[LinuxGam]

Thanks Trapper:

Though it probably depends where it's being tested from as from here there are 10 hops to your server vs 11 hops to hetzner

Assuming you are testing from the UK, it has further to physically travel as well. Looking at the results I would say neither OVH or Hetzer have any issues with their network.

[Kode]

Thanks Trapper:

Reply from 37.187.0.10: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=55
Reply from 37.187.0.10: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=55
Reply from 37.187.0.10: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=55
Reply from 37.187.0.10: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55

So GRA appears on par with RBX in terms of latency, which from testing appears to be about the same as online.net.

Reply from 62.210.16.2: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=51
Reply from 62.210.16.2: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=51
Reply from 62.210.16.2: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=51
Reply from 62.210.16.2: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=51

A typical response from hetzner is:
Reply from 213.133.107.227: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.133.107.227: bytes=32 time=24ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.133.107.227: bytes=32 time=27ms TTL=53
Reply from 213.133.107.227: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=53

Though it probably depends where it's being tested from as from here there are 10 hops to your server vs 11 hops to hetzner

[Trapper]

Does anyone have a server in GRA? I realised that I am comparing ping times to my server in RBX whereas all the SYS servers are going to be in GRA, anyone got a server I can ping?

37.187.0.10 - which has zero traffic at this time of day, so should be fairly representative...

~Trap

[Kode]

I have a KS-2G 37.187.97.71 in GRA if its any use.

Many thanks, it seems like GRA has similar ping times to RBX.

[ctype_alnum]

Does anyone have a server in GRA? I realised that I am comparing ping times to my server in RBX whereas all the SYS servers are going to be in GRA, anyone got a server I can ping?

I have a KS-2G 37.187.97.71 in GRA if its any use.

[Kode]

Does anyone have a server in GRA? I realised that I am comparing ping times to my server in RBX whereas all the SYS servers are going to be in GRA, anyone got a server I can ping?

[Kode]

True, it might be worth renting 1 for a month, and do some performace testing on what I have now for a week, then switch the traffic to that and see how it compares. Anyone know of any decent tools that I could use to compare how the 2 performed during a week?

[elcct]

The prices I quoted from OVH are including tax, based on http://www.ovh.co.uk/dedicated_servers/mini-sp.xml.

To be honest I am currently leaning towards the Hetzner EX40-SSD due to the 240GB SSDs, if I start getting near the 20TB limit then I can reconsider at that point.

Not sure if you noticed, but you can buy additional traffic for 1.99 EUR per 1 TB, so it is not so bad

[Kode]

Not sure which thread it was, but I'm sure Neil said the SYS mSP would be priced the same as the old mSP, will see if I can dig it up.

*edit*
http://forum.ovh.co.uk/showthread.ph...ll=1#post57827

[LinuxGam]

The prices I quoted from OVH are including tax, based on http://www.ovh.co.uk/dedicated_servers/mini-sp.xml.

This no longer exists, the new version of this might be priced differently and will also have a set up charge as far as I can tell.

[Kode]

The prices I quoted from OVH are including tax, based on http://www.ovh.co.uk/dedicated_servers/mini-sp.xml.

To be honest I am currently leaning towards the Hetzner EX40-SSD due to the 240GB SSDs, if I start getting near the 20TB limit then I can reconsider at that point.

[LinuxGam]

I can't comment on Online.Net as not used them "yet" One thing to consider on your prices is that Hetzner are quoting pricing including tax and the price from OVH you have quoted "I think" are without tax added.

Also, @Hetzner you can configure the the drives as RAID 0 if you want by installing from the rescue mode and changing the RAID layout. Also the 20TB traffic limit doesn't include incoming traffic or internal traffic (backup to another server), so that's a lot of outgoing traffic for a cheap server. Performance wise, the CPU i7-4770 is faster for most scenarios, but being as it's not a XEON you can't have ECC ram.... Oh ... However, OVH give you a Xeon then decide to use non ecc ram :-)

[Kode]

It's a difficult decision, each have their pros and cons for my needs, here is my current shortlist


Online.net also have a Dedibox® LT 16G, which has the same spec but only 16GB RAM, no SSD choice, and only 200mbit but is also only €42.45/mo so around £430 so by far the cheapest.

