A year with Nexus Bytes

imok · January 2021

It's been a year since I got my first server with @seriesn. I only get yearly services from reputable providers and Nexus Bytes is one of them.

I currently have 2 servers.

VPS 4G Preorder Special in Los Angeles (4GB RAM, 4 cores, 120GB NVMe)

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Thu Jan  7 16:23:40 -05 2021

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        : 3.7 GiB
Swap       : 0.0 KiB
Disk       : 118.1 GiB

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50):
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Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 216.56 MB/s  (54.1k) | 2.39 GB/s    (37.3k)
Write      | 217.13 MB/s  (54.2k) | 2.40 GB/s    (37.5k)
Total      | 433.69 MB/s (108.4k) | 4.79 GB/s    (74.9k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 3.15 GB/s     (6.1k) | 2.78 GB/s     (2.7k)
Write      | 3.32 GB/s     (6.4k) | 2.96 GB/s     (2.8k)
Total      | 6.48 GB/s    (12.6k) | 5.75 GB/s     (5.6k)

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 904                           
Multi Core      | 2558                          
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/5760987

VPS 8G (8 GB RAM, 8 big cores, 160GB NVMe) sponsored by Mark from DirectAdmin

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Thu Jan  7 16:27:28 -05 2021

Basic System Information:
---------------------------------
Processor  : AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16-Core Processor
CPU cores  : 8 @ 3493.436 MHz
AES-NI     : ✔ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✔ Enabled
RAM        : 7.6 GiB
Swap       : 4.0 GiB
Disk       : 155.9 GiB

fio Disk Speed Tests (Mixed R/W 50/50):
---------------------------------
Block Size | 4k            (IOPS) | 64k           (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 308.22 MB/s  (77.0k) | 3.18 GB/s    (49.8k)
Write      | 309.03 MB/s  (77.2k) | 3.20 GB/s    (50.0k)
Total      | 617.26 MB/s (154.3k) | 6.39 GB/s    (99.9k)
           |                      |                     
Block Size | 512k          (IOPS) | 1m            (IOPS)
  ------   | ---            ----  | ----           ---- 
Read       | 3.81 GB/s     (7.4k) | 3.88 GB/s     (3.7k)
Write      | 4.02 GB/s     (7.8k) | 4.14 GB/s     (4.0k)
Total      | 7.83 GB/s    (15.3k) | 8.03 GB/s     (7.8k)

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
---------------------------------
Test            | Value                         
                |                               
Single Core     | 1163                          
Multi Core      | 5579                          
Full Test       | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/5760975

I still feel bad for choosing a big server. I'm sorry Mark. Thank you for everything!

No network tests because I don't want to run out of bandwith and firewall is enabled.

I used to have smaller ones but they were backup machines and they were idling too much time so I cancelled them.

Impressive Ryzen CPU, impressive disk speeds for both. Every cent spend with these servers are well paid. I haven't had any outage I think, except for a partial network cut last month affecting the connection to another datacenter in US where I keep my databases.

I've opened some tickets and they have been responded in minutes at any time of the day, always ready to help. Jay even helped me in an unthinkable way when I had problems with my virtualization software. Also, it's nice to have a personal license for Direct Admin which I'm using in Miami and, as I've just renewed until 2022, I'm moving LA from nginx to OLS with DA too.

They also offer ApisCP and Blesta for free. I'm planing to start building some themes for this kind of software so being a NB customer is a perfect fit.

A+. Will buy again for sure. And thank you for the memes.

dahartigan · January 2021

Nexus Bytes is very sexy (in a George Clooney kinda way)

@imok said: Every cent spend with these servers are well paid

Agreed 100% - not the lowest priced host, but definitely affordable and absolutely worth it.

vpsgeek3333 · January 2021

They definitely are among some of the best providers around.

Not_Oles · January 2021

Reading this thread made me happy! ✨?✨

seriesn · January 2021

Y'all are far too kind!!

From Bob and his family:

gks · January 2021

Good to see @seriesn , having price balance always good for long run. The most important thing, when the market around is crazy, extremely competitive, you providing reasonable, stable pricing, being cool with patience and winning people heart.

