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Nixcom - $49.95/Year 512MB OpenVZ VPS in Canada

Updated October 2011: Martin from Nixcom has decided to terminate the service. See this comment and replied comments for discussions.

Nix Communications Martin from Nix Communications emailed me their “best offer from Nixcom.ca”. You do have to pay yearly on this — $49.95/year, using this sign up link (~$4.17/month). You get

  • 512MB guaranteed/1024MB burstable memory
  • 20GB storage
  • 500GB/month data transfer at 100Mbps
  • OpenVZ/SolusVM

Servers in Montreal, Canada. Martin also said that they have only allocated 7 of such package. Domain created in April 2008, and still have two NS on the same box (after numerous mentions in previous offer posts).

LEA
Latest posts by LEA (see all)

54 Comments

  1. FIRST!

    Sorry, couldn’t resist. :)

    March 27, 2011 @ 5:27 pm | Reply
  2. Second :)

    I’ve had a 256MB $8/3-month deal from Nixcom since October 2010. It’s been quite reliable. Performance is quite good and uptime has been 99.5% – 99.8% per month. This month it’s slipped a bit but that’s due to hardware maintenance and some equipment shuffling in the Montreal datacentre — that work was announced in advance and it was done in the wee hours. For $2.67/month I’m very happy with it and definitely plan on staying.

    Martin is a dedicated guy, and he’s always been friendly and helpful in support tickets.

    March 27, 2011 @ 6:50 pm | Reply
    • Can’t agree more. Martin’s VPS is one of the most stable I’ve ever got.

      March 27, 2011 @ 8:46 pm | Reply
    • Snape:

      Yeah, I’ve had an OpenVZ machine with them since October, and a Xen one (in Pennsylvania) since December, and been fairly pleased with both serices. There was a few hours of unscheduled downtime in December due to a kernel issue, but Martin was quick to provide updates about the situation and get it resolved. Other than that, the only support tickets I’ve submitted have been for PTRs. The (OpenVZ) host node reboots a bit more often than I’d like, but I’m happy to live with that, all things considered…

      March 28, 2011 @ 12:55 am | Reply
  3. Antony:

    Ordered one to try out – no ssl available for the order process or the control panel, that sucks…

    IP with gtcomm / GloboTech Network Operations Center

    A few tests:

     
    # cat /proc/cpuinfo
    processor	: 0
    vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
    cpu family	: 6
    model		: 15
    model name	: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU            5140  @ 2.33GHz
    stepping	: 6
    cpu MHz		: 2327.523
    cache size	: 4096 KB
    physical id	: 0
    siblings	: 2
    core id		: 0
    cpu cores	: 2
    apicid		: 0
    fpu		: yes
    fpu_exception	: yes
    cpuid level	: 10
    wp		: yes
    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 ht tm syscall nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
    bogomips	: 4655.04
    clflush size	: 64
    cache_alignment	: 64
    address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
    power management:
    
    processor	: 1
    vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
    cpu family	: 6
    model		: 15
    model name	: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU            5140  @ 2.33GHz
    stepping	: 6
    cpu MHz		: 2327.523
    cache size	: 4096 KB
    physical id	: 3
    siblings	: 2
    core id		: 0
    cpu cores	: 2
    apicid		: 6
    fpu		: yes
    fpu_exception	: yes
    cpuid level	: 10
    wp		: yes
    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 ht tm syscall nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
    bogomips	: 4655.03
    clflush size	: 64
    cache_alignment	: 64
    address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
    power management:
    
     
    # wget http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
    --2011-03-27 18:43:29--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
    Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
    Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[=====================================>] 104,857,600 2.52M/s   in 46s     
    
    2011-03-27 18:44:15 (2.18 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]
    
     
    # dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=64k count=16k conv=fdatasync
    16384+0 records in
    16384+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 17.2392 s, 62.3 MB/s
    

    Feel free to ask if you have any question, I can do a couple of tests…

    March 27, 2011 @ 6:50 pm | Reply
    • Ben:

      2.52M/s transfer seems slow for an instance advertised as being on a 100mb/s uplink.

      March 28, 2011 @ 12:51 am | Reply
      • Snape:

        2.52MBytes-per-second = 20.1Mbits-per-second, or 20% of the shared 100mbit link. More than adequate, IMO.

