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Review: Hostigation 256 MB OpenVZ Monthly

Hostigation are no newcomer to the LowEndBox scene having had several great offers over the last few years and coming in as a finalist in the past two Top Provider polls. Hostigation offer both standard KVM and OpenVZ VPS plans but also offer Dedicated Servers, Shared Hosting and specialised OpenVZ backup plans.

Disclaimer:

I am in no way affiliated with Hostigation. This review was performed on a trial VPS on a production node so results should be fairly accurate in comparison to real world cases.

Basics:

The VPS plan is based in Los Angeles, USA and comes with 256 MB of RAM (burstable to 512 MB), 1 TB of bandwidth (monthly) and 25 GB of disk space. OpenVZ plans are managed by a standard SolusVM install (with SSL) and include commonly used templates such as CentOS, Ubuntu and Debian (in both 32 and 64 bit variants). The SolusVM panel also offers integrated support for DNS hosting and reverse IP configuration for both IPv4 and IPv6. Hostigation’s TOS can be found here and disallows TOR while allowing both IRC and Torrents (Tim has told me however that this under the standard “don’t be a dick” rule so abusers need not apply).

Support:

The server was provisioned quickly after signing up (within 5 minutes) and the welcome emails contained all information necessary to get the server up and running with control panel usage information. Unfortunately the setup emails contained account and VPS passwords in plaintext, something I consider a security risk. To test support response times, a ticket was sent in asking for possible future locations and offers at 11:30 PM (GMT +10). It was replied to quickly at 11:40 PM (within 10 minutes) with relevant information.

Setup:

Once my VPS was setup I proceeded to install Debian 6 (32 bit) as normal (installing nothing but the SSH server). After it was installed I used Minstall to clean out any unneeded packages and to set up SSH login protection. The setup went without a hitch!

Note:

From now on I will be using the Minstall benchmark environment setup script to perform tests. This will ensure that all readers have access to commands used and are able to replicate tests easily.

Basic Information:

/proc/cpuinfo showed a processor matching the plan description (one core):

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash cpuinfo.sh 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 58
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
stepping        : 9
cpu MHz         : 1600.000
cache size      : 8192 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 8
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 4
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 13
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms
bogomips        : 6600.23
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

/proc/meminfo showed some standard results:

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash meminfo.sh 
MemTotal:         524288 kB
MemFree:          359232 kB
Cached:           150456 kB
Active:            68596 kB
Inactive:          84056 kB
Active(anon):       2192 kB
Inactive(anon):        4 kB
Active(file):      66404 kB
Inactive(file):    84052 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
SwapTotal:             0 kB
SwapFree:              0 kB
Dirty:                 0 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:          2196 kB
Shmem:              2560 kB
Slab:              12332 kB
SReclaimable:      11140 kB
SUnreclaim:         1192 kB

inode allocation was great:

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash inode.sh 
Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/simfs           13107200   17970 13089230    1% /
tmpfs                  65536       3   65533    1% /lib/init/rw
tmpfs                  65536       1   65535    1% /dev/shm

vmstat showed standard results:

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash vmstat.sh  
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa
 0  0      0 359188      0 150464    0    0     1   305    0 25809  1  0 99  0

Tests:

Each test was run three times and the middle ranked test was picked.

The CacheFly download speed test showed excellent speeds:

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash wget.sh 
--2012-07-15 00:12:22--  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 78.4M/s   in 1.3s    

2012-07-15 00:12:23 (78.4 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

Ping Tests (IPv6 Works!):

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash ping.sh 
PING google.com (74.125.224.130) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.130): icmp_req=1 ttl=54 time=8.66 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.130): icmp_req=2 ttl=54 time=8.64 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.130): icmp_req=3 ttl=54 time=8.66 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.130): icmp_req=4 ttl=54 time=8.81 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-f2.1e100.net (74.125.224.130): icmp_req=5 ttl=54 time=8.62 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 8.623/8.683/8.819/0.091 ms

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash ping6.sh 
PING google.com(nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net) 56 data bytes
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=9.35 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net: icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=9.37 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net: icmp_seq=3 ttl=54 time=9.01 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net: icmp_seq=4 ttl=54 time=8.74 ms
64 bytes from nuq04s09-in-x06.1e100.net: icmp_seq=5 ttl=54 time=14.8 ms

--- google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 8.741/10.266/14.843/2.301 ms

Disk IO was great (Tim now offers SSD caching on some of his nodes so that explains the speed increase):

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash dd.sh 
16384+0 records in
16384+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 3.11963 s, 344 MB/s

Disk latency was good (again probably a result of the SSD caching):

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash ioping.sh 
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=1 time=1.1 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=2 time=0.6 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=3 time=0.5 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=4 time=0.6 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=5 time=0.5 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=6 time=0.6 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=7 time=0.5 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=8 time=0.6 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=9 time=0.6 ms
4096 bytes from . (simfs /vz/private/4101): request=10 time=0.5 ms

--- . (simfs /vz/private/4101) ioping statistics ---
10 requests completed in 9007.4 ms, 1646 iops, 6.4 mb/s
min/avg/max/mdev = 0.5/0.6/1.1/0.2 ms

