Oooh, so they actually throw a number down (32TB), nice to know. (Others just say "unlimited" everywhere and let you figure it out, yay.) In amusing timing, I

Oooh, so they actually throw a number down (32TB), nice to know. (Others just say "unlimited" everywhere and let you figure it out, yay.) In amusing timing, I was literally just looking at the homepage and specs sections myself - my 2CPU/6GB/500GB/€6.99 plan is kind of getting a bit old, although I do admittedly have 100GB more storage, hmm. My thinking is that Contabo is located in areas where the peering and power are reasonably inexpensive. Also, based on the tour photos and webcam views they publish, they're using tons and tons of desktop-form-factor systems they presumably assemble and maintain in-house, as opposed to ordering more traditional rack systems (with $$$$ server boards/proprietary SKUs inside). For a small-to-mid-scale operation, it would appear this offers better value for money (ironically), including compute/heat density considerations etc. As for the price disparities... the sad thing I think is happening is that, by pricing themselves into the corner of the market (which they're basically dominating), customer perception may be "oh they're the cheap/low end", which... they are and they aren't. They offer dedicated (whole machine) for €150+/mo and semi-dedicated (CPU+RAM reservation, not sure about storage IOPS reservation though!) for €35+/mo, but these are fairly new offerings and I wonder if Contabo is trying to balance out customer perception about where they sit in the market. (As an aside, I kind of take those prices as vague hints about how much oversubscribing is (cough) technically going on with the low end offerings... ahem.) An environment like Vultr seems to hold a position similar to eg DigitalOcean et al, where customers have learned to expect "it costs this much" and just accept the pricing. Sigh. I guess the only way to really know is to actually order a VM, generate an eye-watering amount of traffic (which might be a project in and of itself), and see what happens. As for 10TB of storage, that's a tricky one. Naturally the first thing that comes to mind is Amazon :) which reveals that this size hovers around the US$260-$300 mark. Get two, mirror them with ZFS, add a small UPS, and you're done for a steep but once-off total cost of around US$1000. Second to that is the Hetzner Server Auction, which allows users to bid for rental of currently-unused custom configurations. Filtering for >9TB, https://www.hetzner.com/sb?hdd_from=9000 https://www.hetzner.com/sb?hdd_from=9000, currently returns a box with a Xeon-E3, 32GB ECC :) RAM, and 4x10TB (yes) HDD, for €82/mo. (With "unlimited" traffic ("yay"), apparently at 1Gbit.) Second option: much more accessible, both in terms of price and "other people using it" :) First option: would be paid-out after one year of Hetzner rental (1000/82=~12).