Oh no! Why do I need another VPS for? Anyway, I have just signed up with SliceHost earlier this week, getting a 256Mb “Slice” of Xen-powered VPS, running Gentoo Linux on their dual dual-core Opteron servers. So far so good, and here’s my initial impression.
SliceHost is pretty new on the VPS hosting scene. They have only been “officially” started in early August 2006, and surprisingly no one has talked about them on WHT. They offer Xen hosting at very affordable price. The 256Mb slice costs only USD$20/month.
However, there are a few things unique about SliceHost.
Update January 2007
Many people have asked for my email address for referral code. Here it is — you can use the following link to sign up:
manage.slicehost.com/customers/signup?referrer=4193984
I do get some credit to my SliceHost account if your account is in good standing for 3 months.
Non-overselling
First of all, they don’t oversell — and they boldly claimed so on their website. We already know that you can’t oversell on Xen, as hardware node needs to have enough physical memory and disk storage for all its domU nodes. The monthly data transfer limit on their plans are also so small that led me to believe that they don’t oversell their bandwidth either.
For example their 256Mb slice has been limited to only 40Gb data transfer per month (not that I am ever going to use that much). There will be maximum 24 slices per server (makes sense on a 8Gb box), which means 960Gb/month if all slices used all their data transfer allowance. That’s merely 3Mbits per second bandwidth.
So what you get is good burstable bandwidth at most of the time. Pulling Gentoo packages from nearest mirror gives me constantly 2+Mbytes/sec, which is very nice. Downloading the speed test is about 1Mbytes/sec from both east and west coast, which is not bad.
Built for developers
Founder of SliceHost, Matt Tanase, is a Ruby-on-Rails developer, and from his blog and forum posts, he has demonstrated that he knows what developers need in web hosting. If you too are a software developer looking at hosting your applications, would you go for the ones that is crowded with CPanel resellers with 100+ websites, or this one that has a community with similar mind set?
The entire website is built on RoR — not just the home page, but all the billing, VPS management, etc are all custom built RoR applications. Very clean design. Nice Ajax here and there. Very well done.
Oh, they also have all the communication tools a hosting company should have. Forum (powered by Vanilla), Blog (powered by Typo) and Wiki (powered by Doku). It even has a live chat powered by 37signals’ Campfire.
Fast Xen Provisioning
My account was created instantly after credit card info has been verified, and a VPS slice is provisioned to me right away. I click on Gentoo 2006.1 to be installed on the VPS. A few minutes later, I was given an IP address and root password. It’s that simple.
64bit Hardware and OS
The hardware node that I am on has dual AMD Opteron 265, which is a 64bit dual core processor running at 1.8Ghz. Pretty fast, although there are faster Opterons out there. I think they probably have picked this range for the best bang for the buck. In comparison the hardware node on my Unixshell VPS account has dual Opteron 246, a single core running at 2Ghz, and also a 64bit CPU.
However, the Gentoo Linux template they used is targetted for amd64 — so you don’t actually only get 64bit hardware, your whole operating system is also running at full 64bit! I think they should have advertise it as a “feature”. Take a look at this:
$ python -c "print __import__('sys').maxint"
9223372036854775807
It does make some of my crappy C programs barking at the compilers, as I am still using those “old” 32bit machines at home. I guess it is time to have them fixed :)
Anything Negative?
What negatives? Well, let me try to think of some…
First of all, SliceHost does not have console login. That means if you are blocked outside of your VPS because of network configuration issue (bad routing, firewall, etc), then you can’t get in. Nor when your VPS crashed so badly that it needs an fsck. Console login would be useful here, even though it is a feature you never would want to use.
Update: SliceHost has added console access via AjaxTerm. Not only it lets you fix up totally fubar’ed VPS, but also let you manage your system when SSH connection is not permitted.
Again, the bandwidth limit might not be enough for many who are in the market looking for VPS hosting. However I feel SliceHost is not designed for reselling webhosting, but for web developers to bootstrap their “Next Big Thing” before moving to dedicated boxes.
Update: SliceHost has just upped their monthly data transfer to 100Gb, 200Gb and 400Gb for their 3 VPS plans. That’s more than enough for me.
Conclusion
That’s about it for now. I can’t comment on stability, availability, etc as it’s a pretty new service, and I have only been here for a few days. Nor have I got any site running yet (which I plan to do this weekend). However, my first impression is, it is really a great unmanaged VPS service for software developers and Linux geeks.
