# (very brief) PhoenixVPS Xen SSD-Cached VPS Review



## Otakumatic (Jul 1, 2013)

*NOTE: This is my first review, plus I really only had one issue so I didn't have a lot to say.*

 

In July 2013, I recieved an SSD-cached Xen VPS from Phoenix VPS in Virginia.  From the first impression, Marc, the person I spoke to about this VPS, seemed like a very nice person, and was very helpful about setting it up. The VPS on deployment would not allow SSH connection, so I re-installed the OS. That did not work, so I opened a ticket.  Marc responded in 60 seconds, which is good in my book.  Turns out it was a network thing. Other than the SSH issue, deployment was very smooth!

 

*DEPLOYMENT OF VPS/SUPPORT: A+ (A++ for support, A- for issues)*

 

"But what about the preformance?" you ask, well, let me tell you, download speeds are really good! A download from cachefly for a 100MB file preformed at 91.6MB/s, as seen here:

 




> --2013-07-01 14:09:26--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
> 
> Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
> 
> ...



 

Hard drive speed is also pretty dang awesome:





> [[email protected] ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output.img bs=8k count=256k
> 
> 262144+0 records in
> 
> ...



 

Processor could be better, but at least it's an E5! Yes, it's a slower E5, but I'm OK with it. I would've loved if it had a E3-1230v2 like some OVZ hosts, but I know that can be more expensive:

 




> processor       : 7
> 
> vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
> 
> ...



 

 

*SPEED OF DOWNLOAD/HDD: A++*

 

 

This may seem like a small review, but that's all I feel I need to show to prove how awesome Phoenix VPS is. If you need a break from the usual OpenVZ $7 VPSes, do use these guys!

 

*GENERAL GRADE: A+*


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## HalfEatenPie (Jul 1, 2013)

@MarcM is an awesome guy and he runs a pretty solid operation.

Just know though, that CPU speed isn't everything.  E5s are much better than E3s (more CPUs but slower clocks) and is much better capacity wise.

Anyways, thanks for this awesome review!


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## SeriesN (Jul 1, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> @MarcM is an awesome guy and he runs a pretty solid operation.
> 
> Just know though, that CPU speed isn't everything.  E5s are much better than E3s (more CPUs but slower clocks) and is much better capacity wise.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for this awesome review!


Not really. For process heavy works, especially php, e3s are the BOMB! But yeah, marc sounds like an "Epoc" persona. (Epoc is a new word, don't bother googling).


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## Otakumatic (Jul 1, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> But yeah, marc sounds like an "Epoc" persona. (Epoc is a new word, don't bother googling).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_consumption

OH CRAP I BROKE THE RULE.


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## Marc M. (Jul 1, 2013)

*@Otakumatic* thank you for the mini review.

The E3 is Intel's little Power Ranger that started out in life as a desktop CPU and then was also sold as a server CPU. It scores well in Unix Bench due to the high clock speeds, however it also has some shortcomings like the 32GB memory limit or the integrated PCI Express controller that offers only two narrow 8x lanes. It is great for small nodes, however it is much more efficient to deploy larger nodes powered by multiple CPUs. Indeed the E5s run are slower speeds due to power envelope considerations (larger die area uses more power and produces more heat). The Intel Xeon E5 is currently the norm for nodes that use more than 32GB of RAM. We run a mix of dual Xeon 2620s and 2609s and at least as far as Unixbench scores are concerned it's a wash between the two (more cores vs. higher clocks speed).

To ensure that every customer gets the best possible I/O, not one single VPS will have access to full I/O speed at any given time. To give you an idea about the maximum raw speed that our SSD Cached nodes can do, here are some dd test from one of the Xen nodes:

[[email protected] ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/output.img bs=8k count=256k
262144+0 records in
262144+0 records out
2147483648 bytes (2.1 GB) copied, 3.48044 s, 617 MB/s

[[email protected] ~]# dd bs=64k count=64k if=/dev/zero of=test conv=fdatasync
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
4294967296 bytes (4.3 GB) copied, 6.61946 s, 649 MB/s

[[email protected] ~]# dd bs=64k count=64k if=/dev/zero of=test conv=fdatasync; unlink test
65536+0 records in
65536+0 records out
4294967296 bytes (4.3 GB) copied, 6.56181 s, 655 MB/s

[[email protected] ~]#  dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.3723 s, 782 MB/s

*@**SeriesN* Epoc - Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption


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## SeriesN (Jul 1, 2013)

Otakumatic said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_post-exercise_oxygen_consumption
> 
> OH CRAP I BROKE THE RULE.


DAMN SON!


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## D. Strout (Jul 2, 2013)

Otakumatic said:


> This may seem like a small review, but that's all I feel I need to show to prove how awesome Phoenix VPS is.


Agreed. I know my reviews are usually a big wall of text, but you hit on all the important points, especially support. Thanks for the review.


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## Marc M. (Jul 2, 2013)

I wanted to let everyone know that the SSD Cached Xen VPS plans have now been officially launched and are available here with a decent discount: http://vpsboard.com/topic/1020-ssd-cached-xen-vps-servers-starting-at-7mo-for-512mb20gb-raid-10-ssd4-cores-up-to-8gb320gb-raid-10-ssd8-cores-phoenix-az-or-ashburn-va/


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