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Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

fourplex.net

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Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#181

Post by anonzzzies »

101008 wrote: post #173
neelc wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I previously ran another VPS host who did the same exact thing (before OVH did it?). Unlike Fourplex.net which uses modern ASRock Ryzen 9000 servers, Qeru.net used older HPE DL360 Gen9 servers. I gave 3GB of RAM for $3-4/mo then. But these servers weren't very fast. I ended up selling the business, and am happy I did.

Question: how a person can provide VPS host srevices without being a reseller? Did you own the hardware? I am super interested. Hey, I even would pay for a series of articles about this!

I used to do site/vps hosting (millions of sites); we just bought slightly older 1U rack servers off ebay (and later our rack neighbour in the hosting room, who always had to buy the latest for his clients allowed us to buy of him) and kept filling local racks. We paid for a large bad quality bandwidth pipe for the large bandwidth eaters and good quality for the smaller traffic properties; we served some % of traffic per host through the good and after that through the bad. The porn / warez or whatever people didn't care and the business or hobby folk were happy as well.

In the end it got too much work with that many servers, something is always broken ; we had some virtualisation and failover stuff, but you have to go and repair it. We were basically two fulltime guys + some freelance and that meant getting into a car and driving for an hour every other day, storm or ice on the roads, christmas or birthday, doesn't matter. It made good money and we sold nicely, but servers are loud and we have been so often there for hours that even with ear protection I think it messed something up. Also crawling in small spaces for wiring etc isn't great for your body. I did learn a lot about Linux and the popular packages; we had our own patches and versions of most to shield from 0-days and save processing waste to put more on one machine without it degrading quality.

I would not do it with reselling ; you have no control; when the police called us for illegal/child materials and so on, we were in charge of removing/blocking that; if you resell, they will likely first just shutdown everything you have and then ask you for an explanation. And after a few time delete you and that's it. Or when there is something wrong technically, you are left holding the bag anyway as many will just blame you (and then after 'some time' your service 'suddenly' is back). You can hire much more expensive stuff with much better support but in our experience, that does not help much when there is a LOT of abuse (and with millions of sites, you have a lot of abuse that you cannot check).

It's fun though; just too much work.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#182

Post by ianseyler »

kube-system wrote: post #170
ianseyler wrote: post #61

Can we get smaller VM hosts? I’ve seen some minimums at 512MB for a host. I need 8MB at most sometimes. Update: Fourplex (this host) uses a 1GB minimum.

What's the use case for a VM with 8MB memory?

A simple web server with some static content to server.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#184

Post by renewiltord »

mikestorrent wrote: post #171
direwolf20 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was corrected elsewhere when I thought RAM was more expensive 10 years ago. RAM was actually cheaper 10 years ago, when it was DDR3/DDR4 too. If any company can replicate the 10 year old SOTA, they can bring prices down.

This is what I expect to happen. 2016's ram was good enough for consumers then and probably still is for a huge class of consumers now. I'd rather 32GB of DDR3 than 8gb of DDR5.

You can get like terabytes of DDR3 used. No one wants that shit. Too slow. Power hog.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#185

Post by g-mork »

direwolf20 wrote: post #107
neelc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For providers like us, we have to lease IPv4. We came long after IPv4 was already depleted. IPv4 prices did go down. Despite that, the $15/year 128MB BuyVM plan is long-gone. But for a new provider like us, we'd have to spend more than an established player like BuyVM or RackNerd who bought most of their servers pre-AI-boom.

Have you tried doing ipv6-only plans?

or just offer v4 HTTPS LB bundled. Never understood why more places didn't do this.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#186

Post by soanvig »

cogman10 wrote: post #169
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the chances of the bursting of AI bubble seem far more likely than this happening first which you say about 10-15 years. plus, the ram manufacturer cycle moves and does this all the time. Atrioc does a really good job explaining these cycles[0] But the point is that AI demand peaked when the supply was at its lowest which is why we are caught up in this messed up timeline that we live in. And this…

The thing is, even if the market bursts, prices are already inflated. RAM manufacturers know that everything 5xed and they aren't likely going to rush out and drop the price levels to pre-expansion. Once the AI market bursts, you can expect slow and methodical decreases in price (if any). And that will ultimately buy China a lot of time to shove their ram into the market cutting ram manufacturers out of most non-US m…

Graphic cards prices normalized quite quickly after crypto boom. Before going nuts for AI training of course.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#187

Post by gunalx »

renewiltord wrote: post #184
mikestorrent wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I expect to happen. 2016's ram was good enough for consumers then and probably still is for a huge class of consumers now. I'd rather 32GB of DDR3 than 8gb of DDR5.

You can get like terabytes of DDR3 used. No one wants that shit. Too slow. Power hog.

Well yes, but it isn't too cheap for how 8ld it is.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#188

Post by renewiltord »

gunalx wrote: post #187
renewiltord wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get like terabytes of DDR3 used. No one wants that shit. Too slow. Power hog.

Well yes, but it isn't too cheap for how 8ld it is.

Some dude literally gave away a couple of terabytes on Reddit homelab subreddit the other day.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#189

Post by charcircuit »

Tostino wrote: post #168
direwolf20 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and they took the money and didn't do it and didn't get prosecuted

Exactly. Points out how "will never be financially viable to provide" is a completely BS argument in this context.

It isn't. I gave up on waiting and switched to starlink. The existence of starlink provides even less financial reward for for paying to wire up my house.

Re: Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?

#190

Post by filloooo »

mikestorrent wrote: post #171
direwolf20 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was corrected elsewhere when I thought RAM was more expensive 10 years ago. RAM was actually cheaper 10 years ago, when it was DDR3/DDR4 too. If any company can replicate the 10 year old SOTA, they can bring prices down.

This is what I expect to happen. 2016's ram was good enough for consumers then and probably still is for a huge class of consumers now. I'd rather 32GB of DDR3 than 8gb of DDR5.

DRAM rarely break, yes, I have bought cottage industry recycled DDR3 with no problem whatsoever.

The problem, however, is IO controller support has been dropped, many new CPUs don't even support DDR4 any more, especially mobile ones.

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