RackNerd Seattle VPS: Real-World Performance Testing & Network Analysis

Looking for an affordable West Coast VPS that won't break the bank? We put RackNerd's Seattle location through its paces—no fluff, just raw test data on CPU performance, network routing, IP quality, and streaming unlock capabilities. If you need a budget-friendly server for personal projects or lightweight applications, here's what you actually get for $11/year.

What You're Actually Getting

Let's start with the basics. This is a 1C1G 20G 2T configuration at $11 USD per year. That's 1 CPU core, 1GB RAM, 20GB storage, and 2TB monthly bandwidth.

The hardware sitting behind this is an Intel Xeon E5-2699 v4 running at 2.20GHz. It's not cutting-edge, but it's solid enterprise gear. The CPU cache is decent—32KB L1, 4MB L2, and 16MB L3. Both AES-NI and VM-x are enabled, which matters if you're running any encryption-heavy tasks or nested virtualization.

Running Debian 13 (Trixie) on kernel 6.12.43, the system is KVM-based with Full Cone NAT. The actual location shows Seattle, Washington under AS36352 HostPapa.

CPU & Memory: The Numbers

SysBench single-core test came back with 864 points in fast mode. That's in line with what you'd expect from a single Xeon core at this price point. Nothing spectacular, but perfectly usable for basic workloads.

Memory performance is more interesting. Single-thread read hit 17,901 MB/s, and write clocked in at 13,881 MB/s. For a budget VPS, those are respectable numbers.

Disk I/O tells a similar story. The 4K block test showed 52.7 MB/s write (12.86 IOPS) and 59.2 MB/s read (14,441 IOPS). When you jump to 1M blocks, write speed rockets up to 1.8 GB/s and read settles at 940 MB/s. The fio tests confirm this—you're looking at consistent performance across different block sizes, with the 1M block total hitting 2.38 GB/s.

Network Routes: Where Your Traffic Actually Goes

Here's where it gets practical. The three major Chinese carriers all take different paths back home.

Beijing routes:

• China Telecom couldn't detect return nodes

• China Unicom uses the 4837 backbone (standard routing)

• China Mobile goes through CMI (also standard)

Shanghai routes:
Similar story—Telecom had detection issues, while Unicom and Mobile both used their regular backbones.

Guangzhou routes:
This is where we got the most detailed traceroute data. Traffic hops through Cogent's network in Seattle, down to Los Angeles and San Jose, then crosses the Pacific. China Telecom uses the 163 backbone. Unicom routes through CU169-BACKBONE with stops in LA. Mobile takes a longer path through the UK (Slough) before hitting Guangzhou—that's the CMI international route.

If you're tired of dealing with complex network routing and just want reliable connectivity for your projects, 👉 check out RackNerd's Seattle location for straightforward West Coast hosting—sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.

The latency map shows what you'd expect: Seattle sits at decent ping times to most West Coast locations, but cross-Pacific latency is noticeable. This isn't a CN2 GIA line—it's budget routing through standard carriers.

IP Quality & Streaming

The IP quality check reveals some mixed signals. Security scores show:

• Reputation: 0/100 (not great)

• Trust score: 82/100 (decent)

• Fraud score: 65/100 (elevated)

• Abuse score: 0 (clean)

The IP is flagged as hosting/data center across multiple databases, which is expected. Some services mark it as a proxy or VPN, others don't. The threat level varies from "low" to "high" depending on which database you check.

Streaming unlock results:

• Netflix: Originals only (standard for hosting IPs)

• YouTube Premium: Full access, CDN in San Francisco

• Disney+: IP banned

• ChatGPT/Claude: Both accessible

• TikTok: US region detected

Email port testing shows partial blocks across various providers—standard practice for preventing spam from hosting IPs.

Speed Tests: Real-World Performance

Bandwidth tests from different locations:

• Speedtest.net: 91.74 Mbps up / 68.77 Mbps down (56.65ms)

• Los Angeles: 54.24 Mbps up / 123.37 Mbps down (30.82ms)

• Hong Kong: 0.94 Mbps up / 2.59 Mbps down (143.10ms)

• Shanghai Unicom 5G: 50.72 Mbps up / 35.43 Mbps down (142.39ms)

Cross-Pacific performance drops significantly, which tracks with the routing we saw earlier. Within North America, speeds are solid.

Bottom Line

For $11 per year, you're getting exactly what the spec sheet promises—a functional budget VPS with standard hardware and routing. The CPU handles basic tasks fine, disk I/O is adequate for most use cases, and network performance within North America is decent.

This isn't designed for high-traffic production workloads or applications requiring pristine IP reputation. It's a learning box, a development server, or a personal project host. The Seattle location gives you West Coast proximity without the premium pricing of San Francisco or LA data centers.

If you need guaranteed low latency to Asia or premium network routes, look elsewhere. But if you're working within budget constraints and need something that just works for lightweight applications, this fits the bill. 👉 RackNerd's Seattle location delivers straightforward budget hosting without overselling what it can do—which is honestly refreshing in the VPS market.