YARB

Back up after a brief (20+ hour) outage which was triggered by upgrading the VPS where this blog is hosted. More details here for the curious.

After coming back online at full CPU availability, I ran this benchmark script on the Link 6 vps:

==============================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 4.1-wht.1)
System -- Linux videolockr.com 2.6.18-ovz028stab039.1-smp #1 SMP Tue Jul 24 12:12:48 MSD 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
/dev/simfs            79691776   4390104  75301672   6% /

Start Benchmark Run: Sun Jan 27 10:21:44 PST 2008
 10:21:44 up 16:57,  1 user,  load average: 0.29, 0.06, 0.04

End Benchmark Run: Sun Jan 27 10:40:59 PST 2008
 10:40:59 up 17:16,  1 user,  load average: 16.21, 6.57, 3.22

                     INDEX VALUES            
TEST                                        BASELINE     RESULT      INDEX

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        376783.7  4076800.9      108.2
Double-Precision Whetstone                      83.1      949.2      114.2
Execl Throughput                               188.3     1613.2       85.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         2672.0   129719.0      485.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           1077.0    30195.0      280.4
File Read 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        15382.0   490094.0      318.6
Pipe Throughput                             111814.6   688167.0       61.5
Pipe-based Context Switching                 15448.6   108170.3       70.0
Process Creation                               569.3     7265.2      127.6
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    44.8      209.5       46.8
System Call Overhead                        114433.5   443236.3       38.7
                                                                 =========
     FINAL SCORE                                                     114.8

The VPS comes in at $129.95, which of course, one could have their own dedicated server for that amount. VPSes are truly the crack rock of the hosting industry—the first few hits are cheap, but the addiction grows progressively more expensive as time passes. :)

What I like about VPSes: a new one can usually be provisioned within as little as 2 hours. Also, a while back I had a string of hardware failures on dedicated boxes. So far my VPSes are batting 1,000 when it comes to hardware success.

For comparison, here is a benchmark from a HiVelocity Small Business Server (both are Fedora Core, btw) which costs $83 / month.

==============================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 4.1-wht.1)
System -- Linux server.bradley.org 2.6.19-1.2288.fc5 #1 Sat Feb 10 14:52:17 EST 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
/dev/hda6              2030736    209076   1716840  11% /

Start Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 18 18:09:05 EDT 2007
 18:09:05 up  5:05,  1 user,  load average: 0.15, 0.03, 0.01

End Benchmark Run: Sun Mar 18 18:20:39 EDT 2007
 18:20:39 up  5:16,  1 user,  load average: 13.30, 5.84, 2.69

                     INDEX VALUES            
TEST                                        BASELINE     RESULT      INDEX

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        376783.7  3266804.6       86.7
Double-Precision Whetstone                      83.1      757.4       91.1
Execl Throughput                               188.3      999.2       53.1
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         2672.0    53928.0      201.8
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           1077.0    17294.0      160.6
File Read 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        15382.0   248599.0      161.6
Pipe-based Context Switching                 15448.6    87610.7       56.7
Pipe Throughput                             111814.6   400521.9       35.8
Process Creation                               569.3     4119.4       72.4
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    44.8      210.6       47.0
System Call Overhead                        114433.5   495582.9       43.3
                                                                 =========
     FINAL SCORE                                                      78.1

The server I believe is comparable to something like this which is now $99 / mo.