Of my 2 servers the one with the biggest traffic is currently on an E3-1225v2 with 16GB RAM and limited to 100mbit, so any of those would be an upgrade.

In the 19 days since I installed vnstat it has done 5.48TB transfer, so will be approx 7-8TB / a month, that means theres still some headroom on the Hetzner 20TB cap, but it's still a concern as the site grows.

The site currently uses about 90GB so the 120GB SSD's are a no go, also 240GB in raid 1 (Hetzner only states Raid 1) would be a concern, if we could do it in Raid 0 though it would be a serious contender apart from the 20TB cap as we would backup the site to something like a kimsufi anyway).

So I'm unsure what I'm going to do at the moment, but if the SYS servers aren't available in the next week or 2 I'll have no choice but to leave as I will need a couple of weeks to set up the servers and test them.

[LinuxGam]

Let me know how you get on with them, I found their ping times were roughly around twice that of OVH which is the only thing putting me off at the moment, having said that, they were still pretty low at around 20-30ms, just a the same time I was getting 10-20ms from OVH

The speedtest.net site seems to do ping times above 10ms to the nearest 1ms and I tried London, France and Germany and they were between 10ms - 14ms. Also ping times while they can denote bandwidth, it's risky estimate as a 1mb pipe with zero traffic over a short distance with have tiny ping times but won't download at 500mbit/sec. Also, ICMP traffic tends to be treated as the least important traffic, so a heavily used huge pipes can have higher pings but still get a very high throughput on a file download. Obviously as you increase distance pings naturally increase.

My main confirmation is someone outside their network I could get almost 1Gb/sec both ways... which means their network is not flooded or bottle-necked. I have seen review they have big links to the major hubs that matter, so hopefully my "trial" will prove worth it.

Anyway, not dissing OVH network at all, that was not my concern... it was the non stop bull****.... I felt if I didn't check the forum twice a day I might miss some re-posted twitter announcement and miss out on the next deal for two months or worse get a new pricing plan I know nothing about!

[Kode]

I bought one of the new E3-1270v3 with dual 240GB SSD's & 32Gb ECC RAM with Hetzner

Let me know how you get on with them, I found their ping times were roughly around twice that of OVH which is the only thing putting me off at the moment, having said that, they were still pretty low at around 20-30ms, just a the same time I was getting 10-20ms from OVH

[Kode]

I haven't heard of them before, but just gave it a try. Tell you what, OVH can learn a lot from them! And here's a novel idea: pro-rata charge up to the end of the month, so your billing cycle starts on the 1st of each month..

As I understand it online.net are OVH's biggest competitor, certainly in the french market I believe.

[LinuxGam]

I haven't heard of them before, but just gave it a try. Tell you what, OVH can learn a lot from them! And here's a novel idea: pro-rata charge up to the end of the month, so your billing cycle starts on the 1st of each month.

Anyhow, regarding the bare traffic question, I simply won't allow it unless I have a vRACK or what the aforementioned competitor offers. I either use IPSEC if its a local network, or Tinc for cross-datacentre/geographic boundaries (its more robust than IPSEC for that purpose).

Sure, I think in the current climate only the mad or stupid put anything across the public internet without a tunnel of some sort. I also make sure any services on any servers that don't need to face the web are on a private IP/Network, obv that's a lot easier and cheaper with Proxmox as you well know :-)

[LinuxGam]

I bought one of the new E3-1270v3 with dual 240GB SSD's & 32Gb ECC RAM with Hetzner not because I am 100% going to leave OVH, but with less than half a month left on my server, I can't just sit and watch when it seems decisions, prices, company aims, waiting queues, extras charges and customer service changes seem to depend on "someones" mood and I'm tired of it. The main thing I like about this server apart from a pretty good processor is dual 240GB SSD drives! 120gb SSD's aren't enough for a Proxmox setup even for my own use with a Windows KVM + a couple of OpenVZ and back ups. Introduce 240GB drives and we have a high speed beast that has enough space to hold my VM's and do full nightly snapshots.

I was taking a risk with network and everything else as have heard good and bad things about Hetzner, and about OVH for that matter before I joined them too. So far I am very impressed with the rescue re-image process and ROBOT admin webiste, my server was ready 8 minutes after my User Id was created and a test in Firefox in my windows KVM at http://www.speedtest.net/ to the geo local leaseweb site, gave me almost 1GB/sec in both directions, yup, that suits me fine.

