Hello,
I have an old server and I would change it with a VPS. There are 3-4 websites (<5000 users/day) with domains, email server etc. Nothing big or special.

I want the VPS to be better than the old server and I tried some tests.
I'm not experienced with hardware or benchmarks.

I want you opinion about the 2 choices, is the VPS better related to hardware performances?

Thank you:

VPS:
lscpu
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 1
Socket(s): 2
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 26
Model name: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5550 @ 2.67GHz
Stepping: 4
CPU MHz: 2666.761
BogoMIPS: 5333.52
Hypervisor vendor: VMware
Virtualization type: full
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 256K
L3 cache: 8192K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1
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 syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts nopl xtopology tsc_reliable nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt hypervisor lahf_lm dtherm ida


Server:
lscpu
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 15
Stepping: 2
CPU MHz: 1596.000
BogoMIPS: 4256.33
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1


VPS:
cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 3080524 kB
MemFree: 1957712 kB
MemAvailable: 2761964 kB
Buffers: 77876 kB
Cached: 840732 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 485976 kB
Inactive: 488012 kB
Active(anon): 59848 kB
Inactive(anon): 15464 kB
Active(file): 426128 kB
Inactive(file): 472548 kB
Unevictable: 3660 kB
Mlocked: 3660 kB
SwapTotal: 3145724 kB
SwapFree: 3145724 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 59036 kB
Mapped: 52112 kB
Shmem: 17512 kB
Slab: 107056 kB
SReclaimable: 82548 kB
SUnreclaim: 24508 kB
KernelStack: 2576 kB
PageTables: 4120 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 4685984 kB
Committed_AS: 393348 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 0 kB
VmallocChunk: 0 kB
HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB
AnonHugePages: 26624 kB
CmaTotal: 0 kB
CmaFree: 0 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
HugePages_Surp: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
DirectMap4k: 73664 kB
DirectMap2M: 3072000 kB


Server:
cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 4046964 kB
MemFree: 263196 kB
Buffers: 721480 kB
Cached: 1425340 kB
SwapCached: 1612 kB
Active: 1319424 kB
Inactive: 1262200 kB
Active(anon): 276576 kB
Inactive(anon): 158560 kB
Active(file): 1042848 kB
Inactive(file): 1103640 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 3906556 kB
SwapFree: 3889364 kB
Dirty: 76 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 433432 kB
Mapped: 18128 kB
Shmem: 332 kB
Slab: 1115652 kB
SReclaimable: 1089428 kB
SUnreclaim: 26224 kB
KernelStack: 2504 kB
PageTables: 21160 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 5930036 kB
Committed_AS: 1489132 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 86996 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359645680 kB
HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB
AnonHugePages: 0 kB
HugePages_Total: 0
HugePages_Free: 0
HugePages_Rsvd: 0
HugePages_Surp: 0
Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
DirectMap4k: 44032 kB
DirectMap2M: 4149248 kB


hdparm -t --direct /dev/sda
VPS: 210 MBs
Server: 65 MBs


Sysbench --test=cpu –cpu-max-prime=20000 run
VPS: Total time: 25s
Server: Total time: 55s

And there is something else I don't understand. If I run (without --direct) on the VPS I get different values between 60 and 120 MBs.
There are a few seconds between commands and there is no heavy application running.
Why are these differences?

What vps service are you considering?

Generally at LQ, edit your initial post to prevent it looking like someone is working on the question.


I don't know what vps service you are considering but many have a rather advanced way of managing use and performance. You may not get a true physical hardware server but a virtual machine running quite a large number of clients. That structure may be moved around in the farm from time to time and loads may or may not equal what they claim. Unless you knew who was directly in charge of this vps, you may just get a service agreement rather than a physical guaranty.

Generally the positives for a vps include some set cost. Ability to seamlessly upgrade or downgrade. Ability to avoid weather disasters and power issues maybe. No hvac considerations.

The negatives may include higher costs, lack of control, loss of data, intrusion and more.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you for the information. This is not a big service like Amazon etc, it is a local one. I have had my physical server there for 10 years they are ok.

Could you please develop more on: "lack of control, loss of data, intrusion and more".

- lack of control: why is that comparing to the physical server? I have the same access (ssh etc), I have also a remote console, the visibility to restart/shut down the machine remotely etc.

- loss of data: I will have the same backup strategy
- intrusion and more: physical security is important, no problem with that. Why is intrusion a problem for a VPS comparing to a physical server?

Thank you.

If they set up the system and have physical access to it then you can't be fully sure of security issues. They might even have a way to mirror the users. Who knows what they have.

I say loss of data as a data breach.

There are plenty of web pages on pro's and con's of a vps and having a local server on your property.