Geekbench results were great, up there in terms of performance. (Online View)

root@hostigation:~/benchmark# bash geekbench32.sh 
Geekbench 2.1.13 : http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/

System Information
  Platform:                  Linux x86 (32-bit)
  Compiler:                  GCC 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)
  Operating System:          Linux 2.6.32-042stab055.16 i686
  Model:                     Linux PC (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz)
  Motherboard:               Unknown Motherboard
  Processor:                 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
  Processor ID:              GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
  Logical Processors:        1
  Physical Processors:       1
  Processor Frequency:       1.60 GHz
  L1 Instruction Cache:      0.00 B
  L1 Data Cache:             0.00 B
  L2 Cache:                  256 KB
  L3 Cache:                  0.00 B
  Bus Frequency:             0.00 Hz
  Memory:                    512 MB
  Memory Type:               N/A
  SIMD:                      1
  BIOS:                      N/A
  Processor Model:                 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
  Processor Cores:           1

Integer
  Blowfish
    single-threaded scalar    2581 ||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     5487 |||||||||||||||||||||
  Text Compress
    single-threaded scalar    3336 |||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     3632 ||||||||||||||
  Text Decompress
    single-threaded scalar    3566 ||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     4437 |||||||||||||||||
  Image Compress
    single-threaded scalar    2791 |||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     5458 |||||||||||||||||||||
  Image Decompress
    single-threaded scalar    2760 |||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     5530 ||||||||||||||||||||||
  Lua
    single-threaded scalar    4902 |||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     5139 ||||||||||||||||||||

Floating Point
  Mandelbrot
    single-threaded scalar    3091 ||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     6187 ||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Dot Product
    single-threaded scalar    5087 ||||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar    10665 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    single-threaded vector    7769 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded vector    17541 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  LU Decomposition
    single-threaded scalar    3373 |||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     3347 |||||||||||||
  Primality Test
    single-threaded scalar    5554 ||||||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar     4261 |||||||||||||||||
  Sharpen Image
    single-threaded scalar   12834 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar    25716 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Blur Image
    single-threaded scalar    9856 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    multi-threaded scalar    11050 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Memory
  Read Sequential
    single-threaded scalar    9303 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Write Sequential
    single-threaded scalar   12349 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stdlib Allocate
    single-threaded scalar    5892 |||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stdlib Write
    single-threaded scalar    9263 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stdlib Copy
    single-threaded scalar   18631 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Stream
  Stream Copy
    single-threaded scalar    5384 |||||||||||||||||||||
    single-threaded vector    7072 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stream Scale
    single-threaded scalar    4118 ||||||||||||||||
    single-threaded vector    6645 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stream Add
    single-threaded scalar    7324 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    single-threaded vector    7098 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Stream Triad
    single-threaded scalar    5238 ||||||||||||||||||||
    single-threaded vector    5103 ||||||||||||||||||||

Integer Score:                4134 ||||||||||||||||
Floating Point Score:         9023 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memory Score:                11087 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stream Score:                 5997 |||||||||||||||||||||||

Overall Geekbench Score:      7422 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

UNIX Bench results were also good:

Benchmark Run: Sun Jul 15 2012 00:21:59 - 00:50:04
1 CPU in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       25015245.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     3661.2 MWIPS (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               2572.6 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        810891.2 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks          217585.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks       2257645.8 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                             1275068.2 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                  75838.4 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               8207.2 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   3476.6 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    582.1 lpm   (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                         962634.4 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   25015245.7   2143.6
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       3661.2    665.7
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       2572.6    598.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     810891.2   2047.7
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0     217585.4   1314.7
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0    2257645.8   3892.5
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0    1275068.2   1025.0
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0      75838.4    189.6
Process Creation                                126.0       8207.2    651.4
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       3476.6    819.9
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        582.1    970.2
System Call Overhead                          15000.0     962634.4    641.8
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         955.4

Conclusion:

In conclusion I believe that Hostigation is a very solid host with affordable pricing, consistent, speedy performance and good support (both in terms of reply time and the quality of help given). The panel is a stock SolusVM support which, while standard, is functional and easy for the end user to use, allowing clients to easily get their services up and running. The only fault with Hostigation is the fact that it’s a one man company (although in all honesty I have never had any issues with that personally as Tim runs a tight ship and serves his customers well). Overall Hostigation is a quality host and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the company to people seeking low cost yet powerful servers in the US.


Please give Hostigation a try and report on findings! Thanks for reading, tips and suggestions are appreciated!
Review written by maxexcloo (contact), results may not be accurate as providers change over time.

Frank

28 Comments

  1. nice review.

    July 16, 2012 @ 5:36 am | Reply
  2. Thank for review. :)

    July 16, 2012 @ 5:59 am | Reply
  3. rm:

    What I don’t understand is

    > Once my VPS was setup I proceeded to install Debian 6 (32 bit) as normal

    This is OpenVZ, you don’t install an OS yourself, no?

