Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Server Cow -> 2016 version!
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Server Cow -> 2016 version!

aboyousefaboyousef Member
edited June 2016 in Reviews

Hi Guys, I am a web developer/designer and I have 4 VPSs + 1 Dedi in different
Countries and with different providers and usually I review the providers for my
Customers or sometimes for my friends and never tried to share a review since
I used to say there is always someone who did review this provider or that one before.
But this time I wanted to share this experience with you since it is a little different
For me.
I was looking for another affordable but reliable VPS (aren't we all !?;) ) and while
Comparing Scaleway to another offer from another provider I stumbled upon
A review comparing Scaleway to other providers including one called ServerCow.
I noticed that this provider managed to score really good benchmark scores.
So I looked it up and found their website which was really a simple one and German!
Only then I remembered that I heared of MailCow before but I did not know they provide
VPS Too, so I contacted them via mail with a long list of questions regarding most of the
Details about there plans, hardware, SLA, fair share policies, etc ... .
I didn't wait long and got a response from them signed by André and the answers
Were very detailed and straight forward, I liked everything except the fact that they
Do not offer SLA which I consider a must, but to be honest the way this man was answering
Every question I sent hem and his offer of a free unconditioned trial of the plan
I was asking about (the highest one they have) were enough to encourage me to try
So I accepted his offer and it was maybe just few minutes and the VPS was ready
A KVM VPS (package XL) with the following specs:

6 × Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz vCores

6GB ECC DDR3 dedicated RAM

30GB SSD storage

150GB HDD storage via Storage Server (Samba, FTP)

DDos protection (NOT ADVERTISED ON THE SITE YET!)

1 IPv4 (I got an additional one)

5 IPv6

snapshots

ReverseDNS entries for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses

Almost every Linux distro out there

It costs 11 Euros per month or 29 Euros if you pay 3 months in front.

As you can see, good specs and really good price but what about the real performance ?
I tried everything I know on this poor machine ! every benchmark, I lost count of how
Many times I reinstalled! and the results were as follow :

    ========================================================================
        BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.2)
     
        System: ********************** : GNU/Linux
        OS: GNU/Linux -- 3.10.0-327.18.2.el7.x86_64 -- #1 SMP Thu May 12 11:03:55 UTC 2016
       Machine: x86_64 (x86_64)
        Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
        CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
              x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
       CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
               x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
        CPU 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
               x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
        CPU 3: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
               x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
        CPU 4: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
               x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
        CPU 5: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz (4200.0 bogomips)
               x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSENTER/SYSEXIT, SYSCALL/SYSRET
        08:19:53 up 1 day,  1:54,  1 user,  load average: 0.20, 0.13, 0.08; runlevel 3
     
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Benchmark Run: Mon Jun 06 2016 08:19:54 - 08:48:12
     6 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests
     
     Dhrystone 2 using register variables       20476290.9 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
     Double-Precision Whetstone                     2805.2 MWIPS (9.9 s, 7 samples)
     Execl Throughput                                907.0 lps   (29.8 s, 2 samples)
     File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        390854.9 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
     File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks          114698.7 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
     File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        997382.9 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
     Pipe Throughput                              927990.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
     Pipe-based Context Switching                 141182.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
     Process Creation                               2938.2 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
     Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   2817.0 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
     Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                   1146.4 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
     System Call Overhead                        1453582.2 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
      
     System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
     Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   20476290.9   1754.6
     Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       2805.2    510.0
     Execl Throughput                                 43.0        907.0    210.9
     File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     390854.9    987.0
     File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0     114698.7    693.0
     File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     997382.9   1719.6
     Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     927990.1    746.0
     Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     141182.1    353.0
     Process Creation                                126.0       2938.2    233.2
     Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       2817.0    664.4
     Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0       1146.4   1910.6
     System Call Overhead                          15000.0    1453582.2    969.1
                                                                        ========
     System Benchmarks Index Score                                         711.3
     
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Benchmark Run: Mon Jun 06 2016 08:48:12 - 09:17:03
    6 CPUs in system; running 6 parallel copies of tests
    
    Dhrystone 2 using register variables       94066037.5 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
    Double-Precision Whetstone                    15462.6 MWIPS (9.5 s, 7 samples)
    Execl Throughput                               7347.7 lps   (29.9 s, 2 samples)
    File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        353959.5 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
    File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           94377.1 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
    File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        986650.5 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
    Pipe Throughput                             4830927.6 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
    Pipe-based Context Switching                 591775.0 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
    Process Creation                              16773.0 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
    Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                  11700.3 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
    Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                   1954.1 lpm   (60.1 s, 2 samples)
    System Call Overhead                        4541190.5 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
    
