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GarnetNetworks - Amethyst 1GB KVM VPS review (Limited time offer: $2.02 first/MO then $5.05/MO)
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GarnetNetworks - Amethyst 1GB KVM VPS review (Limited time offer: $2.02 first/MO then $5.05/MO)

TorTor Member
edited September 2013 in Reviews

Hello! My name is Tor and I come from Norway, recently got my hands on a GarnetNetworks Amethyst VPS. This is my first review so please don’t judge me too hard, I have been looking at others so I know a little bit of what I’m doing.

Specs:

Disk: 50 GB MegaRAID10
Cores: 2x (Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1270 v3 (8M Cache, 3.50 GHz)
Memory: 1 GB – 1024 MB
IPs: 1x IPv4 (1 IP is plenty, suggest tunnelbroker.net for IPv6)
Bandwidth: 512 GB (they provide more if you send them an email proving you use the bandwidth legitimately)
Speed: 1 Gbps (Only if you have the Virto network card properly setup)
Virtualization: KVM, don’t know if you can oversell this but I don’t think so.
OS: Windows & Linux since its KVM, it allows you to bring your own Windows license if you are interested in this.
Panel: The normal and most used SolusVM running nodes as “Slaves”.
Location/datacenter: It’s hosted by ColoCrossing on their Buffalo, NY datacentre.

These tests are all done on Debian 7 which I reinstalled just before I did this test.

Now, let’s begin shall we:
(I'll copy the text from SSH to make it easier for you but still have pictures.)

Since I’m a member of FreeVPS and this bench is very popular, let’s run their benchmark:
(Please keep in mind peak hour and my node Slave4, these might be inaccurate)

 root@smnk:~# wget freevps.us/downloads/bench.sh -O - -o /dev/null|bash
 CPU model :  QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
 Number of cores : 2
 CPU frequency :  3400.016 MHz
 Total amount of ram : 1009 MB
 Total amount of swap : 0 MB
 System uptime :   2 min,
 Download speed from CacheFly: 14.9MB/s
 Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 12.9MB/s
 Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 4.77MB/s
 Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 1.97MB/s
 Download speed from i3d.net, NL: 3.65MB/s
 Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 3.40MB/s
 Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 1.22MB/s
 Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 3.81MB/s
 Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 4.19MB/s
 Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 21.0MB/s
 I/O speed :  235 MB/s

Since speedtest.net is popular I did a test on that too (It’s also not guaranteed because it’s designed for home lines not servers):

Here is the CPU info, it says QUEMU instead of Intel Xeon-* but that’s because of KVM:

 root@smnk:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
 processor       : 0
 vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
 cpu family      : 6
 model           : 13
 model name      : QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
 stepping        : 3
 microcode       : 0x1
 cpu MHz         : 3400.016
 cache size      : 4096 KB
 fdiv_bug        : no
 hlt_bug         : no
 f00f_bug        : no
 coma_bug        : no
 fpu             : yes
 fpu_exception   : yes
 cpuid level     : 4
 wp              : yes
 flags           : fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx lm pni cx16 hypervisor lahf_lm abm
 bogomips        : 6800.03
 clflush size    : 64
 cache_alignment : 64
 address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
 power management:

 processor       : 1
 vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
 cpu family      : 6
 model           : 13
 model name      : QEMU Virtual CPU version (cpu64-rhel6)
 stepping        : 3
 microcode       : 0x1
 cpu MHz         : 3400.016
 cache size      : 4096 KB
 fdiv_bug        : no
 hlt_bug         : no
 f00f_bug        : no
 coma_bug        : no
 fpu             : yes
 fpu_exception   : yes
 cpuid level     : 4
 wp              : yes
 flags           : fpu de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx lm pni cx16 hypervisor lahf_lm abm
 bogomips        : 6800.03
 clflush size    : 64
 cache_alignment : 64
 address sizes   : 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
 power management:

