[LightDestory]

Here we go again, this time I am going to review my experience with the new KVM-based VPS 9 from Buffalo by VirMach. If you have missed my review of the OpenVZ-based, you can read it here.

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Short introduction

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Well, I think that VPS 9 don't need any big/verbose introduction: it has nice SSD capacity, it has nice RAM amount and now it is based on KVM... there isn't anything missing that you could ask for.

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Review

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Like always, let's recall the amazing specs of this VPS:

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Specifications

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Disk Space: 100 GB SSD**

RAM: 8 GB

IP Addresses: 1x IPv4

Virtualization: KVM

Monthly Traffic: 4 TB

Location: Buffalo (US)

Control Panel: No CP for the Holder

Connection: 1Gbps

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** By the second migration wave, VirMach introduced a new "variable disk capacity" feature: the VPS has 100GB guaranteed but without any action it will have just the right amount you use. For example right now I am using VPS 9 with 57GB of storage. I could ask to max-out the disk again but right now there isn't any need.

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Benchmark

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Unfortunately it seems that Post4VPS's benchmark script by @sohamb03 is now unable to finish the Ipv4 test, so I can only show you a old benchmark that I did as soon as I got KVM.

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System Info

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Processor       : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz
CPU Cores       : 2
Frequency       : 2499.998 MHz
Memory          : 7978 MB
Swap            : 31 MB
Uptime          : 1 days, 1:50,
OS              : Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Arch            : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel          : 4.19.0-6-amd64
Hostname        : *JUST A HOSTNAME*

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Speedtest (IPv4 only)

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Location                Provider        Speed
CDN                     Cachefly        105MB/s

Atlanta, GA, US         Coloat          43.1MB/s
Dallas, TX, US          Softlayer       29.2MB/s
Seattle, WA, US         Softlayer       14.4MB/s
San Jose, CA, US        Softlayer       16.1MB/s
Washington, DC, US      Leaseweb        71.9MB/s

Sao Paulo, Brazil       Softlayer       8.29MB/s

Singapore               Softlayer       5.50MB/s
Taiwan                  Hinet           3.21MB/s
Tokyo, Japan            Linode          12.6MB/s

Nuremberg, Germany      Hetzner         19.1MB/s
Rotterdam, Netherlands  id3.net         24.4MB/s                                                                        
Haarlem, Netherlands    Leaseweb        96.4MB/s
Milan, Italy            Softlayer       24.4MB/s

Melbourne, AU           Softlayer       5.22MB/s

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Disk Speed

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I/O (1st run)   : 328 MB/s
I/O (2nd run)   : 364 MB/s
I/O (3rd run)   : 372 MB/s
Average I/O     : 354.667 MB/s

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My experience

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After the migration to KVM, some problem occurred due to VirMach "migration method" but everything has been solved refreshing the OS. I know that some other VPS 9 got sick after the migrations, VPS 9 Phoenix holded by @deanhills at the moment. My VPS has been great and functional since the refresh, no issue with SSH.
I am now running Debian 10 with my full LNMP stack (Linux-nginx-MySQL-PHP) and docker, I am trying out a Minecraft Server dockerized .
I am running my services as always without any issue, almost every configuration I had on OpenVZ has been easily set-up.
The user-experience is still the same as before, almost nothing changed except for the updated kernel, so I don't have much to talk about. Well, comparing to the old benchmark you can see a lower Disk Speed but also a GREATER network speed, so I can't complain at all.
The only thing that I didn't understand was the "lacking" of newer KVM images, the available OSes are likely the same as OpenVZ, new OSes as Ubuntu 19.XX, CentOS 8, Fedore 31 are still unavailable.
You can refer to my old review for more information.

You can still see the on-going on the VPS following my domain: lightdestory's site

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Conclusion

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VPS 9 is a very powerful and valuable VPS, but you need to know how to use Unix-systems due to the lack of a Control Panel. VPS 9 is still a unmanaged VPS but... I can guarantee that no special action are needed to work with it. If you are brave enough you can also beat my record of "unopened support ticket".
You can run almost everything on this VPS, without worry much about vecause VirMach'TOS isn't strict!

