VPS Plex Server with Cache not performing well

[mjmayer]

@jasanson How has performance been for you? Rclone on ssdnodes has been working well for me when using direct play in plex. Transcoding video has been miserable. A 1920x1080 video (7011 kbps bit rate) won’t play well. It looks CPU bound. top will report the plex transcoding process will use between 200-250% cpu. But with 4 cores, this seems like it still should be ok. Direct stream has been working fine.

Have you had any transcoding issues?

@daniel-ssdnodes When transcoding video I’m seeing steal times in top regularly in the 20-40. Which indicates the node may be oversubscribed.

[jasanson (Jude)]

I typically don’t transcode but on the odd occasion that I’ve tested it recently I find that its performing great. I just ran a five minute test and had no problems. Netdata shows steal as averaging approximately 3 (range of 0 to 6).

[jasanson (Jude)]

In terms of overall performance everything has been working very well.

The server is now located closer to me. The network peering between my location and the server is significantly better and this seems to have had a major positive effect.

[daniel-ssdnodes (Daniel Ayers)]

@mjmayer You seem to expect to have dedicated use of CPU cores. You don’t.

You have purchased a USD$10/month VPS plan that gives you certain resources - including the ability to use up to your allocated amount of RAM, the ability to use up to a set amount of disk space and shared use of a certain number of CPU cores.

That is the practice in the VPS industry. Plans are shared CPU unless they are specifically stated to provide dedicated cores (and expect to pay for that, cores are expensive). Its the same on Vultr, DO, AWS, etc (some of those offer plans stated to be dedicated CPU, we don’t).

It also has to be said it’s not realistic to expect dedicated use of 2-4 cores on a VPS that costs $10/month.

Lets take Vultr as an example. Today they are offering 4 dedicated cores, 16Gb RAM, 240Gb storage and 20Tb network transfer … for USD$120/month.

So if you would like to be able to transcode whenever you want for as long as you want, that would be a good plan for you. Of course, it will cost you $120/month. Your SSD Nodes plan with similar specs (but shared CPU instead of dedicated) costs you $120 per year.

And, just for comparison, their standard 4 core plan (only 8Gb RAM, 100Gb storage, 4Tb network transfer) costs USD$40/month. That’s shared CPU.

This is probably a good time to point out that your SSD Nodes plan offers more RAM than the equivalent Vultr plan, but costs only a quarter of what they charge.

I haven’t done a market survey to find the cheapest/best dedicated CPU plans for people who want to transcode with Plex. Dedicated CPU is not a market we are in (at present). You may be able to find cheaper dedicated core plans - although if they are very cheap, they most likely aren’t really dedicated core. As I said, cores are expensive.

My point is you can’t buy a very cost-effective shared CPU plan and then complain you can’t use all the CPU anytime you want to.

Plex wasn’t designed to run in a VPS environment. If you want to run it on a shared CPU VPS plan, you can’t expect to transcode. Direct play works very well, as @jasanson says. If you need to transcode, buy dedicated CPU.

Daniel.

[nigelbb]

You have purchased a USD$10/month VPS plan that gives you certain resources - including the ability to use up to your allocated amount of RAM, the ability to use up to a set amount of disk space and shared use of a certain number of CPU cores.

That is the practice in the VPS industry. Plans are shared CPU unless they are specifically stated to provide dedicated cores (and expect to pay for that, cores are expensive). Its the same on Vultr, DO, AWS, etc (some of those offer plans stated to be dedicated CPU, we don’t).

I actually paid $119.99 for a year i.e $10 month for a KVM / X-LARGE but according to the SSD Nodes website what I am renting is an $80/month VPS server which is currently on sale at just $8.99/month. https://www.ssdnodes.com So forgive me my scepticism when I hear “What do you expect for $10/month?”. It is sold as an $80/month VPS & I expect it to perform like one otherwise the special offer price means nothing. It’s just another bit of hype like claiming that you get four CPU cores when all you get is the illusion of a four core CPU that never in any testing performs like a true four core CPU.

I thought that I was getting a really special launch deal & compared the offering with other hosts offering a VPS for $80/month. Was this all lies?

[Animosity022]

That’s marketing my friend. You don’t get $80 a month for $8 a month. It’s a shared VPS and for $8 a month, you are not going to get dedicated performance.

soyoucanstart is $40 a month for a dedicated machine. That’s the cheapest I’ve found locally for me over the years and any other VPS isn’t going to give you dedicated performance.

[nigelbb]

That’s not marketing. That’s lying. SSD Nodes are claiming that what they offer is an $80/month VPS that if you sign up quick you can get at a bargain price.For them to then come on this forum & say “What do you expect for $10/month” is disingenuous to say the least. Their claims for the value of their products are as wild as their claims for the performance of those products. If SSD NOdes don’t like legitimate customer complaints then they should stop overselling & overhyping their products.

[Animosity022]

I live near an outlets. There is a store that’s seemingly always 60% off everything in the store.

At $80 a month, I can 2 dedicated machines at soyoucanstart so I’m doubtful that’s there actual price when the sale finishes.

If you want dedicated, you pay more.