NVMe VPS Hosting
Low-latency NVMe storage on KVM infrastructure in Amsterdam and New York.
What NVMe
actually means
The storage protocol NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) functions between SSDs which connect through PCIe interfaces for their storage requirements. The drive functions independently from SATA SSDs because it omits the need for conventional interface systems.
- The NVMe interface operates through PCIe lanes which provide direct storage device access without the performance limitations that SATA controllers impose.
- The system achieves sub-millisecond latency which is faster than SATA SSDs since they take several milliseconds to respond.
- Higher parallel queue depth (64K+ vs. SATA's 32)
- The storage solution operates best when handling high IOPS operations together with unpredictable data retrieval requests.
Our NVMe
architecture
The process of implementing NVMe storage for VPS instances.
- The system uses a RAID10 configuration with NVMe storage which operates directly from the local machine thus avoiding any performance limitations that would occur from using a shared SAN storage system.
- Queue depth requirements need to match the actual workload requirements instead of surpassing them.
- The system uses either ext4 or xfs filesystems which have been optimized for production environments.
- Benchmarks use direct I/O (O_DIRECT), no page cache inflation
- No overselling of the storage layer
RAID10: stripe + mirror
Measured
performance
YABS fio mixed 50/50, identical config per provider. Median and p95 published; no best-run cherry-picking.
In our Amsterdam comparison (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, Dedicated CPU), BuyVPS leads on disk and database metrics versus OVH, Vultr and DigitalOcean.
Real-world
impact
Practical effects for production workloads.
- The system achieves two main performance improvements through its database optimization which enhances PostgreSQL and MySQL query speed and decreases I/O wait times.
- Lower API response time under concurrent load
- Faster deployment and build times (CI/CD)
- The system decreases I/O wait times which occur when the CPU performs demanding tasks.
The system underwent testing through pgbench and real workload pattern evaluation.
NVMe vs SATA SSD
vs network storage
| Feature | NVMe | SATA SSD | Network Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latency | Lower | Medium | Higher |
| IOPS | Higher | Lower | Variable |
| Queue depth | High | Limited | Dependent |
| Consistency | Stable | Moderate | Shared |
Who needs
NVMe
The following section demonstrates specific situations which require NVMe storage technology to function effectively.
- SaaS applications with database backends
- High-concurrency APIs
- Databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis)
- Game servers
- CI/CD workloads
The system contains six use cases which are SaaS and API and DB and Game and CI/CD and Cache.
Technical
transparency
For infrastructure specialists.
- The write parity overhead is absent in RAID10 operations.
- SMART monitoring and wear-level policy
- Snapshot behavior documented
- No overselling of storage layer
Questions.
Clear answers.
Everything about NVMe storage, performance, deployment and infrastructure in Amsterdam and New York. Direct. Transparent. No surprises.