The New Linode Cloud: SSDs, Double RAM & much more

[Hxxx]

 

Saw this in Linode Blog:

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The New Linode Cloud: SSDs, Double RAM & much more

April 17, 2014 10:00 am
Over the last year, and very feverishly over the past five months, we’ve been working on a really big project: a revamp of the Linode plans and our hardware and network – something we have a long history of doing over our past 11 years. But this time it’s like no other. These upgrades represent a $45MM investment, a huge amount of R&D, and some exciting changes.

SSDs
Linodes are now SSD. This is not a hybrid solution – it’s fully native SSD servers using battery-backed hardware RAID. No spinning rust! And, no consumer SSDs either – we’re using only reliable, insanely fast, datacenter-grade SSDs that won’t slow down over time. These suckers are not cheap.

40 Gbps Network
Each and every Linode host server is now connected via 40 Gbps of redundant connectivity into our core network, which itself now has an aggregate bandwidth of 160 Gbps. Linodes themselves can receive up to 40 Gbps of inbound bandwidth, and our plans now go up to 10 Gbps outbound bandwidth.

Processors
Linodes will now receive Intel’s latest high-end Ivy Bridge E5-2680.v2 full-power server-grade processors.

New Plans
We’ve doubled the RAM on all Linode plans! We’ve also aligned compute and outbound bandwidth with the cost of each plan.

In other words, the number of vCPUs you get increases as you go through the plans. And on the networking side, Linodes are now on a 40 Gbit link, with outbound bandwidth that also increases through the plans. Inbound traffic is still free and restricted only by link speed (40 Gbps).

Plan RAM

SSD

CPU

XFER

Outbound
Bandwidth

Price

Linode 2G

48 GB

2 cores

3 TB

250 Mbps

$0.03/hr | $20/mo

Linode 4G

96 GB

4 cores

4 TB

500 Mbps

$0.06/hr | $40/mo

Linode 8G

192 GB

6 cores

8 TB

1 Gbps

$0.12/hr | $80/mo

Linode 16G

384 GB

8 cores

16 TB

2 Gbps

$0.24/hr | $160/mo

Linode 32G

768 GB

12 cores

20 TB

4 Gbps

$0.48/hr | $320/mo

Linode 48G

1152 GB

16 cores

20 TB

8 Gbps

$0.72/hr | $480/mo

Linode 64G

1536 GB

20 cores

20 TB

10 Gbps

$0.96/hr | $640/mo

Linode 96G

1920 GB

20 cores

20 TB

10 Gbps

$1.44/hr | $960/mo

And in case you missed it, we announced hourly billing recently, too.

Availability
All new Linodes will be created exclusively on the new Linode Cloud, using the new plan specs and on the new hardware and network.

Likewise, existing Linodes can upgrade free of charge via the “Pending Upgrades” link on your Linode’s Dashboard (bottom right), however there are some temporary availability delays while we work through getting hundreds of more machines in the pipeline:

 

New Linodes

Upgrade Existing 64-bit

Upgrade Existing 32-bit

Fremont, CA

Yes

Yes

ETA 2 months

Dallas, TX

Yes

Yes

ETA 2 months

Atlanta, GA

Yes

Yes

ETA 2 months

Newark, NJ

Yes

Yes

ETA 2 months

Tokyo, JP

Yes

ETA 3 weeks

ETA 2 months

London, UK

ETA 1 week

ETA 1 week

ETA 2 months
Linodes that have configuration profiles that reference 32-bit kernels will need to wait while we ramp up 32-bit compatible availability. If you don’t want to wait, you can check out our switching kernels guide, or redeploy using a 64-bit distribution.

Also, new Linodes created on the new Linode cloud can only deploy 64-bit distributions, of which we support all popular versions. If you have a special need for legacy bitness, please open a support ticket and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.

TL;DR
Linode = SSDs + Insane network + Faster processors + Double the RAM + Hourly Billing

In conclusion………
HELL YEAH!

