounds, everyone who's commented seems to agree that a
> VPS would save us money.

VPS solutions seem cheap because we pay ultra-premium prices for our
current installation.  NYC equals $$$.

I host gentzen.megacz.com with rackmounted.com for $55/month.  My
machine has 16GB of ram; slicehost wants $800/month (!?!?!) for that
and linode doesn't even offer it.

I have 1TB of disk and a pair of opterons at my disposal, remote
reboot, and (by special agreement) for $5/month my service processor
gets its own ethernet port.  In 17 months I have never needed to
request "remote hands".

The key to understanding VPS pricing is realizing that the one scarce
resource they can't multiplex is RAM.  How much RAM you get basically
tells you how many people you're sharing a machine with (unless
they're stupid, the provider will be packing their machines to the
gills with memory).  If they're skimpy on the memory, odds are they're
oversubscribing their physical hardware.

I don't have strong opinions one way or the other on the VPS-or-not
decision.  I just felt compelled to correct what have become
increasingly inaccurate factual statements.  I don't want to see a
decision made based on incorrect data.

  - a