I had no chance to work with your service, luckily I have mike.pt, smallweb, inception hosting services [awesome guys] but waiting for next offer to grab something from you.

yoursunny · January 2021

@gks said:
I had no chance to work with your service, luckily I have mike.pt, smallweb, inception hosting services [awesome guys] but waiting for next offer to grab something from you.

Sign up for the free hosting and put up a page like this https://treefiddy.yoursunny.cn
After 4 months, you'll save $3 service fee if you receive a service transfer.

Jord · January 2021

Nexusbytes is prem

ehab · January 2021

@yoursunny said:
Don't be like yoursunny. Always buy NexusBytes at full price.

NO
nnoooo

yoursunny · January 2021

@ehab said:

@yoursunny said:
Don't be like yoursunny. Always buy NexusBytes at full price.

NO
nnoooo

You wanna pay 35% more?
Request ADD35 coupon then.

Or you can get a free NexusBytes box if you do 1000 push-ups in 24 hours.
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3182031/#Comment_3182031

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

@yoursunny said: yoursunny will buy NexusBytes VPS when he has 269 push-up videos.

If you can do 269 push-up in one day, I will throw in a 26.9% recurring discount code in your honor!

If I do a thousand would that be a 100% recurring discount code?

Mr Military,
If you can make thousand happen in 1 day (24 hours), I think you deserve a 200% discount code.

ehab · January 2021

@yoursunny said:

have a nice weekend. talk again soon.

seriesn · January 2021

@yoursunny said:

@ehab said:

@yoursunny said:
Don't be like yoursunny. Always buy NexusBytes at full price.

NO
nnoooo

You wanna pay 35% more?
Request ADD35 coupon then.

Or you can get a free NexusBytes box if you do 1000 push-ups in 24 hours.
https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/3182031/#Comment_3182031

@seriesn said:

@poisson said:

@seriesn said:

@yoursunny said: yoursunny will buy NexusBytes VPS when he has 269 push-up videos.

If you can do 269 push-up in one day, I will throw in a 26.9% recurring discount code in your honor!

If I do a thousand would that be a 100% recurring discount code?

Mr Military,
If you can make thousand happen in 1 day (24 hours), I think you deserve a 200% discount code.

Send them push-up

Mr_Tom · January 2021

I read the 1000 pushups in 24 hours comment and my brain went "easy, we could do that" before realising that's quite a lot of pushups, and I haven't done any pushups in a while - so I went to try some.

ehab · January 2021

i only know how to do this

yoursunny · January 2021

I can sponsor @poisson with some protein bars. Terms:

Send me a training video every week.
Training videos are to be published exclusively on my website and other channels.
I'll aim to publish with 2-3 days.
I'll send one box of 10-12 protein bars per month, shipped by Target or Amazon.com to anywhere in continental United States.
First shipment after 2 videos.
Expected number of push-ups is 25 * week number.
When he/she reaches 1000 push-ups, there will be an extra box of protein bars.

imok · January 2021

I can do 10 pushups every 3 days.

cybertech · January 2021

@yoursunny said:
I can sponsor @poisson with some protein bars. Terms:

Send me a training video every week.

Training videos are to be published exclusively on my website and other channels.

I'll aim to publish with 2-3 days.

I'll send one box of 10-12 protein bars per month, shipped by Target or Amazon.com to anywhere in continental United States.

First shipment after 2 videos.

Expected number of push-ups is 25 * week number.

When he/she reaches 1000 push-ups, there will be an extra box of protein bars.

any special deal with say , 3 X one arm pushups?

yoursunny · January 2021

@cybertech said:

@yoursunny said:
I can sponsor @poisson with some protein bars. Terms:

Send me a training video every week.

Training videos are to be published exclusively on my website and other channels.

I'll aim to publish with 2-3 days.

I'll send one box of 10-12 protein bars per month, shipped by Target or Amazon.com to anywhere in continental United States.

First shipment after 2 videos.

Expected number of push-ups is 25 * week number.

When he/she reaches 1000 push-ups, there will be an extra box of protein bars.

any special deal with say , 3 X one arm pushups?