This is the largest single investment we’ve made in the company in our almost eleven year history. We think these improvements represent the highest quality cloud hosting available, and we’re excited to offer them to you. We have always been committed to providing upgrades for our customers and are excited about continuing our focus on simplicity, performance, and support.

Thank you for your continued loyalty and for choosing us as your cloud hosting provider.

Enjoy!

Filed under: upgrades by caker

 

[eva2000]

Nice always wanted to try Linode so I did and compared to DigitalOcean's 2GB VPS and seems Linode faster SSD than DO but slower cpu speed than DO https://blog.centminmod.com/346

 

[Hxxx]

That is a fail. After 45 million investment, still they are not over DO...

Thank you for the bench and article. @eva2000

 

[eva2000]

You're welcome will be repeating tests again as I am constantly testing my Centmin Mod releases/installs

 

[eva2000]

Updated with 4GB vs 8GB vs 16GB benchmarks too https://blog.centminmod.com/346 and ServerBear results https://blog.centminmod.com/346/#serverbear

The Centmin Mod CLI Install benchmark times:

• DigitalOcean 2GB VPS (2 cores) = Install Time: 1361.410512372 seconds
  
• DigitalOcean 4GB VPS (2 cores) = Install Time: 1399.195370295 seconds
• DigitalOcean 8GB VPS (4 cores) = Install Time: 1345.712748882 seconds
• DigitalOcean 16GB VPS (8 cores) = Install Time: 1029.784321412 seconds
• Linode 2GB VPS (2 cores) = Install Time: 1775.994987934 seconds
• Linode 4GB VPS (4 cores) = Install Time: 951.771001711 seconds
• Linode 8GB VPS (6 cores) = Install Time: 962.287260593 seconds
• Linode 16GB VPS (8 cores) = Install Time: 921.727023983 seconds

 

[MannDude]

My Linode box was just upgraded, and honestly I see no difference in disk performance, not that it was slow before. Was faster than any other VM I have. Some say Linode is 'late to the game', offering SSDs. I don't think so. They've been doing their thing and doing it well for quite some time. The SSD addition I think is less about performance, and more about marketing. The double RAM is nice, but I have a hard time maxing out a 256-512MB box, let alone a 2GB one... so that's not needed by me.

 

[mcmyhost]

My Linode box was just upgraded, and honestly I see no difference in disk performance, not that it was slow before. Was faster than any other VM I have. Some say Linode is 'late to the game', offering SSDs. I don't think so. They've been doing their thing and doing it well for quite some time. The SSD addition I think is less about performance, and more about marketing. The double RAM is nice, but I have a hard time maxing out a 256-512MB box, let alone a 2GB one... so that's not needed by me.

Wish I had that problem. All of the VPS's I buy are at above LowEndBox prices because of what I run on them and how much RAM is needed.

 

[datarealm]

• DigitalOcean 2GB VPS (2 cores) = Install Time: 1361.410512372 seconds
  
• Linode 2GB VPS (2 cores) = Install Time: 1775.994987934 seconds

Thanks for sharing this information.  I am curious though -- is there any difference in the number of rpms that need to be installed?  Eg, does not have development packages installed whereas the other does not?  Or are they starting out on equal footing?

 

[Hxxx]

for 45 million you expect that to be done in less than 900 sec.

 

[eva2000]

Thanks for sharing this information.  I am curious though -- is there any difference in the number of rpms that need to be installed?  Eg, does not have development packages installed whereas the other does not?  Or are they starting out on equal footing?

