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Apologize if I shouldn't ask this here.

I want to acquire a VPS or a Dedicated. I read about VPS and Dedicated and the differences but I don't understand something...

Is a VPS with some resources (X CPU cores, Y RAM, Z Bandwidth etc) the SAME as a Dedicated with exactly the same resources (X CPU cores, Y RAM, Z Bandwidth etc)?

I saw VPSs are cheaper than Dedicated even with same resources. What is the difference? If there is a difference is it big (affecting the performance so much)?

Thank you very much!

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    I'm not going to add an answer, but one thing to consider is security - although somewhat rare, there are documented vulnerabilities for breaking out of virtualized containers. This means that if some other VPS customer's site has a vulnerability, someone could theoretically break into their site and pivot all the way up to controlling the server your VPS is on. It shouldn't be an issue if your host keeps everything updated and patched - but there are plenty of third-rate webhosts that take the lazy approach!
    – Jake
    Aug 25, 2017 at 19:50

1 Answer 1

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In the best case, it will be of similar performance (with a slight performance impact due to the virt overhead). In the worst case with a bad provider, you end up in a "up to X" situation where the provider overcommits resources and if people start to use those resources, things get slow.

VPSs are cheaper because even a good provider can overcommit (selling more resources then he really has, because in reality, most servers idle most of the time) and also because there is a big overhead to run a physical server and it's much cheaper to run one powerful server that then runs a number of smaller VPSs instead of running the same number of physical servers.

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    Also on top, the OP Misses the most critical factor: IO bandwidth (IOPS). Often a problem in dedicated hardware, but once you have 20 VM's hitting the same discs.... better make sure the provider is using only SSD.
    – TomTom
    Aug 25, 2017 at 16:00
  • Thank you very much! @TomTom thank you, I really missed that. Aug 25, 2017 at 16:45
  • OTOH, Somebody building a good server to carry VPSes has good reason to invest in a good I/O and storage subsystem, which can be to your advantage in peak load scenarios. A VMWare instance on a non-overloaded box with, say, an LSI9280+BBU (an older but honest RAID card) and VMWare's IMHO excellent drivers and decent disks will S M O K E a dedicated server equipped with "the cheapest bargain basement parts that we can sell as RAID" when it comes to I/O. Aug 25, 2017 at 20:41
  • @rackandboneman: This is not what this question is about.
    – Sven
    Aug 25, 2017 at 20:48
  • @Sven it is something that in that context, especially among claims that I/O is going to be a potential problem, need be said. NMNL. Aug 26, 2017 at 13:08

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