HotlineServers.com Review

Unixfy · July 2020

Hotlineservers's 55% off recurring deal last month caught my eye, so I decided to write a review on it.

Check it out at my blog: https://blog.unixfy.net/hotlineservers-benchmark-review/

Let me know what you think!

Ympker · July 2020

Thanks for posting

Iroshan464 · July 2020

I too have the 8GB and very satisfied.
Mine in Montreal.
But the better question is will they survive the long run.
I'm going to keep my VPS and use it but with backup

MichaelCee · July 2020

Nice blog and nice review

[Deleted User] · July 2020

@Unixfy said:
Hotlineservers's 55% off recurring deal last month caught my eye, so I decided to write a review on it.

Check it out at my blog: https://blog.unixfy.net/hotlineservers-benchmark-review/

Let me know what you think!

Thank you for your honest review.

sureiam · July 2020

It's really a hard offer to pass up. Even with my previous reservations I've picked one up and will be doing some testing soon.

Nice blog. I would review a bit differently though. Supposedly those are dedicated cores which isn't mentioned in your review. Additionally a more thorough network test of routing is always appreciated and in my experienced missing from most reviews. For example via their looking glass I found their Dallas site had several hops less and lower pings from multiple locations vs other providers I'd tested. Which caught my attention.

I'm also somewhat picky about the peering finding he.net, level3 (uncommon in the "low end" space), ntt route better for udp type services then say cogent. But only after running a traceroute from multiple locations would you be able to establish that.

For future reviews you might want to incorporate that type of data to differentiate your blog. But that's just my opinion I liked your review a lot and it did Get me excited to test out the setup soon.

Unixfy · July 2020

@sureiam said: Supposedly those are dedicated cores which isn't mentioned in your review

Good catch. I've updated the post to reflect this.

@sureiam said: Additionally a more thorough network test of routing is always appreciated and in my experienced missing from most reviews. For example via their looking glass I found their Dallas site had several hops less and lower pings from multiple locations vs other providers I'd tested. Which caught my attention.

I'm also somewhat picky about the peering finding he.net, level3 (uncommon in the "low end" space), ntt route better for udp type services then say cogent. But only after running a traceroute from multiple locations would you be able to establish that.

I will consider doing this.. I thought about it earlier. Perhaps traceroutes to a set of specified locations - maybe 1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, and my ASN or something. Would that be good?
As for testing multiple locations, I wouldn't want to do this because the review is for the VPS, not the provider overall.

Thanks for your input

BloomVPS · July 2020

Curious how those are dedicated threads? There are only 20 threads on that processor so if they are dedicated then the total revenue on that server is less than $35.

sureiam · July 2020

@BloomVPS said:
Curious how those are dedicated threads? There are only 20 threads on that processor so if they are dedicated then the total revenue on that server is less than $35.

I'm sure the provider could go into more detail but here's my analysis at least.

That's actually dual CPU so 40 threads. They ran a promo with limited number of dedicated 2core, 4core (thread) options with really minimal pricing between. The 4core option sold out fast so they probably only provisioned very few of those and were more meant to catch the eye. The 2core was my guess more plentiful and only about $1 less at $5ish a month. The promo is also for now at least over and they've gained a ton of traction from it.

But I agree it's margin razor thin for sure

BloomVPS · July 2020

@sureiam said:

@BloomVPS said:
Curious how those are dedicated threads? There are only 20 threads on that processor so if they are dedicated then the total revenue on that server is less than $35.

I'm sure the provider could go into more detail but here's my analysis at least.

That's actually dual CPU so 40 threads. They ran a promo with limited number of dedicated 2core, 4core (thread) options with really minimal pricing between. The 4core option sold out fast so they probably only provisioned very few of those and were more meant to catch the eye. The 2core was my guess more plentiful and only about $1 less at $5ish a month. The promo is also for now at least over and they've gained a ton of traction from it.

But I agree it's margin razor thin for sure

Ah the double CPU definitely makes it less shocking but agreed margins must be thin.

Not_Oles · July 2020

@Unixfy said: Let me know what you think!

As a native English speaker, it amazes me how much work non-native English speakers do to get along in English! I've tried to learn a bit of French, Spanish, and Chinese. It just blows me over to imagine what I would have to do to set up a website in any of these three which I know a little bit or any other non-English languages.

The thought crossed my mind to ask Hotlineservers if they wanted a little help with their English.

I like your blog and your personal website, Alex! There is a sense of design which is not overdone. Your English is pretty good, too!

Do you know wenyanwen and guwen? Whenever I try to learn a character and understand its etymology, I get all confused. Luckily, I forget everything by the next morning.

Someday maybe somebody will explain to me why it was considered okay to simplify "love" by removing "heart." I appreciate that more people (but not me) can read when the characters are simpler, but removing the "heart" from "love" seems a bit too much.

Best wishes from Mexico!

