Reserving Disk Space you Purchased from the Oversold VPS providers

[GVH-Jon]

I'm not for this idea at all as a provider and as a consumer. Why?

1) If you'd have to even consider doing this, then you've obviously chosen a horrible host.

2) You've purchased an OpenVZ VPS. Knowingly (I'd assume). You're defeating the main purpose of offering OpenVZ: To generate larger venue and offer larger allocations for lower prices. If every consumer is to think like this, then does that mean every host should ditch OpenVZ, switch to Xen, VMWare, or KVM and raise their prices?

I'll put in a scenario:
 

As you said yourself, a lot of people would go for those cheap OpenVZ plans. What if a considerable chunk of people on the same node started doing this?

Result: Hosting company isn't able to generate income, runs out of business, cheap pricing no more.
 

My God this industry is getting more shameful by the second...

 

[drmike]

as a consumer. Why?

As a consumer, why not?  First and foremost, you are paying for resources you don't use too much already.  The low end banks on totally idle accounts with empty installs.  No difference to me loading up some place holder files or wget'ing to disk 500 speed test files or putting some of "real" data on the VPS.  Space is space.

1) If you'd have to even consider doing this, then you've obviously chosen a horrible host.

 

9402 VPS instances at ChicagoVPS.  What percentage of their customer base do you think should be due a refund this time?  Last time?  They are real impossible about refunds / they don't refund.  I see thousands of their customers that should start using some resources (NO! I am not a customer there thank the heavens)

You've purchased an OpenVZ VPS. Knowingly

The oversold resources that aren't there isn't a specific OpenVZ defect.  It is a defect and business model of the company using it at gross scale.

Up until recently, you really had to go out of your way to find anything besides OpenVZ, so it remains by far the most common virtualization type.

You can still oversell things on all other virtualized systems.   Give the creatives some spare time and the need to do such and there will ten different ways.

 

[Pete M.]

What's the point of subscribing to a provider that you suspect of overselling disk space in the first place? While this idea has merit, I'd rather not play the roulette with my data. 

 

[drmike]

What's the point of subscribing to a provider that you suspect of overselling disk space in the first place?

Well it happens.  Overselling is certainly getting more mature and better hiding it from novice end users.  Especially with the emergence of cheap SSD technology.

While this idea has merit, I'd rather not play the roulette with my data.

So rather than playing roulette, while idling the VPS, watching and waiting before putting it in production (I do this for 3+ months typically). Load some of my filler data   See if they lose that.

 

[jcaleb]

In my opinion, as long as you are not abusing CPU and disk io, it is okay to consume disk and ram. what is the difference of uploading your backup file to your vps and creating ramdom disk files? why cant you do what you want to do with your vps, as long as its not illegal and not affecting other clients?

 

[ErrantWeb-Travis]

This is a funny way to reserve space. I've never been worried about HDD space on any nodes, I'm not sure why anyone would oversell HDD.

 

[jcaleb]

What's the point of subscribing to a provider that you suspect of overselling disk space in the first place? While this idea has merit, I'd rather not play the roulette with my data.

it is not i think about suspecting. it is about testing your host. what kind of service they provide. what is their attitude. etc.

when i tried DireVPS and consume 3.5GB/4GB RAM, 92GB/100GB RAM, and 24/7 CPU, I thought I will get kicked out. To my surprise, it was okay for 1 whole month. I ended up having tons of respect for them.

 

[john]

92GB/100GB RAM

 

Sign me up . 

 

[jcaleb]

Sign me up .

http://direvps.com/

 

[jarland]

I oversell disk space on OpenVZ. Sorry but 30% average usage is a waste. Prices are brought down by this and everyone wins. I don't have a problem with people using what they buy and I'm happy to roll out the red carpet for anyone who finds a way to legitimately hit a wall prior to capping the resources that they've paid for (and good luck because almost no one uses their disk space or memory) but attempting to retaliate over an open, admitted method of selling high performing products at a price that a lot of people want would certainly have me considering a cry of "abuse" over a client who admitted to taking more than they need "just because it's there." It's my job to make sure the client has what they need, not the client's job to make my job as hard as it can be for no reason and zero benefit to anyone including themselves.

