“4 vCPU and NVMe” on a pricing page is a promise. How much of it you actually get depends on how heavily the provider has packed the server. You can check in 15 minutes on a freshly created server.
1. Disk: throughput and IOPS
fio --name=t --rw=randrw --bs=4k --size=1G --numjobs=4 --iodepth=32 --runtime=30 --group_reporting
Benchmark for NVMe: 20 000+ IOPS on 4k random reads. Below 3 000 means SATA SSD or an overloaded array; below 500 is HDD, whatever the pricing page says. A quick check without fio: dd if=/dev/zero of=test bs=1M count=1024 oflag=direct — 500+ MB/s on NVMe.
2. CPU: “stolen” time
top — look at st (steal) in the CPU line. It’s the percentage of time the hypervisor gave to other customers instead of you. 0–2% is normal; 10% or more means the server is oversold and your “vCPU” is really a third of a core. To gauge speed: sysbench cpu --threads=4 run, and compare with known processors.
3. Memory: is swap standing in for RAM
free -m — the advertised amount should be fully visible. Ballooning (when memory is reclaimed for neighbors) shows up as a gap between total and what you can actually allocate: stress-ng --vm 1 --vm-bytes 90% -t 60.
4. Network: to you and to the world
speedtest-cli or iperf3 to a server in Tashkent and to Europe. For a website with a local audience, latency from Tashkent is what matters: ping should be 2–10 ms from local ISPs; 40+ ms means the server isn’t in Uzbekistan, whatever they tell you.
5. Neighbors: how noisy they are
Run the disk and CPU tests three times at different times of day — morning, evening and night. A spread of more than 30% means performance depends on your neighbors. With an honest provider, results are stable.
6. Panel and support
- Can you change resources without reinstalling, and how long does it take?
- Are snapshots, a console (VNC) and OS reinstall available from the panel?
- Send support a test question — the response time and quality will tell you more than any SLA.
What you should see
| Metric | Good | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| 4k random read | > 20 000 IOPS | < 3 000 IOPS |
| CPU steal | < 2% | > 10% |
| Ping from Tashkent | < 10 ms | > 40 ms |
| Day/night test variance | < 15% | > 30% |
| Support reply to a test question | fast and to the point | a template or a day later |
At MyCloud, you get 1 day free — the server’s launch day isn’t billed (the first charge is at the next 00:00), so you can run all six tests on that same day.
Need help with the task from this article?
We’ll pick a configuration, calculate the cost and help with the move.