I want to end this review thanking:

• @Dynamo for creating Post4VPS community that allowed me to use this VPS;
  
• @deanhills for supporting me when I did crazy things and I had to ask for his support to restart from scratch;
  
• @"Hidden Refuge" for his tutorials, I used some of them to set-up my environment;
  
• @sohamb03 (and again @"Hidden Refuge")for creating Post4VPS' benchmark script;
  
• Virmach for sponsoring these amazing VPSes;
  

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[Mashiro]

I reported the issue with the speed test to @sohamb03 after debugging it and finding out it is just a dead mirror where wget gets stuck forever on initiating the connection. See here.

If you wish you can us my script meanwhile: https://github.com/hidden-refuge/bench-sh-2

[tryp4vps]

Very nice review. I have to say I particularly like your way of presentation because the review is easy to read.

For the VPS 9, I have similar experience as yours, and I am also satisfied with the overall performance after switching to KVM from OpenVZ.

[deanhills]

@LightDestory Great review as per usual. Very important feedback for all VPS 9 holders as well.  Am very happy you've managed to sort everything out - seems as though you are completely on top of the VPS - both the good which seems to be the overriding element and the not so good - of which there is little to worry about.

I agree with the lack of OS being a not so good situation, but can only imagine once Virmach has consolidated its upgrade to KVM, that possibly there must be plenty of feedback about their need to sort that out.  I recall they had Ubuntu 18.5 up as a download option at one stage, and someone at post4vps tried it, and it didn't work, and then the next day the option in the Admin Panel for installing Ubuntu 18 was removed.  So there must be technical stuff Virmach must overcome in order to have more OS options available.  

Also, there's a new alert in the Admin Panel OS download options that CentOS 7.0 doesn't work with protected IPs.  My new IP must have been a protected IP, as when I moved back to CentOS 6.5 I didn't even have to disable SeLinux - everything worked right off the bat, except for trying to change the port number.  Unfortunately of course CentOS 8.0 is still not available either.  As following @"Hidden Refuge"s discussion about the new OS would have been nice to be able to try it out.  So a slight backward move in not being able to use the same CentOS 7.0 that I had before, and now having to use CentOS 6.5 but at least it works and without the need to disable SeLinux.

I seem to be OK too now with having my main blog running for the first time since beginning of November just before my VPS was upgraded.  Like I can use my VPS as I did before (without port number change) and the only main drawback - like a really big one in my case is how they have configured my new IP.  I still have to get the hang of how they did it as I'm not completely knowledgeable with how Virmach configured a German IP to work as an IP from Phoenix.  However, I'm sure that's the reason my speed has gone down to less than a third of the original speed (my ISP is in South Africa).  The ping has gone up more than three times what it originally was with the previous IP - so latency is not that great to make an understatement - in comparison with what it had been before. It's still OK in speed though, and one could probably say it went from SUPER fast to reasonably fast. I'm wondering whether I could ask Virmach if they could make my VPS location Germany instead - like wouldn't that be better for the VPS performance?

I had issues too with changing the Port Number.  The very first time I tried with CentOS 7.0, it worked two sessions, and then something must have reset possibly in the Firewall, maybe a protection element in the VPS, or who knows, maybe something else.  I retried this right up to my current OS CentOS 6.5 and still the same problem.  Compared with previous, when I only had to do the port number change once and never had an issue with the Port Number after.  It lasted for almost a year to the extent I wasn't even aware of having a different port number.

I'm at peace for now and once again a VPS 9 Phoenix up and running holder, and am planning to experiment more with fixing the port number and other issues, before I add all of my other Websites.  I still maintain my position however that VPS 9 is not ideal for beginner users, unless the user is in your category of a specialist in how to set the VPS up to work around some of the issues.  The silver lining perhaps is it's a great learning tool for how to overcome some of the issues.  Which you seem to have done in spades!