        March 28, 2011 @ 3:05 am | Reply
        • agreed.. 100Mbps = 12.5MBps, 2.52/12.5 is pretty good.

          March 28, 2011 @ 9:19 am | Reply
        • Francisco:

          100 Mbps = 12.5MB/s raw (switch)

          100 Mbps = ~10MB/s payload

          March 28, 2011 @ 6:20 pm | Reply
        • Francisco:

          25MB/s is quite slow for a cachefly wget test.

          What about wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test ?

          March 28, 2011 @ 6:24 pm | Reply
        • Antony:

          @ Francisco:

          $ wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
          --2011-03-29 00:08:30--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
          Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
          Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
          HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
          Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
          Saving to: `/dev/null'
          
          100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 1.57M/s   in 80s     
          
          2011-03-29 00:09:51 (1.24 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
          
          March 28, 2011 @ 8:12 pm | Reply
        • You are right, that’s not acceptable. We made the test on our node of Chicago and we have seen a big difference of speed. We are currently working with Montreal DC to check what’s happening. Thank you for these tests!

          March 29, 2011 @ 3:17 am | Reply
        • Finally, the speed seems to be slow from cachefly to our Montreal node. Testing with other servers seems to be stable around 10 M/s, so now it is acceptable lol

          March 29, 2011 @ 3:43 am | Reply
  4. Thank you call for these great comments!

    Depending on the location, the speed could be better than that.

    Should be able to find some place free on that node to continue this offer.

    If anyone is interested with that offer in our Chicago node, please let me know. I should be able to find some place too! :)

    March 28, 2011 @ 2:46 am | Reply
    • Antony:

      Hey Martin, would it be possible to you to enable SSL for the user interface & for the VPS control panel? (even with a self signed certificate…)

      Thanks!

      :)

      March 28, 2011 @ 8:00 am | Reply
      • It is already in our 2011 strategy plan :) stay tuned!

        March 28, 2011 @ 3:49 pm | Reply
        • Tom:

          It takes an hour to buy an SSL and getting it to work.

          March 28, 2011 @ 4:08 pm | Reply
        • Antony:

          Ok, thanks.

          I hope that you’ll go fast on this, as I really, really feel bad when I have no choice but to log in unencrypted – i don’t like to send my usernames & passwords all over the internet in clear, plain text…

          March 28, 2011 @ 4:32 pm | Reply
        • tommy:

          Antony “Hey Martin, would it be possible to you to enable SSL for the user interface & for the VPS control panel? (even with a self signed certificate ”
          Martin “It is already in our 2011 strategy plan :) stay tuned!”

          wtf, 2011 plan for SSL ? lol are you serious ?

          evere hosting company should already use SSL from the beginning.

          March 28, 2011 @ 5:25 pm | Reply
        • Agreed. That’s an issue.

          March 30, 2011 @ 8:52 pm | Reply
  5. innya:

    Martin, you should do a few more Xen promo :)

    March 28, 2011 @ 5:40 pm | Reply
  6. Unfortunately we have set our priorities to our customer’s support more than SSL.

    So it is in our plans to setup SSL on all our web interfaces.

    March 28, 2011 @ 7:17 pm | Reply
  7. We are about to add a new xen node… :)

    March 28, 2011 @ 7:18 pm | Reply
  8. innya:

    I missed out last xen offer and this one. So, I am looking out for it for sure :)

    March 28, 2011 @ 7:35 pm | Reply
  9. sidlav:

    Martin: Please answer is it allowed to use IRC client in your VPS? I mean just simple client like ircii to idle in some irc netowrk channel – I found that irc is nice tool to test server stability.. just open screen, run ircii, detach it and forget it. after a while you can check with other client from other location if the first one is still connected to server. if it is , then stability is ok.

    March 28, 2011 @ 8:28 pm | Reply
  10. wget http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
    --2011-03-28 17:54:00--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
    Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
    Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[===============================================================>] 104,857,600 2.92M/s   in 38s
    
    2011-03-28 17:54:39 (2.60 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]

    But that’s only testing download speed. It’s a server, so maybe we should be testing upload. :)

    From a Linode in New Jersey (on a 100mbps link I think):

    wget 67.215.3.66/100mb.test
    --2011-03-28 18:02:40--  http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
    Connecting to 67.215.3.66:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-tar]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[===============================================================>] 104,857,600 8.67M/s   in 11s
    
    2011-03-28 17:56:20 (8.78 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]

    I’ll leave that file up for a few hours if someone else want to try it.

