what hosting method should i use?

Hey guys - I run a fairly popular server called awesomecraft, the ip is awesomecraft.info:25565 I'm running off of shared hosting that uses multicraft, however my server always has about 20 people on it during weekdays and 50-60 on the weekends. when my server has about 30 people online its running at about 12ticks/s and when theres 50-60 online its drops even lower to 5-8ticks/s.

here is the servers info:
latest bukkit build,
30 or so plugins
4GB ram
not once have i seen the server go above 65% of the ram usage, even with 60 people online.

now that i got all of that out of the way, I'm trying to figure out what i want to do, i have $150/mo for a budget, and I'm thinking of getting either a VPS or a small UK dedicated, but i just want to know some things:

will i have more lag if i move the server to UK
what kind of VPS should i get, XEN or openVZ
how much ram should i get
what is the best control panel to avoid using SSH

Thank you for your time,

~jake

 

Try craftbukkit++.

You should see better performance with a non-oversold Xen VPS. OpenVZ is notoriously bad with Java, and very easy to oversell with.

$150/month is enough for a dedicated server. Go look at Hetzner, OVH, etc if you want a European host, or DataShack, DediDirect, Incero, RazorServers, Yesuphost, etc if you want a US/Canadian host.

Either way, a dedi is a better choice for that budget.

Before you buy, go browse WHT's dedicated offers section, as you can always find great deals there, and I just listed a few hosts from the top of my head.

 

UK server prices are generally overpriced across the board, you'd be better off looking at OVH / Hetzner if you're set on an EU host. I can't advise enough against a control panel if you're using a dedi but it's up to you.

Edit: What he said^

 

Your lag is probably due to your CPU, not RAM.

If you're going to get a VPS, Xen is better, but it is more expensive.
As for RAM, you should go for 5 to 6GB. Assign 5 to the server (About 4GB for players, 1GB for plugins) and leave an extra GB for the system (Less if you run linux without a GUI)
Next, you need to worry about your CPU. If the hoster does not list the speed in GHz per core, send them an email or ticket asking. You should have at least 2GHz/core, and probably 3 or more cores.
Lastly, do NOT buy Minecraft specific hosting. Minecraft specific hosting might be slightly more tuned for the game, but they I've seen prices marked up 400%, which is definitely not worth it. Stick with general purpose hosting.

 

well first off i would like to say thanks for all of these speedy responses! never thought this community was this helpful!

secondly, i was looking at DataShack, and i'm wondering how they have there dedicated servers so cheap?! has anyone had first hand experience with them? since I'm thinking with going that way if there good, since i can get a
intel core i5 @ 3Ghz, 8GB ram, 5IPV4, 64IPV6, and Windows web 08 all for $104/mo!

has anyone used windows to host larger servers? I'm not a big fan of linux mostly because i haven't really used it besides setting up a 128MB VPS for my TS3 server.

 

I don't have first hand experience with DataShack, but a few people on this forum do, I believe @FearGump has a dedi from them.

I've heard good things in general about them though. They've been exploding in growth, and have their own datacenter now.

I don't like Windows, but there's nothing really wrong with it... Just the larger resource usage, lowered security and horrible platform... IDK...

That hardware looks good. A SSD or more RAM would be boss, but most likely overkill for your current needs.

If you ditch windows, you could do a i5 with dual 500gb drives and a 64gb ssd and 16GB of RAM for $149/month...

 

well its either me using windows, or using mcmyadmin, so either way i guess the resource usage and lowered security balances out xD

pure overkill, my world is only 1.5GB actually, TORRENT BOX HERE I COME!!! haha jk

EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.