 

[jcaleb]

I think all clients to start using up all resources they paid, will not happen. or if it does, it will not be in an instant. it will be gradual increase, and host can react accordingly.

 

[Pete M.]

I oversell disk space on OpenVZ.

 

@jarland you guys are really good at what you are doing, so anyone who buys OpenVZ hosting from Catalyst should not be worried, however someone who just got started in this business with the intent to make a quick buck can end up messing things up pretty badly.

 

[Magiobiwan]

However, clients using methods like this can ALSO mess stuff up very easily. If you want stuff for $2 per month, doing this shit WILL make prices rise, and make new hosts die fast.

 

[jcaleb]

and make new hosts die fast.

that's not bad, right?

 

[jarland]

However, clients using methods like this can ALSO mess stuff up very easily. If you want stuff for $2 per month, doing this shit WILL make prices rise, and make new hosts die fast.

I can honestly say it'd cut down on promos that we would do if people used what they're allotted. Which is totally fine. I'd just much prefer them to benefit from the resources rather than just trying to cause problems.

 

[Pete M.]

However, clients using methods like this can ALSO mess stuff up very easily. If you want stuff for $2 per month, doing this shit WILL make prices rise, and make new hosts die fast.

@Magiobiwan not everyone who has the ability to install OpenVZ should become a provider. When Marc told me about summer hosts I laughed, but when I saw that serious look on his face I realized that it was something ... well serious. To me the part where some of these hosts run off with the customers' money is not as bad as wasting their data as well.  

 

[kaniini]

This is not funny. You always leave some free RAM for things like updates.

That's why you have the UPPERBOUND setting

 

[kaniini]

I'm not for this idea at all as a provider and as a consumer. Why?

1) If you'd have to even consider doing this, then you've obviously chosen a horrible host.

2) You've purchased an OpenVZ VPS. Knowingly (I'd assume). You're defeating the main purpose of offering OpenVZ: To generate larger venue and offer larger allocations for lower prices. If every consumer is to think like this, then does that mean every host should ditch OpenVZ, switch to Xen, VMWare, or KVM and raise their prices?

I'll put in a scenario:

As you said yourself, a lot of people would go for those cheap OpenVZ plans. What if a considerable chunk of people on the same node started doing this?

Result: Hosting company isn't able to generate income, runs out of business, cheap pricing no more.

My God this industry is getting more shameful by the second...

Are you really trying to justify a broken business model?  You see: selling things that aren't real is called dishonesty or perhaps, legally, fraud.

 

[jcaleb]

honestly, i can't understand why it is an issue using and maximizing the disk and ram you bought

 

[drmike]

honestly, i can't understand why it is an issue using and maximizing the disk and ram you bought

 

Cause... drumroll... many providers are mass overselling.  Especially resources that aren't typically used.  It use to be CPU 'abuse' the providers whined about.  They started limiting what you can run and defined CPU abuse and set limits on what you could access CPU wise.  Problem solved.

Then they started bumping disk + RAM on plans pretty fast.   RAM use is well, subject to actual use of the VPS.  Lots of these large RAM oversolds seem to have disk IO issues (depending on server load).  The use of SSD as cache and even mapped as RAM, yeah expands things on the cheap but again, hits the disk IO.  Comes down to one ugly thing typically --- if the VPS is subpar, laggy, slow drive, etc. folks let them sit empty.

Empty VPS due to unusable production quality lacking.  So storing random data, well, that's part of the medicine I think to bottom up fix/change the low end.

Scaling properly and morally:

There is a big difference @Jarland in having idle servers due to true underuse vs. massive stack and pack others do.  I always have good things to say about Catalyst.  

Providers surprise:

I am surprised by the interest in this howto / concept by providers.   I see some camps of thought on the matter and general industry practices.  Glad to see more discussion about the balancing act of resources and maximizing servers, while not selling vapor.