    March 28, 2011 @ 8:36 pm | Reply
    • From Chicago:

      [root@nod10 ~]# wget -O /dev/null http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
      --2011-03-28 23:40:35--  http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
      Connecting to 67.215.3.66:80... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
      Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-tar]
      Saving to: `/dev/null'
      
      100%[=======================================>] 104,857,600 9.10M/s   in 11s     
      
      2011-03-28 23:40:47 (8.99 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
      
      March 29, 2011 @ 3:40 am | Reply
  11. sidlav:

    sleddog: thanks for test file.
    Checked speed from German 1Gbit shared bw vps.

    $ wget http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
    --2011-03-29 00:56:23--  http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
    Connecting to 67.215.3.66:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-tar]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[==========================================>] 104,857,600 3.72M/s   in 33s     
    
    2011-03-29 00:56:57 (2.99 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]
    
    March 28, 2011 @ 9:15 pm | Reply
    • Antony:

      From Austria (Gbit):

      --2011-03-29 11:16:02--  http://67.215.3.66/100mb.test
      Connecting to 67.215.3.66:80... connected.
      HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
      Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-tar]
      Saving to: â/dev/nullâ
      
      100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 6.50M/s   in 17s     
      
      2011-03-29 11:16:19 (5.99 MB/s) - â/dev/nullâ saved [104857600/104857600]
      
      March 29, 2011 @ 9:19 am | Reply
  12. @sidlav: We do not allow any IRC connections on our node, sorry.

    March 29, 2011 @ 3:08 am | Reply
  13. 3 places available, hurry up folks! :)

    March 29, 2011 @ 3:26 am | Reply
    • innya:

      Your order link is broking. Are you offering Xen promotion now?

      March 29, 2011 @ 3:48 pm | Reply
      • The link is working from here?

        No xen promotion at the moment.

        March 29, 2011 @ 4:05 pm | Reply
        • innya:

          Last time I check it was using “https://my.nixcom.ca/cart.php?a=add&pid=81”
          nowonder. Now it changed to “http://my.nixcom.ca/cart.php?a=add&pid=81”

          March 29, 2011 @ 4:10 pm | Reply
      • Ah! Now I understand. I was working on something ;) sorry about that…

        March 29, 2011 @ 4:12 pm | Reply
  14. [root@nod0 ~]# wget -O /dev/null http://adm.nixcom.ca/files/test.tar.gz
    --2011-03-28 23:36:45--  http://adm.nixcom.ca/files/test.tar.gz
    Resolving adm.nixcom.ca... 184.154.35.195
    Connecting to adm.nixcom.ca|184.154.35.195|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-gzip]
    Saving to: `/dev/null'
    
    100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 10.4M/s   in 12s     
    
    2011-03-28 23:36:58 (8.08 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
    
    March 29, 2011 @ 3:38 am | Reply
    • Not on same node of course lol ;) Montreal downloading on our Chicago node.

      March 29, 2011 @ 3:38 am | Reply
      • Antony:
        $ wget -O /dev/null http://adm.nixcom.ca/files/test.tar.gz
        --2011-03-29 13:20:17--  http://adm.nixcom.ca/files/test.tar.gz
        Resolving adm.nixcom.ca... 184.154.35.195
        Connecting to adm.nixcom.ca|184.154.35.195|:80... connected.
        HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
        Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/x-gzip]
        Saving to: `/dev/null'
        
        100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 10.6M/s   in 9.7s    
        
        2011-03-29 13:20:26 (10.3 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]
        

        It’s funny though, as cachefly is closer then adm.nixcom.ca…

        They might not be the perfect tool for speed tests sometimes… :)

        March 29, 2011 @ 9:22 am | Reply
  15. It seems that we got 2 orders not paid for this offer. Stay tuned, we should release these two places real soon…

    March 30, 2011 @ 5:31 pm | Reply
  16. And now, some available in our Chicago node!

    http://my.nixcom.ca/cart.php?a=add&pid=84

    For ping and speed purposes:

    http://adm.nixcom.ca/files/test.tar.gz (100mb)

    March 30, 2011 @ 9:51 pm | Reply
  17. Antony:

    Martin, do you plan to have another offer for 128MB VPSes anytime soon in Montreal?