    July 16, 2012 @ 6:52 am | Reply
    • My mistake, I should have said installed it from the Debian 6 template :)

      July 16, 2012 @ 6:58 am | Reply
  4. Awesome review. I am with Hostigation (although on the KVM package plans) but its rock solid!!

    July 16, 2012 @ 7:53 am | Reply
    • I personally have a VPS on the yearly 128 MB KVM plan and the server has also been solid :P

      July 16, 2012 @ 7:55 am | Reply
    • KLIKLI:

      Doesn’t know why but the I/O performance on my KVM node has dropped significantly recently…

      # 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, 11.7421 s, 91.4 MB/s
      
      July 16, 2012 @ 1:06 pm | Reply
      • Probably help a bit if you share which node you’re on, look inside your SolusVM panel and it should show you.

        July 16, 2012 @ 1:55 pm | Reply
      • As Cheif suggested, which node? Also some things that will help disk performance, use ext4 if possible, enable virtio, and try the follow.

        echo deadline > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler

        Change deadline to noop and try both, see which works better for you. Find your winner and add to /etc/rc.local also, edit sda to hda or vda if needed.

        July 16, 2012 @ 2:30 pm | Reply
        • To be fair, none of those results are anything to worry about. In fact last year or so they would have been considered high, recently people seem to be under the impression results have to have three digits when in reality a consistent 15 – 20 MB/s would be fine.

          July 19, 2012 @ 11:00 pm | Reply
        • Turns out the node KLIKLI is on was doing a raid rebuild/verify, I’d be interested how it is now that everything is showing normal.

          July 20, 2012 @ 1:18 am | Reply
        • KLIKLI:

          Sorry for the late reply. Sadly the speed is more or less about the same. Rebooted to clear I/O scheduler settings:

          # 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, 14.9601 s, 71.8 MB/s
          
          July 23, 2012 @ 5:23 am | Reply
      • KLIKLI:

        I’m on node e3la09.
        Just tried dd once again before I do anything else:

        # 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, 13.224 s, 81.2 MB/s
        # date
        Wed Jul 18 04:54:20 UTC 2012
        

        ext4 and virtio are both enabled/in use so I have nothing to do with them. Next I tried the change the scheduler as suggested:

        # echo deadline > /sys/block/vda/queue/scheduler
        # 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, 17.6072 s, 61.0 MB/s
        # rm -rf test
        # echo noop > /sys/block/vda/queue/scheduler
        # 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, 13.5224 s, 79.4 MB/s
        
        July 18, 2012 @ 4:58 am | Reply
        • Well, that node holds all of the xmas specials, as long as your VPS is not a xmas special, open a ticket and I can move you to a different node.

          July 18, 2012 @ 11:23 am | Reply
  5. Their pricing for OpenVZ is very awesome. I’m not lucky stay with them, however on near future it will.

    July 16, 2012 @ 8:41 am | Reply
  6. Hostigation is one of the best hosts I’ve ever worked with.

    July 16, 2012 @ 4:20 pm | Reply
  7. adyg:

    Awesome service indeed.

    Also, nice uptime:

    22:29:20 up 132 days,  4:06,  1 user,  load average: 0.06, 0.03, 0.00
    
    July 16, 2012 @ 7:30 pm | Reply
  8. jcaleb:

    indeed my hostigation box is fast and snappy!

    July 17, 2012 @ 2:10 am | Reply
  9. ltflyall:

    Is a domain required to register for one of their VPS plans?

    July 17, 2012 @ 7:59 pm | Reply
    • No, I also offer shared hosting where it is, so it sets your hostname, if you don’t really care, just make something up but keep it tasteful.

      July 18, 2012 @ 11:22 am | Reply
  10. ltflyall:

    So you’re saying I can enter fake nameservers and be able to log into my server with only the IP address?

    July 18, 2012 @ 1:36 pm | Reply
    • Sure, it is just cosmetic info when signing up, you can change all that yourself whenever via Solus.

      July 18, 2012 @ 2:03 pm | Reply
  11. Cody:

    I signed up for a 128MB OpenVZ plan to use as a PPTP VPN and, a few days in, I’m very satisfied! Thanks, Tim!

    July 19, 2012 @ 9:57 pm | Reply
  12. Thanks, this is great review.
    I’m also a satisfied customer almost 6 months, and never had any problem with my vps.
    Great server, awesome service. Highly recommended!

    July 26, 2012 @ 3:27 am | Reply
  13. Now that the reviewed node is full, I thought it might be interesting to see how flashcache held the load

    
    [root@backup-sv1 ~]# 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, 5.05529 seconds, 212 MB/s
    [root@backup-sv1 ~]# dd if=test of=/dev/zero
    2097152+0 records in
    2097152+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 4.69321 seconds, 229 MB/s
    [root@backup-sv1 ~]# dd if=test of=/dev/zero
    2097152+0 records in
    2097152+0 records out
    1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 1.19239 seconds, 900 MB/s
    

    The first test creates the file, 2nd to get it read into the cache, then the 3rd shows the cache in action

    August 10, 2012 @ 3:08 am | Reply
  14. What is the difference between CLT and LAX?

    September 6, 2012 @ 11:38 pm | Reply

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