    System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
    Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   94066037.5   8060.5
    Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0      15462.6   2811.4
    Execl Throughput                                 43.0       7347.7   1708.8
    File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     353959.5    893.8
    File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      94377.1    570.3
    File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     986650.5   1701.1
    Pipe Throughput                               12440.0    4830927.6   3883.4
    Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     591775.0   1479.4
    Process Creation                                126.0      16773.0   1331.2
    Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4      11700.3   2759.5
    Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0       1954.1   3256.9
    System Call Overhead                          15000.0    4541190.5   3027.5
                                                                      ========
    System Benchmarks Index Score                                        2091.0
     

    ____
_____/\   \            __  ___       _______   ____________

/\ / ___\ _ _ / / / / | / / / | / / ____/ __ \
/ \ \ / / | | / / /
/ /| | /| / // // |/ / /_ / / / /
/ \ \// \ | |/ / __ / | |/ |/ // // /| / __/ / // /
/ _________\ |___// // |
/|/___// |// _/
\ / / vHWINFO 1.1 May 2015 | https://vhwinfo.com

hostname: ****************************

>

SO: CentOS Linux release 7.2.1511 (Core) N 64 bits

>

kernel: 3.10.0-327.18.2.el7.x86_64

>

virtual: KVM

>

cpu: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz

>

vcpu: 6 cores / 4199.99 bogomips

>

RAM: 5806 MB (6% used) / swap 511 MB (0% used)

>

HD: 41G (10% used) / inkling speed 829 MB/s

>

cachefly 10MB: 59.5 MB/s (probably Gigabit Port)

>


The network tests were as follow:

From Germany:

From France:

From Netherland :

From Egypt (where I am) - The network in Egypt is really bad and slow but I needed a refrence to compare to other VPSs I have--


I also tested the I/O using :
dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync

and the average results were 520 MB/s

16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.63928 s, 655 MB/s

16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.67352 s, 642 MB/s

^[[A16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.76562 s, 608 MB/s

^[[A16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.69086 s, 635 MB/s
[
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 2.62972 s, 408 MB/s

16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 2.66973 s, 402 MB/s

16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.81886 s, 590 MB/s

I repeated the tests many times on different times of the day but the results were
almost identical with exception of few times when the I/O first run was slower than
normal (120-300 MB/s) but only the first time run and as I said it happened few time.
I even tested the VPS after I paid them for 3 months contract (paranoiaI) to make sure
That the performance is the sames before and after paying money!
Also I have to say the all tests were done while the usual services are running except
Any caching service of course.

The results when put together with the price make a really good price/performance value

Other very Important factors:


1- UP times : I can't judge this point now as it will need weeks if not months of usage
but till now I had no down time at all.

2- Support: here I can say with confidence Superb! André was really helpful and very
responsive even when I asked him for help in issues that is not of his responsibilities
And once again this was after I pied them ! The support is really fast and caring, they
offer support via mail and ticket system (I used the mail) but he even offered me help through
Skype


**Conclusion :

Server Cow is not one of the biggest nor the most famous providers out there but
They offer really good VPS for the price and excellent support, They really need to think
About SLA and their site needs some enhancement specially an English interface but
For me I love my "cow" and if everything goes the same way its going now I will get
More and more ! if you're looking for a very good affordable VPS with excellent support
I suggest you should give ServerCow a try.

**

-- I will update the review with any new details or changes

Thanked by 2grimsdottir GCat

Comments

  • MadMad Member

    One of the best and complete review I've ever read, well done!

  • Thanks a lot! it means much to me> @andreamada said:

    One of the best and complete review I've ever read, well done!

  • adxnadxn Member, Host Rep

    A perfect and very helpful review!

  • @adxn said:
    A perfect and very helpful review!

    Thank you, I am glad you found it helpful

  • On a side note, if you're going to say thanks, use the thanks button rather than making a post to accept it.

    Thanked by 1aboyousef
  • @FlamesRunner said:
    On a side note, if you're going to say thanks, use the thanks button rather than making a post to accept it.

    What's wrong with writing a "thank you" message? It seems sincere enough :p

    Thanked by 2Silvenga netomx
  • itgodsitgods Member

    @FlamesRunner said:
    On a side note, if you're going to say thanks, use the thanks button rather than making a post to accept it.

    Post count ftw. ;)

  • FritzFritz Veteran

    Postcow

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • aboyousefaboyousef Member
    edited June 2016

    Hi, Now ServerCow is on ServerBear .com
    serverbear.com/benchmark/2016/06/16/F2yY1o7ejZ3HbZMU

    According to ServerBear scores the server got even slightly higher scores
    Than my tests :
    **>

    UnixBench:

    UnixBench (w/ all processors) 2170.3

    UnixBench (w/ one processor) 741.9

    **

    Agagin I ran all the tests from ServerBear without stopping any normal service on the VPS

Sign In or Register to comment.