I shall report back in 3 month time on how everything goes.
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Scott an update - we just enabled our Ajax console login, accessible via the SliceManager portal. This was a big request and we think our customers will really enjoy it.
Screenshots and more info here:
http://blog.slicehost.com/articles/2006/09/18/ajax-console-for-your-slice
I signed up for slicehost vps and then changed my mind - deciding i wanted to go the cpanel route. I requested a refund and was promply responded to and fairly interacted with.
Another vote for slicehost here. I’ll be back.
http://nuzu.net
You can get a cPanel with a Slice, just get a centos Slice, then ask one of these two companies to install a cPanel on there for you, the VPS license is $15 a month last time I checked.
http://www.cpanel.net/
or
http://www.instantcpanellicense.com/
You’d probably want to disable root login via ssh and other fun stuff like that too though. Those things are covered in the Slicehost articles.
Oh yeah. I love AjaxTerm (which I wrote about it here), and thanks for getting that integrated with console access.
Won’t send a ticket to you next time when SSHd refuses to start :)
Now if only they offered thinner slices for those on a ‘low resource’ Xen diet…
This was convincing and I tried to buy a Slicehost. But their online form is broken and replied to me:
1 error prohibited this customer from being saved
There were problems with the following fields:
A few hours after my rant, the bug was fixed and my machine is now up and running :-)
that’s the way it usually happens. ha ha. :)
Thanks for the review. Is your Drupal blog hosted on your Slicehost VPS?
Yup. It is currently.
Thx Scotty. I currently have 4 shared accounts (on 1and1, HostGator and Surpass Hosting). These sites cost me about $50/month. All are running non-critical, low activity/low volume sites based on Drupal (less than 1GB Total storage and less than 1.5GB transfer per month).
I’m itching to get my hands dirty with live RoR apps, so I am considering consolidating everything to a slicehost VPS. It looks like I can roll them all to a 256slice, get Rails capability and save $30/month.
My domains are registered/managed via GoDaddy, so I should not have to worry about wresting them from the hosting providers. I’ll need to learn how to handle a VPS, but it sure seems like a no-brainer to me. Anything I might be missing, or should strongly consider before taking the plunge?
Your thoughts are appreciated.
DD.
Donovan,
One thing I am sure is — Drupal definitely runs happier on a VPS than shared hosting. It has been almost 6 months since I had my SliceHost VPS, and I am still very happy about it.
The gotchas of VPS is, however, the server-management side of things, in case where the service is unmanaged. That includes installing and configuring web servers, database, mail servers, PHP, etc. Also you need to be diligent in keeping up all the security updates.
SliceHost has a pretty friendly forum, and I think you should go there and check out. I am sure Matt, Jason and other SliceHost consumers are happy to answer your questions.
Scott
Hi scott, I am looking at buying a vps account. But I am not too good in setting up dns and such. Though I can manage setting up apache, mysql and php. Could you direct me to a good tutorial which explains the setting up of these things - especially dns and nameserver part ?
Even better, it will be really great idea if you could write a short tutorial on setting these things up on the vps. I really enjoy your articles.
Jake
Thanks for the review. Is your Drupal blog hosted on your Slicehost VPS?
Thanks for the insight and suggestions Scott. I’ve decided to give Slicehost a try. I’ll spend some time in the forums before taking the plunge, and I will use your referral link above to subscribe.
Three more questions:
1) Which Linux distribution are you using?
2) Is one preferrable for Drupal hosting?
3) Is the Drupal-preferrable distribution RoR friendly? i.e., will I compromise RoR by optimizing for Drupal?
Thanks again. I am soooo glad I stumbled-upon your site.
DD.
Hi Donovan,
I think the best way to run it is by setting up small web server such as Nginx, and use it to either
It should also be possible to do the same on Apache (which I guess Drupal will be most happy with). SliceHost’s forum has more experts on RoR so do ask questions there :)
Scott,
Your guidance has moved me significantly closer to having a real Rails testbed and saving some cash in the process. I plan to start my slice project this weekend. Thanks.
DD.
Thanks for your help Scott. I activated my 256slice yesterday (using your affiliate link). Building a “machine” from scratch definitely was a learning process. Fortunately, the SliceHost Wiki has a number of examples that are newbie-oriented.