It's up to @seriesn on how to count toward 1000. I'll sponsor protein bars according to progress using the same formula.

seriesn · January 2021

@cybertech said:

@yoursunny said:
I can sponsor @poisson with some protein bars. Terms:

Send me a training video every week.

Training videos are to be published exclusively on my website and other channels.

I'll aim to publish with 2-3 days.

I'll send one box of 10-12 protein bars per month, shipped by Target or Amazon.com to anywhere in continental United States.

First shipment after 2 videos.

Expected number of push-ups is 25 * week number.

When he/she reaches 1000 push-ups, there will be an extra box of protein bars.

any special deal with say , 3 X one arm pushups?

If I can do 20 a day with one arm, I expect better from the healthier ones .

50x 1 Arm in one day (within 24 hours) = 25% discount. Valid for the first one.

imok · January 2021

I've just tried.

These are the results:

Zero.

Hxxx · January 2021

Is Nexus Bytes business material? Aka would you use Nexus Bytes for projects where you would had use Azure , AWS, GC, DO, Vultr, , Linode, RamNode? @imok

Ryzen alone is not a good representation of value in my eyes. Since that's a Desktop CPU, I see that as a sign for cheapo quality. With the exception of the original providers that introduced Ryzen as innovation (Exception) to the market, I mostly try to stay away from desktop hardware for server uses. The day I see providers like Linode , DO and Vultr using Ryzen that's the day I will see that as acceptable. Most enterprise grade providers use server grade hw, for instance a nice EPYC.

imok · January 2021

@Hxxx said: Is Nexus Bytes business material? Aka would you use Nexus Bytes for projects where you would had use Azure , AWS, GC, DO, Vultr, , Linode, RamNode?

I use NB for real projects, always keeping the safety measures I take with any other provider. I moved from DO and Vultr to NB because I found better performance with Ryzen. There are features I miss for sure.

It's worth mentioning I have had problems using nested virtualization with Proxmox (KVM/MariaDB/CentOS) on my server in Miami. Not sure if Ryzen was the reason.

yoursunny · January 2021

@seriesn said:

@cybertech said:

any special deal with say , 3 X one arm pushups?

If I can do 20 a day with one arm, I expect better from the healthier ones .

50x 1 Arm in one day (within 24 hours) = 25% discount. Valid for the first one.

No video, no evidence.

@imok said:
I've just tried.

These are the results:

Zero.

I tried also. Zero.

@Hxxx said:
Is Nexus Bytes business material? Aka would you use Nexus Bytes for projects where you would had use Azure , AWS, GC, DO, Vultr, , Linode, RamNode? @imok

No, because there's no hourly option and there's no API.
LowEndTalk is on DigitalOcean. When it was running slow on Thanksgiving, the administrator resized the VM by clicking a button, and there was only 5 minutes of downtimes.
AWS et al has API to create and destroy VM, so that the compute workload can be scaled on demand.

If you sell shoes online with one order per day and 100 orders on Black Friday, you are fine with a Byte.
If you are Walmart or Dropbox, you need the major cloud provider.

Ryzen alone is not a good representation of value in my eyes. Since that's a Desktop CPU, I see that as a sign for cheapo quality. With the exception of the original providers that introduced Ryzen as innovation (Exception) to the market, I mostly try to stay away from desktop hardware for server uses. The day I see providers like Linode , DO and Vultr using Ryzen that's the day I will see that as acceptable. Most enterprise grade providers use server grade hw, for instance a nice EPYC.

Ryzens are desktop processors, but it has valid use cases: when your workload cannot be parallelized but must run in a single thread, it would run faster on a 3.6 GHz Ryzen than on a 2.2 GHz EPYC.
However, non-parallelizable "P-complete" workload is uncommon.

If you are processing network packets, it can almost always run in parallel.
Database queries can run in parallel to some extent also.

seriesn · January 2021

@Hxxx said: Is Nexus Bytes business material? Aka would you use Nexus Bytes for projects where you would had use Azure , AWS, GC, DO, Vultr, , Linode, RamNode? @imok

Fantastic question. No comments on that. We have had a decent bunch who chose us over vultr and DO. Not everyone needs the fancy API or hourly billing or all the other things. We also lost a bunch over to them, for the same fancy thing as I mentioned right now. So mix goodie bag.

