Urpad OpenVZ 256 MB (LA)

[wlanboy]

Provider: Urpad
Plan: OpenVZ 256mb VPS
Price: $3.95 per month
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Purchased: 03/2014

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 Urpad.

Hardware information:

• cat /proc/cpuinfo (4x)
  
  processor : 0
  vendor_id : GenuineIntel
  cpu family : 6
  model : 58
  model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
  stepping : 9
  cpu MHz : 825.077
  cache size : 8192 KB
  physical id : 0
  siblings : 8
  core id : 0
  cpu cores : 4
  apicid : 0
  initial apicid : 0
  fpu : yes
  fpu_exception : yes
  cpuid level : 13
  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 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 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms
  bogomips : 6600.61
  clflush size : 64
  cache_alignment : 64
  address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  power management:
  
  
• cat /proc/meminfo
  

  MemTotal:         262144 kB
  MemFree:          116872 kB
  Cached:           130136 kB
  Buffers:               0 kB
  Active:            59112 kB
  Inactive:          76324 kB
  Active(anon):        432 kB
  Inactive(anon):     4868 kB
  Active(file):      58680 kB
  Inactive(file):    71456 kB
  Unevictable:           0 kB
  Mlocked:               0 kB
  SwapTotal:        262144 kB
  SwapFree:         175892 kB
  Dirty:                 0 kB
  Writeback:             0 kB
  AnonPages:          5300 kB
  Shmem:              5328 kB
  Slab:               9820 kB
  SReclaimable:       3872 kB
  SUnreclaim:         5948 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, 2.11876 s, 63.3 MB/s

• wget
  

  wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
  --2014-04-26 13:28:42--  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 8.62M/s   in 11s
  
  2014-04-26 13:28:54 (9.08 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

Network:

traceroute dvhn.nl


2 192.184.8.225 (192.184.8.225) 4.522 ms 4.502 ms 4.566 ms
3 192.184.8.1 (192.184.8.1) 0.377 ms 0.357 ms 0.382 ms
4 xe-0-2-0-0.r05.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.200.53) 0.702 ms 0.794 ms 1.097 ms
5 ae-5.r21.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.85) 0.854 ms 1.042 ms 0.829 ms
6 ae-2.r20.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.54) 80.835 ms 65.228 ms 67.380 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 ae-1.r03.amstnl02.nl.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.147) 251.687 ms 266.524 ms 251.638 ms
10 bit-0.r01.amstnl02.nl.bb.gin.ntt.net (81.20.69.254) 264.646 ms 252.765 ms 261.706 ms

traceroute theguardian.co.uk


2 192.184.8.225 (192.184.8.225) 4.541 ms 4.517 ms 4.497 ms
3 192.184.8.1 (192.184.8.1) 0.275 ms 0.410 ms 0.355 ms
4 xe-0-2-0-0.r05.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.200.53) 0.830 ms 0.812 ms 0.866 ms
5 be2914.ccr21.lax04.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.10.29) 0.984 ms 1.068 ms 0.871 ms
6 be2017.ccr22.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.0.238) 1.321 ms be2019.ccr21.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.88.9) 2.668 ms be2076.mpd22.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.166) 1.909 ms
7 be2067.mpd21.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.161) 38.359 ms be2065.ccr21.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.65) 38.256 ms be2068.mpd22.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.157) 40.066 ms
8 be2146.ccr22.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.25.242) 41.209 ms be2147.ccr22.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.27.18) 38.166 ms be2145.ccr21.dfw01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.25.218) 40.084 ms
9 be2064.mpd21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.217) 50.954 ms be2012.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.113) 48.698 ms 48.286 ms
10 be2156.ccr41.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.86) 58.919 ms 58.866 ms be2159.ccr42.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.24.82) 58.727 ms
11 be2140.ccr22.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.43.186) 87.484 ms 84.090 ms be2139.ccr21.bos01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.43.178) 84.523 ms
12 be2388.ccr21.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.178) 154.692 ms be2387.ccr22.lpl01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.166) 151.571 ms be2389.ccr22.lon13.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.182) 152.518 ms
13 be2316.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.73.114) 152.214 ms 156.313 ms be2314.ccr21.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.72.254) 152.362 ms
14 te2-1.mag02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.114) 153.596 ms 152.909 ms 151.943 ms
15 te2-1.mag02.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.74.114) 154.769 ms 154.758 ms 149.11.142.74 (149.11.142.74) 152.898 ms
16 * 149.11.142.74 (149.11.142.74) 151.887 ms 152.027 ms