I ended up using a guide that installed Ubuntu, FastCGI, Mongrel and MySQL (There was another guide that used Apache as a web server, but that was suggested for the more “advanced” developer.). The Mongrel-based install worked without a hitch and I was able to get Rails up and running with one shot.
Do you know if Drupal will work with this configuration, or do I need to install Apache for Drupal? I searched for “mongrel” on Drupal.org but received 0 hits. I also googled it but found no reference to Drupal operation with Mongrel. I suspect that this means that I’ll need to instal Apache, but figured I would ask to confirm.
Thx again,
Donovan.
it helped me a lot too, thanks for the info scott.
Thanks for the guidance Scott. I’ve been using PowerVPS for a while, so I think I’ll give Slicehost a try.
Tom
Does slicehost ever have any promos/discounts?
Only if you prepaid a certain amount.
Thanks for your help Scott. I activated my 256slice yesterday (using your affiliate link). Building a “machine” from scratch definitely was a learning process. Fortunately, the SliceHost Wiki has a number of examples that are newbie-oriented. İslami Sohbet
I ended up using a guide that installed Ubuntu, FastCGI, Mongrel and MySQL (There was another guide that used Apache as a web server, but that was suggested for the more “advanced” developer.). The Mongrel-based install worked without a hitch and I was able to get Rails up and running with one shot. İslami Sohbet
Do you know if Drupal will work with this configuration, or do I need to install Apache for Drupal? I searched for “mongrel” on Drupal.org but received 0 hits. I also googled it but found no reference to Drupal operation with Mongrel. I suspect that this means that I’ll need to instal Apache, but figured I would ask to confirm.
What did you put on your front end of Mongrel? Lighttpd or Nginx?
Drupal runs on PHP which has no problem running on FastCGI. This site (also powered by Drupal) runs on Lighttpd and you certainly don’t need to install Apache.
Slicehost review was very informative. Thank you
The only one “Negative”… they does not accept payment via Paypal or Google Payment.
Yeah. When I joined up with them, I was surprised they weren’t “forcing” you to buy anything you didn’t need. Are you still using Slice now?
This was a great review. I’ve been looking for a good vps with great support in my budget for a while. I did some checking and they are every bit as helpful and responsive as you say. So as a result of this review I signed up with slicehost last week, using you as a referral.
another referral link to you:)
My domains are registered/managed via GoDaddy, so I should not have to worry about wresting them from the hosting providers. I’ll need to learn how to handle
Estetik a VPS, but it sure seems like a no-brainer to me. Anything I might be missing, or should strongly consider before taking the plunge?
Having used both Linode and Slicehost . Which one do you find better. A looking at a web application pretty much for the oz market.
Slicehost review was very informative. Thank you
Great review been looking for a hosting company such as Slicehost, are your currently using this as well?
thanks, Randal Brice
This is some what strange for me but I feel the need to let every one know of my experience with Slicehost for VPS hosting. I can’t say anything about their costumer service because I never had the need to contact them about any problem and thats a good thing in my opinion.I’m really pleased about this site.
So is this still the same since this article was written almost 2 years ago? I just found out about it.
I’ve been using SliceHost for about, let’s see:
$ uptime 08:09:48 up 108 days, 21:03, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01
180 days I guess. My slice has never gone down in that time, which is really great, and I have no complaints about the setup, configuration, company, etc.
I think SliceHost is really great for developing and tinkering, BUT before you launch a real production site on it, you would be wise to run some realistic benchmarks of your application. When I first signed up, a Python script that did a 50-50 mix of CPU and disk ran in a few minutes. But within a few weeks, it started to take 30 minutes. Programs and scripts that do CPU-bound loops seem to be more stable and predictable, but when you throw lots of disk I/O into the mix, my experience is that performance can be wildly varying. I timed an identical script on a Slice (256) and on a 3-year-old AMD Athlon 2200 with a 160GB IDE drive (ie, not at all state of the art), and my AMD box ran the script in 3 minutes while the Slice ran the script in 30 minutes. This script does a lot of disk I/O. On the Slice, where the script ran in 30 minutes, top showed CPU usage at very low numbers, like 3%, and vmstat showed that the machine was spending all its time waiting on I/O. On the physical AMD box, where the script ran in 3 minutes, top showed CPU usage of 80-90%. A different script that was a simple CPU loop showed that these two machines were more or less equivalent. Because of the huge performance difference for my particular program, I had to move development to my local box.
