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Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

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Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#11

Post by jules »

bashtoni wrote: post #5

Apples / Oranges. Quite apart from the ability to buy by the hour, the Hetzner offering really isn't suitable for processing any data you care about - it's not using ECC RAM, and the processor used doesn't support it.

If you're using an AWS m2.4xlarge (score: 1511) then you pay $2.00 per hour. If you're using this Hetzner (score: 1729) you pay less than $0.09 per hour. You'd have to use very few hours indeed for AWS to be cheaper. That's not even factoring in traffic. You get 10TB per month with Hetzner which would cost you an additional $1200/month (!) with Amazon. AFAICT Amazon doesn't use ECC ram either; at least I don't see it mentioned anywhere. Hetzner does have competitively priced servers with ECC ram.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#13

Post by julian37 »

vladd wrote: post #7

The price for Hetzner's EX 4S is 49.58 EUR for non-EU customers and 59 EUR per month VAT-included for most EU customers (EU corporations registered for VAT purposes need to apply the VAT specific to their own country). An Amazon m2.4xlarge instance (High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Reserved Instance) with Heavy Utilization on a 3-year commitment costs $9'660 for the 3y term and 3 * 365 * 24 * $0.454 = $11'931 in usa…

That's hardly a fair comparison. Last time I checked Hetzner doesn't offer auto scaling, "elastic" load balancing, or any of the countless other features that EC2 offers. Actually, forget auto-scaling: what if you want to bring up another bunch of instances manually to deal with a spike in demand?

The EX 4S looks like a very compelling alternative for many use cases but saying that its 9x cheaper is comparing apples to oranges.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#14

Post by mjb »

bashtoni wrote: post #5

Apples / Oranges. Quite apart from the ability to buy by the hour, the Hetzner offering really isn't suitable for processing any data you care about - it's not using ECC RAM, and the processor used doesn't support it.

Why is this being downvoted? The processor used (i-7 2600) does not support ECC RAM, and this platform does not include it. A server platform without ECC RAM is a pretty big disadvantage for several reasons, to most compelling being the high real-world rate of memory errors in real systems. Memory errors in non-ECC systems can be extremely difficult and expensive to track down, and can cause data corruption or loss if the machine is used in the data pipeline.

In one study (http://www.cs.toronto.edu/%7Ebianca/papers/sigmetrics09.pdf), strong correlations were found between age, usage and error rate. Before using a server without ECC RAM, it's worth doing a quick estimate of the amount of data you intend to move around, and whether it's worth it to you (and, more importantly, your customers) to save a little money going with a non-ECC platform.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#16

Post by dasrecht »

julian37 wrote: post #13
vladd wrote: post #7

The price for Hetzner's EX 4S is 49.58 EUR for non-EU customers and 59 EUR per month VAT-included for most EU customers (EU corporations registered for VAT purposes need to apply the VAT specific to their own country). An Amazon m2.4xlarge instance (High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Reserved Instance) with Heavy Utilization on a 3-year commitment costs $9'660 for the 3y term and 3 * 365 * 24 * $0.454 = $11'931 in usa…

That's hardly a fair comparison. Last time I checked Hetzner doesn't offer auto scaling, "elastic" load balancing, or any of the countless other features that EC2 offers. Actually, forget auto-scaling: what if you want to bring up another bunch of instances manually to deal with a spike in demand? The EX 4S looks like a very compelling alternative for many use cases but saying that its 9x cheaper is comparing apples…

Of course Elastic Scaling is not possible. Because Hosting a server in a datacenter and having cloud instances are two different stories. If you have need for flexibility you can simply run a loadbalancer having your base hardware hosted for a good price at hetzner (or another datacenter you like) and then spin up some AWS Instances behind the loadbalancer for dealing with spikes.

Or as others have written you can buy 3 boxes at hetzner and scale 300% ;)

Solution?

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#17

Post by growt »

julian37 wrote: post #13
vladd wrote: post #7

The price for Hetzner's EX 4S is 49.58 EUR for non-EU customers and 59 EUR per month VAT-included for most EU customers (EU corporations registered for VAT purposes need to apply the VAT specific to their own country). An Amazon m2.4xlarge instance (High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Reserved Instance) with Heavy Utilization on a 3-year commitment costs $9'660 for the 3y term and 3 * 365 * 24 * $0.454 = $11'931 in usa…

That's hardly a fair comparison. Last time I checked Hetzner doesn't offer auto scaling, "elastic" load balancing, or any of the countless other features that EC2 offers. Actually, forget auto-scaling: what if you want to bring up another bunch of instances manually to deal with a spike in demand? The EX 4S looks like a very compelling alternative for many use cases but saying that its 9x cheaper is comparing apples…

Maybe not 9x, but how about 3x?

You can rent 3 Hetzner servers to deal with 300% load spikes or improve reliability. And you're still 3 times cheaper then EC2.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#18

Post by julian37 »

krobertson wrote: post #15

Why is this company getting so much attention as of late? I've never heard of them until recently, and considering how crowded the whole VPS/dedicated server market is, what makes them stand out?

They are well known in Germany, they've been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, provider of VPS and colo services over here since the mid 90s.

The recent buzz is the first time I see them mentioned on US-centric sites though, if memory serves.

As for your question, it appears that many people find the price/performance ratio of the EX 4S compelling.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#19

Post by fleitz »

julian37 wrote: post #13
vladd wrote: post #7

The price for Hetzner's EX 4S is 49.58 EUR for non-EU customers and 59 EUR per month VAT-included for most EU customers (EU corporations registered for VAT purposes need to apply the VAT specific to their own country). An Amazon m2.4xlarge instance (High-Memory Quadruple Extra Large Reserved Instance) with Heavy Utilization on a 3-year commitment costs $9'660 for the 3y term and 3 * 365 * 24 * $0.454 = $11'931 in usa…

That's hardly a fair comparison. Last time I checked Hetzner doesn't offer auto scaling, "elastic" load balancing, or any of the countless other features that EC2 offers. Actually, forget auto-scaling: what if you want to bring up another bunch of instances manually to deal with a spike in demand? The EX 4S looks like a very compelling alternative for many use cases but saying that its 9x cheaper is comparing apples…

Actually it's a really fair comparison, for the price of the AWS service you can buy 9 hetzner instances. So you don't need to spin anything up, just buy it.

A long term contract is the perfect comparison because it's a similar service, you know you'll be using the capacity so you pay up front to have it 'reserved' and in exchange receive reduced prices. Normally with EC2 you'd buy 1 instance and then spin up 8 more on demand, with hetzner you just buy 9 machines and pay the same price you'd pay for 1 AWS machine. When your load spikes you've got 8 extra machines to handle the load. Voila, "auto scaling".

I don't know very many businesses that need to scale beyond 8X capacity for an afternoon. If you really think you need the EC2 API to add and remove machines on demand just install UEC.

It may be comparing apples to oranges but I can tell you that when I need fruit if apples are a $1/lb and oranges are $9/lb I buy apples.

Personally, I think the XS29 @ $299 per month would have been a much better comparison, with 15 drives you could push through some serious IO which would make it suitable for running a database on.

Re: Hetzner EX 4S Unixbench, dd and htparm results

#20

Post by klaruz »

bashtoni wrote: post #5

Apples / Oranges. Quite apart from the ability to buy by the hour, the Hetzner offering really isn't suitable for processing any data you care about - it's not using ECC RAM, and the processor used doesn't support it.

Do you have a link to where Amazon says EC2 uses ECC RAM? I can't seem to find one.
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