traceroute nishinippon.co.jp


2 192.184.8.225 (192.184.8.225) 4.394 ms 4.408 ms 4.421 ms
3 192.184.8.1 (192.184.8.1) 0.295 ms 0.324 ms 0.343 ms
4 xe-0-5-0-31-100.r05.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.200.77) 1.424 ms 1.622 ms 1.724 ms
5 ae-5.r04.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.220) 2.175 ms 2.158 ms 1.863 ms
6 144.232.0.193 (144.232.0.193) 0.478 ms 0.906 ms 0.877 ms
7 144.232.0.149 (144.232.0.149) 0.529 ms 0.546 ms 0.527 ms
8 144.232.9.193 (144.232.9.193) 4.274 ms 5.636 ms 5.594 ms
9 144.232.7.165 (144.232.7.165) 10.896 ms 10.880 ms 10.749 ms
10 144.232.1.156 (144.232.1.156) 11.903 ms 11.317 ms 144.232.7.221 (144.232.7.221) 13.555 ms
11 sl-softb-717110-0.sprintlink.net (144.223.179.194) 10.323 ms 11.563 ms 11.364 ms
12 143.90.33.177 (143.90.33.177) 134.669 ms 134.841 ms 134.344 ms
13 TYOrc-01Te0-0-0-0.nw.odn.ad.jp (143.90.163.209) 133.844 ms 134.058 ms 134.001 ms
14 FKHrw-01Gi3-9.nw.odn.ad.jp (143.90.165.105) 129.696 ms 130.273 ms 130.347 ms
15 142.210252174.odn.ne.jp (210.252.174.142) 129.355 ms 130.657 ms 129.353 ms

traceroute koreatimes.co.kr


2 192.184.8.225 (192.184.8.225) 2.047 ms 2.048 ms 2.027 ms
3 192.184.8.1 (192.184.8.1) 0.338 ms 0.316 ms 0.364 ms
4 xe-0-2-0-0.r05.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.200.53) 0.823 ms 0.897 ms 0.878 ms
5 ae-2.r20.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.229) 0.665 ms 0.645 ms 0.626 ms
6 ae-6.r20.osakjp02.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.39) 113.812 ms 114.078 ms 114.163 ms
7 ae-4.r22.osakjp02.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.6.188) 121.118 ms 106.181 ms 105.166 ms
8 p16-1-0-0.r02.seolko01.kr.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.81) 135.595 ms 135.614 ms 135.192 ms
9 ae-0.r03.seolko01.kr.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.103) 133.972 ms 133.986 ms 133.936 ms
10 ae-3-52.r03.seolko01.kr.ce.gin.ntt.net (61.251.97.186) 134.184 ms 134.663 ms 134.052 ms
11 121.78.68.157 (121.78.68.157) 144.010 ms 144.099 ms 146.214 ms
12 203.246.170.122 (203.246.170.122) 133.311 ms 203.246.169.131 (203.246.169.131) 143.086 ms 145.461 ms
13 203.246.170.122 (203.246.170.122) 140.540 ms 203.246.170.190 (203.246.170.190) 141.654 ms 141.986 ms
14 203.246.170.190 (203.246.170.190) 141.603 ms * 146.007 ms

traceroute libertytimes.com.tw


2 192.184.8.225 (192.184.8.225) 4.961 ms 4.964 ms 4.945 ms
3 192.184.8.1 (192.184.8.1) 0.366 ms 0.394 ms 0.339 ms
4 xe-0-2-0-0.r05.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.200.53) 1.971 ms 2.035 ms 2.066 ms
5 ae-2.r20.lsanca03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.229) 0.606 ms 0.732 ms 0.778 ms
6 ae-6.r20.osakjp02.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.39) 122.420 ms 114.231 ms 114.468 ms
7 ae-4.r22.osakjp02.jp.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.6.188) 130.606 ms 108.261 ms 108.233 ms
8 as-0.r00.taiptw01.tw.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.43) 133.722 ms 134.380 ms 133.954 ms
9 xe-4-0-0.r00.taiptw01.tw.ce.gin.ntt.net (61.58.33.142) 140.582 ms 133.588 ms 132.591 ms
10 h121-192-72-155.seed.net.tw (192.72.155.121) 132.946 ms * *
11 R58-202.seed.net.tw (139.175.58.202) 133.275 ms R58-210.seed.net.tw (139.175.58.210) 142.361 ms R58-158.seed.net.tw (139.175.58.158) 141.874 ms
12 h190-192-72-107.seed.net.tw (192.72.107.190) 135.033 ms h98-192-72-107.seed.net.tw (192.72.107.98) 142.312 ms h190-192-72-107.seed.net.tw (192.72.107.190) 138.826 ms
13 220.228.23.6 (220.228.23.6) 192.376 ms 220.228.23.14 (220.228.23.14) 137.589 ms 220.228.23.10 (220.228.23.10) 167.749 ms
14 61.66.238.210 (61.66.238.210) 142.442 ms 211.78.129.76 (211.78.129.76) 134.226 ms 61.66.238.210 (61.66.238.210) 133.939 ms
15 220.228.147.139 (220.228.147.139) 135.528 ms 135.635 ms 135.069 ms

