BandwagonHost OpenVZ 128 MB (NL)

[wlanboy]

Provider: BandwagonHost
Plan: OpenVZ 128mb VPS
Price: 5.99$ per year
Location: Dronten, NL

Purchased: 01/2014

This is one of the reviews that are sponsored by vpsboard.

I will update each review every two months and will add notes on what happend during this time.

MannDude is funding the reviews and we are randomly selecting providers and test their service, their panels and their support.

If you want to discuss about this topic -> start here.

So back to the review of BandwagonHost.

Hardware information:

• cat /proc/cpuinfo
  
  processor : 0
  vendor_id : GenuineIntel
  cpu family : 6
  model : 44
  model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5639 @ 2.13GHz
  stepping : 2
  cpu MHz : 2133.211
  cache size : 12288 KB
  physical id : 0
  siblings : 12
  core id : 0
  cpu cores : 6
  apicid : 0
  initial apicid : 0
  fpu : yes
  fpu_exception : yes
  cpuid level : 11
  wp : yes
  flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat epb dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid
  bogomips : 4266.42
  clflush size : 64
  cache_alignment : 64
  address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  power management:
  
  
• cat /proc/meminfo
  

  MemTotal:         151552 kB
  MemFree:           37200 kB
  Cached:            43736 kB
  Buffers:               0 kB
  Active:            50864 kB
  Inactive:          55712 kB
  Active(anon):      15808 kB
  Inactive(anon):    47032 kB
  Active(file):      35056 kB
  Inactive(file):     8680 kB
  Unevictable:           0 kB
  Mlocked:               0 kB
  SwapTotal:         36864 kB
  SwapFree:           7256 kB
  Dirty:                56 kB
  Writeback:             0 kB
  AnonPages:         62840 kB
  Shmem:              2620 kB
  Slab:               7764 kB
  SReclaimable:       3960 kB
  SUnreclaim:         3804 kB

• dd
  

  dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=16k count=8k conv=fdatasync && rm -rf test
  8192+0 records in
  8192+0 records out
  134217728 bytes (134 MB) copied, 0.836187 s, 161 MB/s

• wget
  

  wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
  --2014-02-19 14:32:24--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
  Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
  Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
  HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
  Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
  Saving to: `/dev/null'
  
  100%[==============================================================================>] 104,857,600 38.0M/s   in 2.6s
  
  2014-02-19 14:32:27 (38.0 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

Network:

traceroute dvhn.nl:


traceroute to dvhn.nl (213.136.31.225), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
2 bit.telecity2.nl-ix.net (193.239.116.19) 2.459 ms 2.460 ms 2.440 ms


traceroute sueddeutsche.de:


2 serverius-1.telecity2.openpeering.nl (82.150.157.138) 1.215 ms 10.513 ms 1.221 ms
3 AMDGW2.arcor-ip.net (195.69.144.123) 9.575 ms 9.626 ms AMDGW1.arcor-ip.net (195.69.145.123) 5.586 ms
4 188.111.129.25 (188.111.129.25) 12.735 ms 12.693 ms 12.695 ms


traceroute theguardian.co.uk:


2 te0-0-0-9.ccr21.ams04.atlas.cogentco.com (149.11.38.29) 1.422 ms 1.428 ms 1.441 ms
3 be2311.ccr21.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.89) 3.035 ms be2312.ccr22.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.93) 1.711 ms be2311.ccr21.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.89) 3.663 ms
4 be2275.ccr21.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.51.253) 9.117 ms be2277.mpd21.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.62.145) 9.374 ms be2276.ccr22.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.36.57) 9.107 ms
5 be2314.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.72.254) 9.432 ms be2317.ccr22.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.73.178) 9.595 ms 9.386 ms
6 te2-1.mag02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.114) 9.118 ms 9.124 ms 9.140 ms
7 149.11.142.74 (149.11.142.74) 9.236 ms 9.120 ms 9.162 ms

traceroute washingtonpost.com:


traceroute to washingtonpost.com (208.185.109.100), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
2 serverius-1.telecity2.openpeering.nl (82.150.157.138) 1.239 ms 5.597 ms 1.247 ms
3 * * *
4 ae4.cr1.ams10.nl.above.net (64.125.32.73) 1.681 ms 1.654 ms 1.751 ms
5 xe-5-3-0.cr2.lga5.us.above.net (64.125.25.57) 80.429 ms 105.332 ms 105.345 ms
6 ae1.cr1.lga5.us.above.net (64.125.29.37) 80.631 ms 80.121 ms 80.090 ms
7 ae5.cr1.dca2.us.above.net (64.125.26.97) 80.800 ms 80.723 ms 80.692 ms
8 xe-1-1-0.mpr3.iad1.us.above.net (64.125.31.113) 90.575 ms 90.538 ms 90.652 ms
9 64.124.201.150.allocated.above.net (64.124.201.150) 90.777 ms 90.948 ms 91.059 ms
10 208.185.109.100 (208.185.109.100) 91.129 ms 90.863 ms 90.934 ms

Speedtest through OpenVPN:



What services are running?

• MongoDB cluster node
• Ruby cron jobs
• Branch of wlanboy.com

Support:

No tickets needed yet.

I asked for the support of IPV6 but they don't have any plans to support it in NL.

The answer was fast, well written and very polite.

Custom control panel:



You can even migrate your vps to another location:



Or migrate from another vps:



Overall experience:

I did not expect much because I am paying a budget price for a 128 MB vps.

But I really enjoyed the "one login for all" strategy of BandwagonHost. There is a link within the WHMCS service details to automatically login into KiwiVM.

And KiwiVM is fast. Much faster than any SolusVM instance I ever used.