Unixfy · July 2020

@Not_Oles said: I like your blog and your personal website, Alex! There is a sense of design which is not overdone. Your English is pretty good, too!

Thank you very much! I have been speaking English for a long time (since I was quite young) so that's why

@Not_Oles said: Do you know wenyanwen and guwen? Whenever I try to learn a character and understand its etymology, I get all confused. Luckily, I forget everything by the next morning.

Unfortunately my Chinese is not good, I can't read or write it (apart from basics like 1-10).

Thank you for your comment

serv_ee · July 2020

Im on the same boat with OP.

Love the service, only had to contact them once tho, to get the free DA. Really nice perk. Got the 8GB one with the promotion. Cant complain at all at that price.

Now to the English part, Ive received a few emails from them (about the Miami node) and to be fair, you can understand what they want to say but the wording and spell checking wouldnt hurt either

TheDP · July 2020

Nice and clean review.

Well done.

bibble · July 2020

@Unixfy bench all the locations please. Especially the Europe and Ryzen ones for comparison.

Perhaps @hotlineservers can sponsor you, or just think of it as an investment for your blog

Iroshan464 · July 2020

I have Montreal, so if you need can give temp access. ?

Unixfy · July 2020

@bibble said: Perhaps @hotlineservers can sponsor you, or just think of it as an investment for your blog

Good idea - I'll ask Hotlineservers

@Iroshan464 said: I have Montreal, so if you need can give temp access. ?

Sent you a PM. Thanks very much!

vyas · July 2020

@Unixfy said:

Good idea - I'll ask Hotlineservers

See what you started... ? :-)

Ouji · July 2020

I can provide a bench for the Miami Ryzen server, just let me know. I think one can also be found in the dedicated benchmark threads.

EDIT: Here it goes.

YABS

# ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #
#              Yet-Another-Bench-Script              #
#                     v2020-02-10                    #
# https://github.com/masonr/yet-another-bench-script #
# ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #

Mon 08 Jun 2020 08:06:55 PM EDT

Basic System Information:
---------------------------------
Processor  : AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
CPU cores  : 4 @ 3792.874 MHz
AES-NI     : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✔ Enabled
RAM        : 7.7Gi
Swap       : 1.0Gi
Disk       : 157G

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4kb           (IOPS) | 64kb          (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 361.03 MB/s  (90.2k) | 2.19 GB/s    (34.2k)
Write      | 361.99 MB/s  (90.4k) | 2.20 GB/s    (34.4k)
Total      | 723.03 MB/s (180.7k) | 4.39 GB/s    (68.6k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512kb         (IOPS) | 1mb           (IOPS)
  ------   | -----          ----  | ---            ---- 
Read       | 1.05 GB/s     (2.0k) | 906.86 MB/s    (885)
Write      | 1.11 GB/s     (2.1k) | 967.26 MB/s    (944)
Total      | 2.16 GB/s     (4.2k) | 1.87 GB/s     (1.8k)

iperf3 Network Speed Tests (IPv4):
---------------------------------
Provider                  | Location (Link)           | Send Speed      | Recv Speed     
                          |                           |                 |                
Bouygues Telecom          | Paris, FR (10G)           | 839 Mbits/sec   | 1.65 Gbits/sec 
Online.net                | Paris, FR (10G)           | 716 Mbits/sec   | 1.72 Gbits/sec 
WorldStream               | The Netherlands (10G)     | 841 Mbits/sec   | 1.23 Gbits/sec 
wilhelm.tel               | Hamburg, DE (10G)         | 271 Mbits/sec   | 1.48 Gbits/sec 
Biznet                    | Bogor, Indonesia (1G)     | 446 Mbits/sec   | 328 Mbits/sec  
Hostkey                   | Moscow, RU (1G)           | 562 Mbits/sec   | 834 Mbits/sec  
Velocity Online           | Tallahassee, FL, US (10G) | 1.64 Gbits/sec  | 3.02 Gbits/sec 
Airstream Communications  | Eau Claire, WI, US (10G)  | 1.65 Gbits/sec  | 4.22 Gbits/sec 
Hurricane Electric        | Fremont, CA, US (10G)     | 892 Mbits/sec   | 2.68 Gbits/sec 

Performing Geekbench 5 benchmark test. This may take a couple minutes to completGeekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 1379                          
Multi Core      | 4561                          
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/2457412

Monster bench

 Region: Global  https://bench.monster v.1.5.0 2020-01-11 
 Usage : curl -LsO bench.monster/speedtest.sh; bash speedtest.sh -Global

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 OS           : Debian GNU/Linux 10 (64 Bit)
 Virt/Kernel  : KVM / 4.19.0-5-amd64
 CPU Model    : AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
 CPU Cores    : 4 @ 3792.874 MHz x86_64 512 KB Cache
 CPU Flags    : AES-NI Enabled & VM-x/AMD-V Enabled
 Load Average : 0.10, 0.22, 0.11
 Total Space  : 157G (3.0G ~3% used)
 Total RAM    : 7878 MB (72 MB + 95 MB Buff in use)
 Total SWAP   : 1022 MB (0 MB in use)
 Uptime       : 0 days 6:35
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ASN & ISP    : AS23470, ReliableSite.Net LLC
 Organization : ReliableSite.Net LLC
 Location     : Miami, United States / US
 Region       : Florida
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