Also, doesn't the new Xeon Sys have non ECC ram? I find it weird to pay for a Xeon and more expensive motherboard then save cash on what now is a pretty cheap part of the deal... and wisely considered minimum standard for a 24/7 server.

Matt

[Myatu]

I haven't heard of them before, but just gave it a try. Tell you what, OVH can learn a lot from them! And here's a novel idea: pro-rata charge up to the end of the month, so your billing cycle starts on the 1st of each month.

Anyhow, regarding the bare traffic question, I simply won't allow it unless I have a vRACK or what the aforementioned competitor offers. I either use IPSEC if its a local network, or Tinc for cross-datacentre/geographic boundaries (its more robust than IPSEC for that purpose).

[elcct]

Not seen them before but there offers look quite good and 400Mbit/sec guaranteed. Anyone used them?

I haven't, but it looks very interesting. Also 1gbit vlan is when you buy better support option (20eur) - my bad.

[LinuxGam]

For example online.net has that in standard (100 mbit or 1.99 eur /month for 1gbit), which is quite interesting

Not seen them before but there offers look quite good and 400Mbit/sec guaranteed. Anyone used them?

[LinuxGam]

Could be a job for a virtual rack although I doubt the cheaper servers will ever be eligible for it.

It's a great service, but if you are hosting multiple lower end servers (No, not crap low end, all Xeons) then having to have pro-usage on every server then paying the VLAN cost makes a huge markup per server. Sure you can just get one or two huge servers, but like everything as you get near the top of the line range, you pay more and more for less and less gain. Therefore if you can, its far better cost/performance ratio to have lower end servers and more of them.

Since asking this question, I have been thinking. Unless you hold sensitive data is there any point in paying for a VLAN when you can firewall traffic/ports to your own servers and you know all traffic is switched locally and can't be sniffed by random people? Of course admins could sniff it, but they could on the VLAN too?

[elcct]

I have done a bit of reading at the support pages at Hetzner and they will run a cross over cable from server to server...

For example online.net has that in standard (100 mbit or 1.99 eur /month for 1gbit), which is quite interesting

[mike_]

Could be a job for a virtual rack although I doubt the cheaper servers will ever be eligible for it.

[LinuxGam]

I have done a bit of reading at the support pages at Hetzner and they will run a cross over cable from server to server... but just like OVH, you then need a pro pack per server and also an extra network card per server, all of which significantly ups the cost on an otherwise awesome server for the money. I think I will either take your advise and go SSL and Firewall or just make sure that the IPTABLES are locked down to only allow my other server's IP., as actually the data is all data posted on websites anyway so not confidential. Also, being as it's a fully switched network, then only Sys Admins could sniff it and as said before they could also do a sh*t in your PSU or clone your disks at 3am lol.

Thanks for the SSL tip.

Matt

[elcct]

You can easily connect to mysql using SSL - sure it gives some overhead, but i don't think it is significant and your data is safe.

As far as i remember new OVH servers have two network ports and second is intended for private network. But after announcing that there is silence about it...

There are other providers who are more flexible in that area and have similar priciing.

[LinuxGam]

Caveat.. I have also been looking at Hetzner as they are not all SOLD OUT, in case you wonder about the pricing.

[LinuxGam]

Looking at the prices of servers for the decent lowish end server's (we talking €30 - €100) it quickly becomes apparent that 2x a €60 server has way overall more disk I/O and CPU combined than say a €180 server. I tend to find its more in the disk region as everyone throws loads of RAM at servers as it look impressive, but there is only so much a 2 x TB SATA can process or how much 2 x 120GB SSD can hold.... Anyway.. I digress....

My point is.... every decent network is switched now, so no one is internal/external (other servers) snooping your traffic... therefore... is it ok to have two servers in the same datacenter and talk via their public IP and limit the access via Firewall? I realise anyone with access to the switch can see the traffic, but then they can prob **** in your PSU if they bored too. I have been reading up on VPN's and use them right now, but not for high speed access between one server say WEB SERVER and another say SQL SERVER. From what I am reading its a fair bit of overhead and I am thinking as it's not super sensitive data, its a switched network... lets just use local firewalls and run public IP to Public IP?

I am no expert so any thoughts appreciated.

Matt