Recently I noted a thread about VirtualRocket on LowEndTalk. After reading this I thought this would be an interesting offer to share with you all!
The offer
- 512MB RAM
- 1x Intel Xeon vCore
- 30GB zSSD storage
- 2TB transfer
- 1Gbps uplink
- SmartOS and Linux Datasets
- Instant Snapshots
- $4/month
- Order here
There’s some things in the above offer that need explaining. First of all, what the hell is zSSD? It means you get 30GB of storage (with the above offer that is) on a ZFS storage pool which is fronted by 1.2TB in SSDs and backed by 15k SAS drives. Needless to say which is speedy in most tests (including dd), though I’d be interested to see how real-world performance is. I’m guessing it’s good, but is it as good as SSDs? Then on to the SmartOS and Linux Datasets. This VPS is ran on SmartOS, an OS created by Joyent and designed specifically for “the cloud”. The OS is said to run mostly in RAM, which is where you want most of it to run anyway for speed. You can either launch appliances on SmartOS or pick any known major linux distribution (like Ubuntu or CentOS) on this SmartOS-based VPS.
So, if you give these guys a shot, please let us know how things go for you!
Couple of more things you ought to know about though. You do need an SSH key for all of this to work and you need it during registration. Unfortunately, the software can be very picky about the format of your SSH key. You need an RSA-based one ending with an e-mail address! Otherwise you’re in for a big struggle. You’ve been warned :-)
You can pay using a Credit Card or Bitcoins (via Stripe). The setup process is pretty smooth and you should be running a machine in no time.
This offer is located in Columbus, Ohio in the WOW! data center. More information about that here (including test IPs): https://vrocket.io/datacenter.php
Edit:
We sent a message through vRocket’s feedback page and Petar kindly respoded to our clarifications. He provided a test IP and two test files. And as a good gesture, he also gave our community two exclusive coupon codes. Thank you so much Petar!
- LowEndBox50 – This gives 50% off the first month on any VPS chosen. Expires after a month at which point the cost of a VPS goes back to regular price. Good for those who just want to test. This is valid for 1 VPS at the most.
- LowEndBox15 – This gives 15% RECURRING discount that never expires for any VPS they offer. Good for those who may like to stick around. This is valid for any number of VPS’s customers want.
So there you go, if you want to try them, you can use the 50% off coupon. And when you are satisfied, you could purchase for long term commitment using the 15% off coupon. Codes are valid for new or existing customers.
And since our readers have some questions, Petar kindly gave us additional information. Here is a portion from our email exchange:
…Could you please state for users that we’re primarily SmartOS focused and that KVM support is coming soon. Right now Linux flavors are LX branded Zones and are in Beta. If one would compare us to any other provider – we are pretty much a Digital Ocean of Joyent world, though at a fraction of price Joyent charges for their services and still at a lower cost and w/ a bit more resources than what Digital Ocean offers in their plans.
We cater to developers. That’s our target market and being us-midwest makes us a bit unique as most other providers are located in us-east, us-west, etc. Rarely, if ever, does one see “midwest” as an option.
Differentiators:
– SSD Cached ZFS File System (we have enough cache per host to store 100% of customer workloads in it)
– SmartOS hypervisor (reliability + speed)
– Open Solaris Zones (unparalleled security in virtualized world)
– Gigabit NICs for every VPS no matter the size, no bandwidth throttling or limitingFeatures that are coming shortly:
– Ability to redeploy images from the GUI – as of now, one must submit a ticket for an image change of an existing VPS.
– RDNS management via the GUI – currently one can open a ticket and we’ll make the change.Features coming within couple of months:
– Per hour pricing and full APIWe also support and run the Open Source Project Fifo Cloud Orchestrator and give 10% of all SmartVPS proceeds to this project.
Network information
WOW! DC – Columbus, Ohio, USA
Test IPv4: 76.10.221.32
Test file (100MB): http://76.10.221.32/100MB.bin
Test file (1GB): http://76.10.221.32/1GB.bin
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