I was suggesting ServerMania to a friend for a new client project that needs some robust resources and they're in a bit of a rush to set it up. While looking at their server configurations—it's been a while since I used them—I noticed they offer bandwidth options from 20TB at 1Gbps to unmetered at 20Gbps, which seems like a big difference. Although the project isn't super network-intensive, my friend is stuck with older Xeon hardware and needs a lot of parallel computing power. The AMD Epyc 7642 seems like a great fit with its 48 cores and 96 threads, but is 1Gbps enough? Shouldn't a server with that much power be paired with something faster? Also, is 10Gbps now a more standard bandwidth for SaaS workloads? At what point does 1Gbps become a bottleneck?
4 Answers
In my experience, 1Gbps is still fine for many companies, but it can limit you if your SaaS gets heavy on tasks like large file transfers. If you're doing something like video rendering or handling substantial data, you might need 10Gbps. Large simultaneous uploads or downloads can bottleneck 1Gbps connections, especially if you expect lots of users.
You should really consider how many users there will be. For smaller usage, 1Gbps could be sufficient, but if there are a lot of users or the application is demanding, you're going to hit limitations quick. The needs can escalate fast!
Without knowing the exact workload, it's hard to say what the requirements would be. Your friend might get by just fine with 100 Mbps or might need something like 5000 Mbps too! It really depends on what they're planning to do with that power.
If you’re rushing into this with just a 1Gbps connection, it might not be the best fit. It largely depends on what's going on at the other end though. And frankly, if this is a new SaaS venture, I'd lean towards something that can handle more traffic right from the start.
That's a fair point. I was thinking about how I would handle it differently!