And it does have features that a lot of providers are missing:

• HTTP based root shell (no VNC, no JAVA)
• Migration between datacenters - no support needed
• Migration of existing vps (if it has got the same OS version)
• Snapshots of vps
• Recreate vps out of snapshots
• Two factor authentification for additional security

And I am enjoying the vps.

It is a very snappy and solid one.

Network is fast and has enough bandwith to all locations I need (more than 5 MB/s).

The support is very polite and seems to know their stuff.

Their panel is fast, clear and offers a lot of features that are still missing in SolusVM.

It is hard to find something bad out of this well build service but there is one single point that is nagging me:

They don't want to support IPv6 - want not can.

Update status:



28 minutes of downtime for a whole month.

I will refresh the uptime report every two months.

 

[MannDude]

Very nice and detailed review! I look forward to the updates.

To be completely honest, I had no idea they used their own home-brewed VPS panel. Pretty neat you can migrate your VPS from one DC to the other. Do you know if there is any limit on how often this could be done? Only reason I could think of why someone would change their DC location often is to get spun up elsewhere with a new IP, so I'm hoping they take that into consideration and limit it to a degree to help fight spammers or other malicious types.

Certainly keep us updated!

 

[DomainBop]

Posting a couple of test results from one of the BandwagonHost nodes I'm on in the Netherlands because they differ from the above results significantly (I've had this 256MB one since November, no problems so far.  I also have one of their $5.99 annual 128MB in the NL).

dd test result:

dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=16k count=8k conv=fdatasync && rm -rf test
8192+0 records in
8192+0 records out
134217728 bytes (134 MB) copied, 0.46084 s, 291 MB/s

The Speedtest.net results can vary widely depending on which test server Speedtest selects.  3 tests from my Bandwagon NL VPS using 3 different test servers taken within a 2 minute time span.  All different.

Only reason I could think of why someone would change their DC location often is to get spun up elsewhere with a new IP, so I'm hoping they take that into consideration and limit it to a degree to help fight spammers or other malicious types.

IT7 (BandwagonHost/VPSBlast) are the developers of Nodewatch so spammers and other abusers never really have a chance with them

edited to add a link to their free Nodewatch script: http://vpsantiabuse.com/

 

[wlanboy]

Posting a couple of test results from one of the BandwagonHost nodes I'm on in the Netherlands because they differ from the above results significantly (I've had this 256MB one since November, no problems so far.  I also have one of their $5.99 annual 128MB in the NL).

Update the section - it was a speed test through OpenVPN - limited to my current internet connection.

 

[peterw]

I bought one vps from BandwagonHost too. Their panel is good and the provided server is fantastic. Their Arizona location has a good network too.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for the update:



No downtime - network still offers a lot of bandwith and the vps is still snappy too.

 

[dcdan]

Thank you for this great review. We are currently shipping a batch of new servers to NL and will be migrating all old customers over to the new hardware (beefier servers, pure SSD RAID-10). There will be 30-60 second downtime associated with this upgrade.

 

[wlanboy]

Thank you for this great review. We are currently shipping a batch of new servers to NL and will be migrating all old customers over to the new hardware (beefier servers, pure SSD RAID-10). There will be 30-60 second downtime associated with this upgrade.

Looking forward to the announcement via email.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



35 Minutes of downtime for the last three months.

The vps itself has an uptime of 103 days.

CPU and I/O are really good and the network is fast.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



12 minutes of network downtime since the last update.

CPU and I/O are great.

Network is better than last time:


--2014-06-17 13:54:44-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[===========================================================================================>] 104,857,600 88.3M/s in 1.1s

2014-06-17 13:54:45 (88.3 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

One of the snappiest vps I have.

 

[Kayaba Akihiko]

Pretty happy with Bandwagonhost as well.

Using it to host my OpenVPN Server, 300GB/Month is just awesome.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



4 hours 3 minutes and 44 seconds of downtime since the last update.

The vps itself does have an uptime of 32 days.

CPU and I/O are great.

Network too:


wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
--2014-07-27 13:11:41-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[===========================================================================================>] 104,857,600 95.2M/s in 1.1s

2014-07-27 13:11:42 (95.2 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

The last two network downtimes were just annoying.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



1 minutes of downtime since the last update.

The vps itself does have an uptime of 95 days.

CPU and I/O are great.

Network too:

wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
--2014-09-28 03:00:28--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[===========================================================================================>] 104,857,600 44.8M/s   in 2.2s

2014-09-28 03:00:30 (44.8 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



7 hours and 8 minutes of downtime since the last update.

The vps itself does have an uptime of 169 days.

CPU and I/O are ok.

Network is decreasing:

wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
--2014-12-11 02:05:20--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net (cachefly.cachefly.net)|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 5.65M/s   in 18s

2014-12-11 02:05:37 (5.64 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



7 minutes of downtime since the last update.

The vps itself does have an uptime of 26 days.

CPU and I/O are ok.

This is the last update for this server.

I have canceled the service due to the end of the review year.

Looking back to this year I do not remember anything that got really bad.

During the last months the network quality and the general I/O performance decreased. But nothing that made this vps unusable.

I did not renew this service because there are other providers that offer more diskspace for the same price. Truncating the mongodb log files to keep the free diskspace above 300MB would be the only annoyance that I can state.

BandwagonHost is one of the providers that I would recommend.

 

[wlanboy]

This will be my last update because the one year review term is over.

The vps itself was great - but the disk space was limited. The support of BandwagonHost is very friendly and great.
I cannot say anything bad about BandwagonHost. Maybe that they should add some additional disk space to their packages. But still a good choice in the saturated NL location.