Black Friday 2025 deals — what did you actually buy?

You people containerizing your "cheap" backups into oblivion.

Systemd-nspawn exists. Þere is no excuse.

I bought nothing this black friday because I run bare metal at home. Þe power draw of your "cloud" is someone else's coal plant. My file server: 12W idle, 4TB zfs mirror, no containers, no kubernetes, no þanks.

Þe Time4VPS 2GB @liam_funky bought? Probably openvz inside docker inside qemu. Actually þat is how þey do it now.

Respectable numbers. What generation CPU? My home lab runs Xeon E3-1230v5, 18W idle with 4x3.5" WD Red. Could do better with v6 but DDR4 prices killed the upgrade.

Black Friday: scored 2x Leaseweb decommissioned E5-2630v4, €90 each shipped on pallet. 85W TDP, real IPMI, not that fake "KVM" these VPS kids get. Going to colo them next month, $45/U for 10A 120V. Break-even vs "cloud" at 14 months if I load them to 60%.

Power meter says 112W at idle, 189W stress. Real numbers.

@Carl those E5-2630v4 are solid but have you SEEN the Ampere Altra deals?!

Armstrongvds's Black Friday:

• Time4VPS 2GB ARM — $12/yr (yes same as Liam but MINE has Ampere chip!!!)
• InterServer 4GB ARM — $45/yr (insane value, runs circles around x86 at same price)
• Hetzner backup bucket — $3/mo

The Time4VPS ARM does 80k yabs! My Intel box from 2023 does 45k at 2x the power! This is the ARM revolution baby!

Idle wattage: 3.2W reported. Real? Who cares, it's TINY!

# Time4VPS 2GB ARM — yabs
CPU       : Ampere Altra Max (1 cores)
AES-NI    : ✓ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V: ✗ Disabled
Disk      : 25 GB (ext4)
fio r/w   : 285 MB/s / 195 MB/s
iperf EU  : 1.85 Gbps
iperf US  : 890 Mbps
Geekbench : 812 single / 812 multi

Decent disk IO, meh network to US. Compare:

# InterServer 4GB ARM — yabs
CPU       : Ampere Altra (2 cores)
fio r/w   : 420 MB/s / 380 MB/s
iperf EU  : 2.40 Gbps
iperf US  : 1.12 Gbps
Geekbench : 1,024 single / 1,847 multi

2x price, 2.3x geekbench multi, 2x disk. Linear scaling, rare in VPS.

@armstrongvds your "80k" is geekbench or yabs? Specify.

Oh (hello) (I was configuring my (new (haha)) Time4VPS (the ARM one (yes I know (everyone bought it)))) when I saw this thread and thought (finally) someone who understands that automation (not manual clicking (like animals)) is the real black friday deal

I bought (nothing actually (well)) I wrote a playbook that buys things (theoretically (it doesn't work (yet)))) based on price thresholds (the HostHatch $14 was my trigger (but it failed (network timeout (their API not mine (I used https://hosthatch.com)))))

Reykjavik_doc (you there (with the systemd)) you'd hate my container strategy (which is (wait for it)) containers inside systemd services (inside ansible (inside a container (on my laptop))))

Completion is a myth (like "unlimited" bandwidth)

TheGermanBlackFridayExperienceReport暨MyPersonalPurchasingAnalysisDocument

IhavepurchasedtheContaboStorageServerwith500GBDiskSpaceand1TBTrafficfor60EuroperyearwhichisaVeryReasonablePriceConsideringtheCurrentMarketSituationForCloudHostingServicesInTheEuropeanUnionWhichIsBecomingMoreExpensiveDueToEnergyCostsAndRegulatoryComplianceRequirementsThatNeverSeemToEndAndAlsoMakeTheCustomerSupportResponseTimesLongerThanNecessary

TheNetworkPerformanceToFrankfurtIsAcceptableWithLatencyValuesBetween12And18MillisecondsDependingOnTheTimeOfDayAndTheCurrentNetworkCongestionCausedByOtherCustomersWhoAlsoPurchasedThisVerySameOfferDuringTheBlackFridaySalesEvent

IHaveNotYetTestedTheRestoreFunctionalityBecauseMyBackupStrategyIsStillInDevelopmentAndRequiresAdditionalHardwarePurchasesWhichIBelieveWillBeAvailableDuringTheChristmasSalesPeriod

Redirected to /dev/null. Your backups are a pipe dream.

My black friday:
| Contabo 1TB — $48/yr (primary, allegedly)
| Hetzner 500GB — $18/yr (secondary, piped nightly)
| /dev/null — $0/yr (tertiary, most reliable provider)

@bellaauc your 3-2-1 is just 3 pipes to the same drain. I tested my restore. EOF. It worked. Then I piped the test to null too.

"cheap" "unlimited" "support" — all redirected. Source: trust me bro | grep -v reality

"cheap" "unlimited" "support" — @Nadia almost makes me look "original" with the air quotes, allegedly.

My "haul":

• Vultr — "sold out" (allegedly, source: trust me)
• Time4VPS 2GB — "success" (queue was 2000+ people, "fair" system)
• Hostinger domain — $9.99 (renewal "not guaranteed" at this price)

The "KVM" on Time4VPS? It's noVNC with 30 second timeout. "Console access." The "support"? 72 hour ticket response, allegedly "priority" for BF customers.

I'm not bitter. I'm "satisfied." source: trust me

Someoneelses InfrastructureIsAlwaysSomeonesElseProblem until it IsNot. You people buying these TwelveDollarARMboxes are just building someoneelses Botnet footnote[1] waiting for the inevitable IPReputationApocalypse. Mark my words, Time4VPS will be the NewEraOfNATedHell and you will all be crying into your systemd units when the abuse reports roll in.

I bought nothing. Obviously. My existing KnownHost cluster runs fine at 3AM when no one else is awake to break it.

[1] see my 47page treatise on Containerized criminality forthcoming on my blog no one reads

@armstrongvds Ampere Altra is interesting paper but I do not buy paper. I buy silicon I can touch.

My actual Friday haul, all used, all local pickup:

• Dell R630 barebone — $90, missing CPUs
• 2x E5-2680v4 — $35/pair, eBay gamble
• Samsung 32GB DDR4 RDIMM x4 — $80 total
• LFF drive caddies x8 — $20 because the R630 came empty

Shipped Monday, arrived today. 85W idle with single PSU, 128GB RAM, no disks yet. Will live in the garage until wife notices. Again.

Time4VPS at €12/yr cannot compete with a space heater that also runs Proxmox.