What's the lowest amount of RAM for a VPS?

[Yumi]

Free VPSes are somewhat problematic TBH. I'd go shared hosting and possibly add SSH (no root).
There's a reason why people don't often give away free VPSes, unless it's to their friends or something (in which, you probably won't be giving out that many).

[KuJoe]

How are they problematic? I'm probably only going to give out about 50 or so.

[frostschutz]

This user has been denied support.

Do you have 50 IPs?

[KuJoe]

No but they are really cheap when you buy them in bulk.

[KuJoe]

Just for fun...

processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3220  @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 11
cpu MHz         : 2400.084
cache size      : 4096 KB

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 15
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3220  @ 2.40GHz
stepping        : 11
cpu MHz         : 2400.084
cache size      : 4096 KB

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:            64         53         10          0          1         15
-/+ buffers/cache:         36         27
Swap:          127          9        118

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/simfs            5.0G  1.4G  3.4G  29% /
/dev                   32M     0   32M   0% /dev
none                   32M     0   32M   0% /dev/shm

Linux version 2.6.18-128.4.1.el5xen ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-44)) #1 SMP Tue Aug 4 20:51:12 EDT 2009

==============================================================
BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 4.1-wht.2)
System -- Linux tset.jweb2.com 2.6.18-128.4.1.el5xen #1 SMP Tue Aug 4 20:51:12 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
/dev/simfs             5160576   1378500   3519932  29% /

Start Benchmark Run: Fri Aug 28 07:51:30 PDT 2009
 07:51:30 up 2 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.50, 0.17, 0.05

End Benchmark Run: Fri Aug 28 08:02:07 PDT 2009
 08:02:07 up 12 min,  1 user,  load average: 14.20, 6.38, 2.88


                     INDEX VALUES
TEST                                        BASELINE     RESULT      INDEX

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        376783.7 11690762.8      310.3
Double-Precision Whetstone                      83.1     1171.6      141.0
Execl Throughput                               188.3     2894.8      153.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         2672.0   105561.0      395.1
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           1077.0    27465.0      255.0
File Read 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        15382.0   673536.0      437.9
Pipe Throughput                             111814.6   631205.0       56.5
Pipe-based Context Switching                 15448.6   174810.0      113.2
Process Creation                               569.3     6050.7      106.3
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    44.8      865.3      193.1
System Call Overhead                        114433.5   542460.6       47.4
                                                                 =========
     FINAL SCORE                                                     160.7

This is with LXLab's HostInABox setup.

[Lo.]

Wow...

[KuJoe]

I plan on running some more tests but from the looks of it I'll be handing out free VPSs by next week.

[Lo.]

Please please please please! Don't forget me. If you want you can use me as a tester

[KuJoe]

Just ran some HTTP stress test...

** SIEGE 2.69
** Preparing 25 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:                    2870 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  59.15 secs
Data transferred:              13.80 MB
Response time:                  0.00 secs
Transaction rate:              48.52 trans/sec
Throughput:                     0.23 MB/sec
Concurrency:                    0.17
Successful transactions:           0
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:            5.05
Shortest transaction:           0.00

** SIEGE 2.69
** Preparing 50 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:                    5673 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  59.92 secs
Data transferred:              27.28 MB
Response time:                  0.02 secs
Transaction rate:              94.68 trans/sec
Throughput:                     0.46 MB/sec
Concurrency:                    1.55
Successful transactions:           0
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:            2.22
Shortest transaction:           0.00

** SIEGE 2.69
** Preparing 100 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:                   11958 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  60.02 secs
Data transferred:              57.51 MB
Response time:                  0.00 secs
Transaction rate:             199.23 trans/sec
Throughput:                     0.96 MB/sec
Concurrency:                    0.19
Successful transactions:           0
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:            0.04
Shortest transaction:           0.00

** SIEGE 2.69
** Preparing 200 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:                    8251 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  29.50 secs
Data transferred:              39.68 MB
Response time:                  0.21 secs
Transaction rate:             279.69 trans/sec
Throughput:                     1.35 MB/sec
Concurrency:                   59.80
Successful transactions:           0
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:            9.19
Shortest transaction:           0.00

** SIEGE 2.69
** Preparing 400 concurrent users for battle.
The server is now under siege...
...
Lifting the server siege...      done.
Transactions:                     996 hits
Availability:                 100.00 %
Elapsed time:                  36.23 secs
Data transferred:               4.79 MB
Response time:                  4.72 secs
Transaction rate:              27.49 trans/sec
Throughput:                     0.13 MB/sec
Concurrency:                  129.69
Successful transactions:           0
Failed transactions:               0
Longest transaction:           32.01
Shortest transaction:           0.00

Ok so 200 users at a time is a lot for a 64MB VPS (but still no dropped transactions even at 400 users at a time), but 100 users at at time seems to be doable. Keep in mind this is for a static HTML page and the last 2 tests (200 and 400 users) were only for 30 seconds each instead of 60 seconds. I would have tried further but there was not enough memory to run 500 users at once.

[labrocca]

I would agree that anything under 128MB is a waste and you would be better off with a shared hosting environment. People want VPS's normally don't need them. Shared hosts are pretty good nowadays and very cost effective. Why run a server that's subpar (VPS) and deal with updating and maintaining. It's likely if you have a VPS it's not managed and the renter has no clue how to manage it. You can rent a server for fairly cheap at many places for as little as $50 and you'll get much better specs than a VPS. Hosts love VPS as it's a total money maker. They can split up a server 10+ ways and not do a thing for you.

I have shared hosting at 2 places and never had any serious issues. Dreamhost has handled Mybb Central along with a couple dozen other sites totally fine for about $8 a month.