@Hxxx said: Ryzen alone is not a good representation of value in my eyes. Since that's a Desktop CPU, I see that as a sign for cheapo quality.

Well you see my friend, I hear this way too often. But no one ever bothers to explain why a "Desktop" grade CPU is not as good as a "Server grade" cpu, in 2019/2020/2021. What does Epyc offer that the Ryzen doesn't? Specially when the underlying technology is exactly the same?

Would love to have at least 3 pointer that justifies paying tripple for the same or less power.

I could have chosen a cheaper XEON e3 or e5 and offered the service out of those boxes. But rather, I chose Ryzen simply because the ROI is much much better . It wasn't and still not the cheapest. But it does offer much much better bang for the bucks .

Remember when no one else was offering ssd based vps because "SSD" wasn't ready for production? Ramnode and buyvm did and fast forward today, every man and their dog runs ssd hosting.

The day I see providers like Linode , DO and Vultr using Ryzen that's the day I will see that as acceptable. Most enterprise grade providers use server grade hw, for instance a nice EPYC.

Linode is great and I love them for who they are. Fantastic bunch of people, genuine support and decent care. They are also charging you a premium for that and when you compare performance, there isn't much difference. Actually there is, the same exact stuff I run there takes ~ twice the more time to complete each task vs what I run on a similar spec VM on nb.
Note: Our whmcs installation is hosted on their system.
AWS is what I would call a true "Enterprise" grade hosting. Why? You need a damn certified expert to understand their overall system. Nothing wrong with it. I would trust them as much as I trust linode though and thus, I find no use of AWS in the "standard" vps world. Note: I am an heavy user of their Glacier product and S3 bucket is where we backup all our mission critical stuff.
DO pioneered cloud industry. Introduced features at a price point, that otherwise no one else would have though about introducing. They made budget "Cloud" industry.
Vultr runs their "clouds" on non redundant storage. They are just as much cloud as CC hosts are.

Everyone can have downtime and issues. That is sadly how the world works.

AWS Can go down - https://twitter.com/hashtag/awsoutage?lang=en
Linode can have outage - https://status.linode.com/history
GC can have outages to - https://status.cloud.google.com/summary
It seems Vultr has had their fair share of issues (Example and many more: https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/comments/9p8guj/careful_of_vultrcom_servers_down_for_10_hours/)
So does DO: https://status.digitalocean.com/history | Or this

No one is perfect. Everyone goes down, everyone loses data, everyone has their fair share of drama. It is what it is . Give use little guys a chance to grow, so we can pay our bills and continue to improve ourselves to becomes "Big Name" .

We do not compete with any provider. We can't. Some are way more skilled than us, some are older and more experienced, some got better fan following, some got unlimited VC money to run on loss for years. NB is a gourmet brand, that was built on hard work and love. This is a business that I take pride in. Our customers aren't just customers, they are our family members. And that is what makes us different . As I/we wrote on our website "We are not here to sell you our service, we are here to earn your business". When everyone was busy innovating the industry, we are busy bringing back the human spirit in an automated world.
We respect everyone and are inspired and sometimes AWED by their innovation. I always reach out to legends such as Fran, Ant and many other to ask for their advice and guidance. I look upto them and can only dream of ever coming halfway close to them. I still get giggly when I read NB getting mentioned right next to legendary brands. I am not a "CEO" of some Nerdy brand where you would see random press release with buzz words. We do not want volume. NB never wants to be the next DO/Vultr/Ramnode/AWS etc. There's no aim for global domination. We can't. These are big shoes to fill. We want to be "Nexus Bytes". A brand that you will love just as much as Ant loves his Dog and @Deank loves end. You never look at your Dog and say, I wish that other dog was my dog

Hxxx · January 2021

@seriesn fair response.
Mostly agree, highly disagree on the Ryzen and SSD analysis.