Doing capacity planning for a web site is already very hard because of the unpredictable nature of traffic. I agree that SliceHost is good for that in a way, because you can scale your capacity more easily. But SliceHost contributes to the problem also, because the performance of your SliceHost configuration, in my experience, can be varying and unpredictable.
They state on their site that if there is extra capacity available, you get to use it. While that sounds good in theory, it may have contributed to the wild fluctuations I experienced. If that’s true, SliceHost needs to allow me to selectively enable or disable this feature, so that when I’m doing capacity planning and benchmarking, I will only get the minimum guaranteed resources.
There is a problem with VPSs in that when applications do lost of disk based work, the disks can’t handle it because they are shared, most probably over a network.
It is a feature of VPSs that cannot be really work around unless high end (read expensive) SAN systems are used.
Python script that did a 50-50 mix of CPU and disk ran in a few minutes. But within a few weeks, it started to take 30 minutes. Programs and scripts that do CPU-bound loops seem to be more stable and predictable, but when you throw lots of disk I/O into the mix, my experience is that performance can be wildly varying. I timed an identical script on a Slice (256) and on a 3-year-old AMD Athlon 2200 with a 160GB IDE drive Auto Hifi
I moved to SliceHost after becoming fed-up with my then shared hosting provider who shall remain nameless but is well known for spending lots of money on ‘hot’ looking babes and Superbowl ads.
The author is right that you will need to be comfortable with a Linux shell to get started, but if you are, then lots of good things await you. For one, my slice has consistently excellent response times. This is what I care about. I run a e-commerce website and I don’t want users to have to wait 5-10 seconds for a page to load (as was the case with that other hosting provider who’s initials are GD). My HTTP monitoring service regularly pings the webserver from all around the world and gets sub second response times! everytime!! Thats what counts, not busty girls taking hot, steamy showers!
Also, their support group is A-1. I put some questions to them about virtualization within the slice and these guys were spot-on with their answers. It didn’t require me to restate the question or dumb it down. They are quick to reply and really helpful.
My only concern is that SliceHost might become too successful and become bought-out (and sell out). Currently, it is an awesome service and I fear that if that success becomes widely known then everyone will jump on it and then some fat company will come and buy them up and rip out their soul. I notice the Rackspace have already aquired them. I hope RS know when to leave a good thing be.
PS. One other nice feature of SliceHost accounts is that they are all running on RAID disks. If you are running a production system (or even a development system that you can’t risk spending days recreating and re-installing should a disk die) then you have to have RAID. Most hosting providers charge more for just this feature than do SliceHost for the whole slice! There is real value in SliceHost! Check them out.
Sounds like slicehost is a no-go for serious database applications due to the storage layer limitations… thanks for the comments, those are really helpful.
Serious database applications are very disk IO hungry and I do not think VPS with shared disks are suitable. Then again that depends on how “serious” it is and how much you can optimise around it.
The downside of slicehost is that their T&Cs would leave you high and dry for any reason, at any time, with zero notice. Why are they afraid to assure their customers that they will be treated fairly?
It seems to me, their “taking” of your data and code hosted on their server is not even legal.
Here’s the clause from: http://www.slicehost.com/tos
Slicehost may cancel or suspend your access to Slicehost services at any time and for any reason without notice. Upon cancellation or suspension, your right to use the service will stop immediately. You may not have access to data that you stored on the service after we suspend or terminate the service.
I’ve never used Slicehost but was looking into it. Unfortunately this is pretty much what happens with all hosting services. This is one of the reasons I would never use shared hosting except for small sights, and I NEVER use anything that advertises unlimited usage for anything. There is no such thing as unlimited and I’d rather know my limits and be able to abide by them and be warned if I need to upgrade than be surprised one day when they “randomly decide” that I surpassed reasonable usage limits and suspended my account. But the problem of not having access to your data is a real one and is why if you’re hosting you need to make sure you keep regular local backups or risk losing it for unknown reasons.
I’m using a guide that installed Ubuntu, FastCGI, Mongrel and MySQL (There was another guide that used Apache as a web server, but that was suggested for the more “advanced” developer.). The Mongrel-based install worked without a hitch and I was able to get Rails up and running with one shot. Do you know if Drupal will work with this configuration, or do I need to install Apache for Drupal? I searched for “mongrel” on Drupal.org but received
thanks for man
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