I/O test (to confirm the FreeVPS bench results):

 root@smnk:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=testfilex bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
 16384+0 records in
 16384+0 records out
 1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 4.56933 s, 235 MB/s

Here is the speedtest.net results:

 root@smnk:~# python speedtest-cli.py --share
 Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
 Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
 Testing from ColoCrossing (***.*.**.***)...
 Selecting best server based on ping...
 Hosted by FrostGaming (Buffalo, NY) [16.56 km]: 9.219 ms
 Testing download speed........................................
 Download: 737.71 Mbit/s
 Testing upload speed..................................................
 Upload: 261.96 Mbit/s
 Share results: http://www.speedtest.net/result/3000044714.png

If anybody is interested I can add UnixBench 5.1.3 later.

GarnetNetworks is not so known on the VPS market (It recently started). It offers quite good resources for such a low price, if you want to try it to see its power I recommend you to use their limited time “$2.02 USD” offer. Link: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/13500/garnet-networks-budget-promo-sale-lifetime-first-month-discount/p1

I'd personally give this VPS 7-8/10
Amazing value for such price, but I can't quite get the CacheFly and those speeds to match the results from speedtest.net. It's most likely normal since the server I tested to was the same network and not the others (or bits-bytes?).

Comments

  • I also have a VPS from them, this case Diamond package (4 cores, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB space, 2 TB bandwidth). I am currrently using Windows server 2008 r2 iwth zPanel and RDP, and what I can say, I never manage to use more than 2 GB RAM (even with peak usage).

    Everything "just works", and with the Virtio card I use to get over 1100 MBPS in single speed tests. I have posted a few reviews online, both on Free VPS and Subnetweb, and as far as I can say I like how things are run over at Garnet.

    Did I say the connection sometimes burst to 10 Gbit/s?

  • TorTor Member
    edited September 2013

    @luis12345620 said:
    I also have a VPS from them, this case Diamond package (4 cores, 4 GB RAM, 100 GB space, 2 TB bandwidth). I am currrently using Windows server 2008 r2 iwth zPanel and RDP, and what I can say, I never manage to use more than 2 GB RAM (even with peak usage).

    Everything "just works", and with the Virtio card I use to get over 1100 MBPS in single speed tests. I have posted a few reviews online, both on Free VPS and Subnetweb, and as far as I can say I like how things are run over at Garnet.

    Did I say the connection sometimes burst to 10 Gbit/s?

    About that burst up to 10 Gbit/s, I'm not sure when you get that as I haven’t seen it (Haven’t been checking - you know, who needs constant bandwidth usage these days? except those who run download servers) but I assume non-peak time when it's not used.

  • @Tor said:
    About that burst up to 10 Gbit/s, I'm not sure when you get that as I haven’t seen it (Haven’t been checking - you know, who needs constant bandwidth usage these days? except those who run download servers) but I assume non-peak time when it's not used.

    You can use the Virtio card to get those speeds, and yes it's mostly at 3AM when I get those speeds.

  • 10Gbit/s?

    LOL

    Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

  • @luis12345620 said:
    You can use the Virtio card to get those speeds, and yes it's mostly at 3AM when I get those speeds.

    Virtio driver shows as 10Gbps on Windows. It's not 10Gbps. You cannot get 1100Mbps on a 1Gbps connection.

  • I used to get then on a single speedtest, but it must have been in local network. That was just a speedtest.net result.

  • The 10Gbps burst is only used if the entire node is under heavy network load. A single user will never actually use the "10 Gbps burst" speed.

  • TorTor Member
    edited September 2013

    @KyleGN said:
    The 10Gbps burst is only used if the entire node is under heavy network load. A single user will never actually use the "10 Gbps burst" speed.

    Of course, a VPS of this pricing would never reach more than 1 GB/s.

    Makes total sense, I myself do with a 100 Mb/s (+) connection which it is capable of.

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