-Ryzen: Is just not server grade, server grade boards are barely available. Most builds are frankestein. Lots of people running these without ECC. Also manufacturer support. This is as crazy as running i7 CPU instead of Xeons for business hosting.

-SSD: Well this is a bigger dilemma. Durability is the keyword. By best practices you should not use consumer grade SSD for business hosting. Instead you buy DC SSD grade. More mileage, more expensive, its what the manufacturer certifies for server use.

seriesn · January 2021

@Hxxx said:
@seriesn fair response.
Mostly agree, highly disagree on the Ryzen and SSD analysis.

-Ryzen: Is just not server grade, server grade boards are barely available. Most builds are frankestein. Lots of people running these without ECC. Also manufacturer support. This is as crazy as running i7 CPU instead of Xeons for business hosting.

Wrong sir. Ryzen supports ecc. Some people chose to run without ecc to cut cost. Asrock got barebone . Point to be noted: AMD hasn't been mainstream for long enough and thus the lack of other vendors. Ryzen is more niche. I also assume manufactureres such as super micro probably are seating on huge inventory for the older mass used CPUs. As the product becomes more mainstream, so will the support.

Doesn't answer the question about why it is not good enough though. What are the downside of using ryzen on a server ?

-SSD: Well this is a bigger dilemma. Durability is the keyword. By best practices you should not use consumer grade SSD for business hosting. Instead you buy DC SSD grade. More mileage, more expensive, its what the manufacturer certifies for server use.

I meant more along the lines of when SSD first became mainstream. No one wanted to touch them and people even claimed that ssd aren't meant for commercial usage.

I do agree that enterprise grade hard drives by default would offer better mileage. So bad analogy on my end. Agreed.

Ain't nothing wrong with that chicken wing ?

Hxxx · January 2021

@seriesn
You mentioned it perfectly. Support of ECC depends on the board. Not many ECC capable boards even less boards with IPMI.

There is a thing called standards, if business hosting or enterprise hosting then you use actual supported and rated server grade hw.

Standards:
Intel says use Xeon for servers, we use Xeon for Servers. It's what they support for servers.
AMD says use EPYC for servers, we use EPYC for servers. It's what they support for servers.

Yes you can get away with running your business on Ryzen. Should you do it? *Depends on how serious is the business.

Agree to disagree I guess.

Hxxx · January 2021

I would understand the exception for Ryzen if Crypto, in that market there is no standard on what you use to mine. I guess is whatever works.

seriesn · January 2021

@Hxxx said:
@seriesn
You mentioned it perfectly. Support of ECC depends on the board. Not many ECC capable boards even less boards with IPMI.

It is still too new......

There is a thing called standards, if business hosting or enterprise hosting then you use actual supported and rated server grade hw.

I feel ya. It is all marketing end of the day. Kinda like how people used to say some years back, AMD isn't business grade and it is intel or nothing.

Standards:
Intel says use Xeon for servers, we use Xeon for Servers. It's what they support for servers.
AMD says use EPYC for servers, we use EPYC for servers. It's what they support for servers.

Essentially Nissan selling infinity for double the price, with the same exact engine. Marketing and money making spiel.

See for intel it had difference, where a Xeon would support ECC but a desktop grade CPU wouldn't. Or better caching.
Which is not the case for Ryzen vs Epyc. They simply built Epyc to sell the same product for more revenue to the "corporate" who likes to show their investors that they are serious business.

Yes you can get away with running your business on Ryzen. Should you do it? *Depends on how serious is the business.

That hurts. Much diss. Very wow.

Agree to disagree I guess.

That has definitely one of the most civil of an argument .

Mason · January 2021

@seriesn said: Essentially Nissan selling infinity for double the price, with the same exact engine.

I feel attacked

Hxxx · January 2021

Oh no "diss". Nothing personal, @seriesn high respect for you and the brand. Also the Ryzen thing was not supposed to derail.

Good response.

A year with Nexus Bytes

VPS 4G Preorder Special in Los Angeles (4GB RAM, 4 cores, 120GB NVMe)

VPS 8G (8 GB RAM, 8 big cores, 160GB NVMe) sponsored by Mark from DirectAdmin

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