What services are running?

• MySQL server
• Lighttpd
• Some wordpress blogs

Support:

I wrote quite a lot of tickets to get my vps running.

All tickets did get quite fast and polite answers.

The one about adding one IPv6 address did take about 1.5 hours.

Overall experience:

Where should I start.

First I ordered my vps on friday evening - you should not do that because they are activating vps only during business hours.

So I had to wait until monday that my vps was activated.

But I did not get any email about the vps or the SolusVM login.

So my second ticket was about getting the ip address and root password of my vps.

The ticket was answered fast, but I did only receive an information email about my dedicated server.

Yup all information about a dedicated server I did not ordered.

So after two additional tickets responses I finally got my SolusVM login information - but the vps was not running.

I was not able to start it either - so I tried to reinstall it.

After that reinstall attempt the vps was broken:


Memory Usage
0% 0 of 0 Used / 0 Free

After an additional ticket about a discussion if my vps is broken or not they "fixed it", but did not tell me the reason for that failure.

My last ticket about an IPv6 ip address was without any issues.

So three and a half day was needed to get my SolusVM login and a working vps - heck they should check their workflow.

The vps itself is not dead slow but not as snappy as the other vps I checked before.

It is one of the slowest ones.

The CPU load is quite high on simple compile tasks and the disk I/O performance is bad.

Good enough for a LAMP stack but I would not run any service on that vps that needs an amount of performance.

The L.A. location does have DDOS protection - don't know if that protection is good or just marketing.

But it does not help to make the internet connection any faster.

I have the sense that both CPU and I/O are capped.

Update status:



1 hour and 27 minutes of downtime on the first month.

No notification and no explanation of what happend.

I will refresh the uptime report every two months.

 

[qrwteyrutiyoup]

The ticket was answered fast, but I did only receive an information email about my dedicated server.
Yup all information about a dedicated server I did not ordered.

LOL. Maybe that's why it took long to provision, in their side

 

[wlanboy]

LOL. Maybe that's why it took long to provision, in their side

It was the ip address of my vps, so at least no information leak for another customer.

I would not have said a word if they would have provisioned a dedicated server for me (for $3.95 per month    )

 

[peterw]

So I had to wait until monday that my vps was activated.
But I did not get any email about the vps or the SolusVM login.

So my second ticket was about getting the ip address and root password of my vps.

The ticket was answered fast, but I did only receive an information email about my dedicated server.

Yup all information about a dedicated server I did not ordered.

So after two additional tickets responses I finally got my SolusVM login information - but the vps was not running.

I was not able to start it either - so I tried to reinstall it.

After that reinstall attempt the vps was broken.

No automated activation, no logins sent per email, wrong information sent per email, broken vps. They should fix their backoffice.

 

[wlanboy]

One additional line for their images.

First login into a new build vps:

Last login: Sun Apr  5 19:36:07 2009 from host81-152-164-227.range81-152.btcentralplus.com

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



So 1 hour and 10 minutes of network downtime since the last update.

CPU and I/O are ok.

Network is ok too for US based connections.


--2014-06-15 09:54:14-- 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 10.5M/s in 9.5s

2014-06-15 09:54:24 (10.5 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

Uptime of the vps itself is 41 days.

 

[wlanboy]

Time for an update:



5 hours, 17 minutes and 49 seconds of network downtime.

The vps itself does have an uptime of 22 days.

CPU and I/O are ok.

Network is ok for US based connections.

wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test -O /dev/null
--2014-07-12 08:08:07--  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 10.4M/s   in 9.6s

2014-07-12 08:08:17 (10.4 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Any reasoning from support?  

 

[wlanboy]

Any reasoning from support?  

Nope, they did not see the network issues.

If I look at the servers of the downtime reports the routing issues are always based in the EU. The US based connections are fine.

Maybe they do not monitor eu routings.

 

[wlanboy]

I have canceled the vps.