 ## Geekbench v4 CPU Benchmark:

  Single Core : 5771  (EXCELLENT)
   Multi Core : 18234

 ## IO Test

 CPU Speed:
    bzip2     : 142 MB/s
   sha256     : 287 MB/s
   md5sum     : 681 MB/s

 RAM Speed:
   Avg. write : 3174.4 MB/s
   Avg. read  : 10717.9 MB/s

 Disk Speed:
   1st run    : 596 MB/s
   2nd run    : 468 MB/s
   3rd run    : 483 MB/s
   -----------------------
   Average    : 515.7 MB/s

 ## Global Speedtest

 Location                       Upload           Download         Ping   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Speedtest.net                  22.05 Mbit/s     154.28 Mbit/s   * 218.302 ms
 Singapore (FirstMedia)         18.67 Mbit/s     21.57 Mbit/s    232.470 ms
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unixfy · July 2020

Happy independence day! I have posted my benchmark of Hotlineservers's Montreal location, which was kindly loaned to me by @Iroshan464
Check it out here: https://blog.unixfy.net/hotlineservers-benchmark-8gb-montreal/

Ouji · July 2020

@Unixfy said: Happy independence day! I have posted my benchmark of Hotlineservers's Montreal location, which was kindly loaned to me by @Iroshan464

How long would you take to run all tests? I can lend my Ryzen Miami as well

Unixfy · July 2020

@Ouji said: How long would you take to run all tests? I can lend my Ryzen Miami as well

It took me about 30 minutes - but I was doing it while a bit distracted.

If you (or anyone else) is interested in loaning me a server for benchmarks, please add my public key (available here: https://unixfy.s3.amazonaws.com/pubkey.txt) and send me a PM.

terrorgen · July 2020

@Not_Oles said:
Someday maybe somebody will explain to me why it was considered okay to simplify "love" by removing "heart." I appreciate that more people (but not me) can read when the characters are simpler, but removing the "heart" from "love" seems a bit too much.

It's used as a weapon to show that "commies are bad"!

Truth is, people have been writing the "heartless love" since at least the 1200s as a shortcut.

Chinese characters in today's form, is "just is" and don't carry any pictographical meaning anymore like their predecessors do.

Unixfy · July 2020

Thanks to the generosity of @Ouji , I was able to perform a benchmark on the Miami location, with awesome Ryzen 3900X CPUs. The performance is fantastic (for the most part), take a look: https://blog.unixfy.net/hotlineservers-benchmark-8gb-ryzen-miami/

Not_Oles · July 2020

@terrorgen said: Truth is, people have been writing the "heartless love" since at least the 1200s as a shortcut.

Yeah, got it! I had understood generally that many of the character simplifications were based on long established shortcuts, but I wasn't aware that heartless love was one of these.

I have asked quite a few people about this particular shortcut, and nobody of those I asked said that heartless love was long established.

Thanks for taking time to help me understand one Chinese character better! I really appreciate it!

And, by the way, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that anybody was "bad."

Not_Oles · July 2020

@Not_Oles said: The thought crossed my mind to ask Hotlineservers if they wanted a little help with their English.

@hotlineservers No strings attached.

terrorgen · July 2020

@Not_Oles said:

@terrorgen said: Truth is, people have been writing the "heartless love" since at least the 1200s as a shortcut.

Yeah, got it! I had understood generally that many of the character simplifications were based on long established shortcuts, but I wasn't aware that heartless love was one of these.

I have asked quite a few people about this particular shortcut, and nobody of those I asked said that heartless love was long established.

Thanks for taking time to help me understand one Chinese character better! I really appreciate it!

And, by the way, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that anybody was "bad."

Oh no, I don't think you do. It is the people who put out the message.

"Love" without "heart"
"Relatives" that don't "meet"
"Bread" without "wheat"
"Mentor" without "moral"

See, commies are bad!

xfilm · July 2020

Amazing support from Bryan.

sureiam · July 2020

As a native speaker I haven't really caught anything in support conversations that lead me to believe their English was poor. Got my VPS yesterday though and so far super impressed. Gonna put it through its paces over the next few days

Ouji · July 2020

Forgot to tell, but +1 on Bryan's support. Really top notch so far.

ouvoun · July 2020

Hmm with 50% off that’s a...pretty insane deal. Reminds me of the HostD*C deals back in the day, which makes me question the sustainability of Hotline. With that said, I’m always down for some spicy Ryzen servers so I’ll be keeping one eye open.

Great review, by the way!

HotlineServers.com Review

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