Clues.ro - Romania - XEN- starting from 4.00 € /month - 256MB RAM / 10GB HDD

Disclaimer:

I am in no way affiliated with VPSAce.com but I have been a customer of theirs for around 1 month. This server was benchmarked and reviewed whilst it was not in production. Therefore it should be noted that the below results are of a server currently being not used.
 

Introduction:

Clues.ro is offering 5 different types of XEN based Virtual Private Servers
in Romania. The cheapest server costs 4€ per month and is offering:

•     10GB HDD
•     256MB RAM   
•     1Gbit
•     unlimited Transfer
•     full root
•     SolusVM

I bought this server one month ago.

First Start & Support & Communication

You buy the server by the WHCMS panel. That was quite easy, I got the login information within minutes.

I tried to contact the "Live Chat" 2 times in order to understand why the speed is even so slow within Romania. I'm still waiting for a response.

Their nodes specification: Super Nodes, 96GB RAM, 12-Core 24-Thread, SSD + SATA + RAID.

Hardware Information

CPU-Infos

root@server1:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 44
model name    : Genuine Intel(R) CPU             000  @ 2.27GHz
stepping    : 0
cpu MHz        : 2266.794
cache size    : 12288 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 1
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 1
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 11
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu de tsc msr pae cx8 apic sep cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx lm constant_tsc ida arat pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5704.19
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment    : 64
address sizes    : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Mem-Info:

root@server1:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 44
model name    : Genuine Intel(R) CPU             000  @ 2.27GHz
stepping    : 0
cpu MHz        : 2266.794
cache size    : 12288 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 1
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 1
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 11
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu de tsc msr pae cx8 apic sep cmov pat clflush acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx lm constant_tsc ida arat pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm
bogomips    : 5704.19
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment    : 64
address sizes    : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
Inode Allocation:

root@server1:~# df -i
Dateisystem           Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Eingehängt auf
/dev/xvda1           1310720   25068 1285652    2% /
tmpfs                  32768       4   32764    1% /lib/init/rw
udev                   32768      52   32716    1% /dev
tmpfs                  32768       3   32765    1% /dev/shm

vmstat:

root@server1:~# vmstat
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu----
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa
 0  0      4   4156  94440 115244    0    0     0     4   10    3  0  0 99  1

The Network

The network port is a 1Gbit line. This are my results:

CPU model :  Genuine Intel(R) CPU             000  @ 2.27GHz
Number of cores : 1
CPU frequency :  2266.794 MHz
Total amount of ram : 256 MB
Total amount of swap : 63 MB
System uptime :   23 days, 16:12,      
Download speed from CacheFly: 7,01MB/s
Download speed from Coloat, Atlanta GA: 335KB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Dallas, TX: 1,99MB/s
Download speed from Linode, Tokyo, JP: 77,3KB/s
Download speed from i3d.net, NL: 233KB/s
Download speed from Leaseweb, Haarlem, NL: 4,58MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Singapore: 1,07MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Seattle, WA: 1,67MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, San Jose, CA: 1,68MB/s
Download speed from Softlayer, Washington, DC: 2,43MB/s
I/O speed : 8 MB/s

Another test:

Testing from Clues on IT SRL (89.46.100.xxx)...
Selecting best server based on ping...
Hosted by TELECABLU (Adjud) [72.94 km]: 18.358 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 104.30 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 92.14 Mbit/s

From speedtest.tele2.net

Verbindungsaufbau zu speedtest.tele2.net|90.130.66.198|:80... verbunden.
HTTP-Anforderung gesendet, warte auf Antwort... 200 OK
Länge: 104857600 (100M) [application/zip]
In »/dev/null« speichern.

100%[======================================>] 104.857.600  480K/s   in 2m 51s

2013-12-13 19:56:24 (599 KB/s) - »/dev/null« gespeichert [104857600/104857600]

Upload:

ftp> put 100MB.zip
local: 100MB.zip remote: 100MB.zip
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
104857600 bytes sent in 14.15 secs (7239.1 kB/s)

Traceroute:

traceroute to qdsl.de (213.148.129.40), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  cheap-vps-provided-by.clues.ro (89.46.100.1)  6.125 ms * *
 2  te3-8.212.ccr01.buh02.atlas.cogentco.com (149.11.146.93)  6.045 ms  6.021 ms  5.997 ms
 3  te0-6-0-6.ccr21.buh01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.181)  5.974 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr21.buh01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.177)  5.956 ms te0-6-0-6.ccr21.buh01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.61.181)  5.931 ms
 4  be2198.ccr21.bts01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.109)  26.799 ms  26.793 ms  26.771 ms
 5  be2221.ccr21.vie01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.48.142)  26.750 ms be2222.ccr21.vie01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.50)  26.735 ms  26.707 ms
 6  level3.vie01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.14.30)  49.867 ms  25.767 ms  25.747 ms
 7  ae-0-11.bar1.Vienna1.Level3.net (4.69.153.149)  25.726 ms  25.715 ms  25.696 ms
 8  ae-12-12.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.153.146)  40.847 ms  40.838 ms  40.765 ms
 9  ae-93-93.csw4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.163.14)  40.748 ms ae-83-83.csw3.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.163.10)  40.733 ms ae-63-63.csw1.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.163.2)  40.717 ms
10  ae-2-70.edge5.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.154.73)  40.701 ms  40.685 ms *
11  core1.fra.qsc.de (195.16.160.6)  35.009 ms  34.993 ms  34.972 ms
12  core4.cgn.qsc.de (87.234.12.218)  44.976 ms  44.967 ms  40.834 ms
13  core5.cgn.qsc.de (87.234.11.202)  49.538 ms  49.528 ms  49.512 ms
14  gw.qsc.de (213.148.128.70)  45.145 ms  45.135 ms  45.119 ms
15  www.qsc.de (213.148.129.40)  45.101 ms  39.680 ms  39.662 ms

Ping:

root@server1:/tmp# ping heise.de
PING heise.de (193.99.144.77) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 193.99.144.77: icmp_req=1 ttl=244 time=38.7 ms
64 bytes from 193.99.144.77: icmp_req=2 ttl=244 time=36.9 ms
64 bytes from 193.99.144.77: icmp_req=3 ttl=244 time=38.8 ms
64 bytes from 193.99.144.77: icmp_req=4 ttl=244 time=37.7 ms
64 bytes from 193.99.144.77: icmp_req=5 ttl=244 time=37.9 ms

The connectivity is average. I still wonder why the upload speed is higher than the download speed. But it really doesn't look like a 1Gbit Port speed.
 

Conclusion:

Clues.ro is average. The prices are fair but I had expected a much higher connectivity in Romania. Maybe they just have problems with the connectivity. I contacted the support and make then another test.