I just loaded their respective CentOS 6.5 64bit images so whatever their base package state is from their out of box setup BEFORE running my Centmin Mod cli installer which is a combination of YUM and source compiled software. I didn't check the yum.log to compare how many packages needed installing though

• Nginx 1.5.13 via source compile
• PHP 5.4.27 then upgrade to PHP 5.5.11 (php-fpm) via source compile
• MariaDB 5.5.36 MySQL performance fork via official YUM repository
• PHP opcode cache: APC Cache 3.13 + igbinary 1.12-dev via source compile
• Memcached Server 1.4.17 + Memcache 3.0.8 PHP Extension via source compile
• Libmemcached 1.0.18 + Memcached 2.1.0 PHP Extension via source compile
• ImageMagick 3.1.2 PHP Extension via source compile
• NSD for DNS via source compile
• Siege Benchmark Tool via source compile
• CSF Firewall via source compile

for 45 million you expect that to be done in less than 900 sec.

just to be fair, my installer has alot that is source compiled utilising make -jX where X is number of cpu threads detected automatically + 1, so for 2 cpu thread VPS X = 3 and for 8 cpu thread VPS X = 9

 

[datarealm]

I was somewhat curious as I did a test run on one of our 2GB cloud servers with a vanilla centos image and it came to 1359 seconds.  However, our vanilla is just that -- very very plain.  No dev packages at all, so it spent a considerable amount of time just gathering packages before it got anywhere near compiling.

I know that this was done more out of curiosity than anything else, but it may be interesting to establish a baseline first (ie, make sure that the same packages are preinstalled) before timing the install script.

 

[serverian]

Why not install the necessary tools on the VPS first then start counting?

 

[eva2000]

Just testing how it would be for most Centmin Mod installs out of the box

I was somewhat curious as I did a test run on one of our 2GB cloud servers with a vanilla centos image and it came to 1359 seconds.  However, our vanilla is just that -- very very plain.  No dev packages at all, so it spent a considerable amount of time just gathering packages before it got anywhere near compiling.

I know that this was done more out of curiosity than anything else, but it may be interesting to establish a baseline first (ie, make sure that the same packages are preinstalled) before timing the install script.

Yeah it does, but the way it's installed would also test yum /tarball download speed too.. so faster network + faster cpus + faster memory + faster disk system = faster total install time.

Will re-check what was installed yum package wise between the 2 images for DO and Linode

edit: from my tests YUM package installs usually account for between 150-180 seconds of total install time

 

[eva2000]

Ok did a retest for 2GB VPS and seems this time Linode wins on both faster YUM downloads and faster source/other installations

Linode 2GB

• Total YUM Time: 276.475697718 seconds
• Total Centmin Mod Install Time: 1146.724406011 seconds

DigitalOcean 2GB

• Total YUM Time: 517.874399259 seconds
• Total Centmin Mod Install Time: 1443.865372068 seconds

For a side by side compare of YUM pages installed uploaded at http://centminmod.com/linode/2gb/

 

[serverian]

I've run some tests just now as well.

PHP 5.5.11 compiled:

3m16.052s on Digital Ocean 2GB

3m9.606s on Linode 2GB

1m50.630s on Vultr 2GB

2m15.880s on Wable 2GB (2 Cores)

PHP source directory compressed (tar zcf):

0m15.037s on Digital Ocean 2GB

0m10.395s on Linode 2GB

0m7.649s on Vultr 2GB

0m8.826s on Wable 2GB (2 Cores)
 

PHP source tar.gz decompressed (tar zxf):

0m7.987s on Digital Ocean 2GB
0m2.107s on Linode 2GB

0m1.735s on Vultr 2GB

0m1.831s on Wable 2GB (2 Cores)

VM Generation:

45 seconds on Digital Ocean

7 seconds on Linode

64 seconds on Vultr

37 seconds on Wable

 

[eva2000]

nice... pretty much in agreement with my results for the most part

gotta check out wable too

 

[DomainBop]

VM Generation:

45 seconds on Digital Ocean

7 seconds on Linode

64 seconds on Vultr

37 seconds on Wable

1. So? The world will still be here if someone has to wait an extra 57 seconds for their VM to be created. 

My main concern with any service is reliability of both the server and network, and I think Linode and Vultr both beat Digital Ocean on that score. DO is more reliable than the majority of crap that gets posted on LEB but they still need work.  As far as Wable goes, I hope to be openvz free within the next 6 months so I'll pretend they don't exist.