    Thanks :)

    March 31, 2011 @ 7:02 pm | Reply
  18. Old customer:

    hey, Martin, you sent me 212 emails now, and it keeps coming.
    What the heck is going on?
    Here is the content:

    Your email to our support system could not be accepted because it was not recognized as coming from an email address belonging to one of our customers. If you need assistance, please email from the address you registered with us that you use to login to our client area.

    Nix Communications

    March 31, 2011 @ 11:22 pm | Reply
    • Old customer:

      I’m going to report to abuse dept. in your dc.
      Now, i have 412 emails and keeps on coming.

      March 31, 2011 @ 11:24 pm | Reply
      • Ticket system issue, should be fine now…

        April 1, 2011 @ 5:05 am | Reply
        • Bob:

          No SSL, mailbombing of your own customers…

          Doesn’t sound pretty serious :/

          April 1, 2011 @ 8:15 am | Reply
        • For your information the tickets problem was due to the move of our billing system to add a SSL on it. We’re not perfect, sorry. We are doing our best to answer our customer’s needs.

          April 1, 2011 @ 2:49 pm | Reply
        • Bob:

          Ok, Martin, sorry for what I said!

          Problems can happen, and I’m happy to learn that you are working on SSL support :)

          April 1, 2011 @ 4:22 pm | Reply
  19. Missed the promotion first so I quickly signed up one when there are 2 slots freed up, here is my testing results so far:

    --2011-04-01 22:03:35--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
    Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
    Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
    Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
    Saving to: `100mb.test'
    
    100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 3.32M/s   in 33s
    
    2011-04-01 22:04:08 (3.01 MB/s) - `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]
    
    FINISHED --2011-04-01 22:04:08--
    Downloaded: 1 files, 100M in 33s (3.01 MB/s)
    
    April 1, 2011 @ 2:06 pm | Reply
  20. Antony:

    @Martin:

    Any ETA for a working SSL on the VPS control panel? (right now it’s possible to access the login page with SSL but then login is done unencrypted so it’s pretty useless)

    BTW, nice uptime & stable node, thanks!

    April 14, 2011 @ 12:54 pm | Reply
  21. Good for USA ping!

    Check out this deal :

    Nixcom.ca May offer! Check out this amazing deal! Hurry up, give it a try! *New node
    Here comes our new node and May Promotion!

    We just bought a new node at Joe’s DC.

    Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge processor
    2x 4 GB (8 GB) G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR3-1333 memory
    2x 1 TB (2 TB) Western Digital Caviar Black SATA3 6 Gbps 7200RPM 64MB hard drives (RAID 1 CONFIGURATION)
    ASUS P8H67-M Pro LGA1155 Sandy Bridge B3 Motherboard
    Supermicro CSE-731I-300B chassis and power supply
    Network: 100 Mbits

    To introduce this new node, we would like to give our best deal ever:

    2x 3.4 Ghz INTEL i7-2600 CPU
    20 Gb HDD RAID PROTECTED
    500 Gb Bandwidth @ 100 Mbit
    512 Mb RAM & 1024 Mb Burst
    1 IP address
    Web panel access
    FREE SETUP

    $49.99/year!

    ORDER @ http://my.nixcom.ca/cart.php?a=add&pid=85

    These deals aren’t as you expected to? Please contact us via sales (at) nixcom.ca for a custom quote. Maybe a custom deal?

    Get access to SolusVM to manage your VPS. It is pretty easy to use. Give us a try and you will see!

    For ping test: 204.27.58.122

    This node is located in Kansas City @ Joe’s DC Facilities.

    Nix Communications packages include:

    Free OS re-install
    Easy to use control panel
    99.95% uptime
    Full root access
    Free standard management
    Friendly 24x7x365 technical support on a best effort basis

    We are into this business since 2007.

    Contact us:

    MSN: sales (at) nixcom.ca
    EMAIL: sales (at) nixcom.ca
    WEBSITE: http://www.nixcom.ca

    May 6, 2011 @ 8:24 am | Reply
  22. kode89:

    Hi, are there any new offers right now? Thanks.

    June 23, 2011 @ 3:17 am | Reply

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