Choosing a VPS location

Part 4 of the buyer's series on getting a good RackNerd deal through the sale season.

When you order a VPS you usually pick a data centre, the building where your server will physically run. The choice is easy to rush during a sale, and hard to change later. This guide explains what location changes, what it does not, and how to test it in a few minutes before you buy.

The honest limit: no location is best for everyone. The right one depends on where you are, where your users are and what the server does. The goal here is a sensible choice, not a perfect one.

What is in this guide

• A few words you will see
• What location changes
• What location does not change
• Start with who uses the server
• Location by job
• If you live outside the US
• How to test before you buy
• Pick a second choice
• Limits
• When to step up
• More in the series

A few words you will see

Term	What it means
Data centre	The building where the server runs. Plans list it by city.
Latency	The time a message takes to reach the server and come back, measured in milliseconds (ms). Lower feels snappier.
Ping	A simple tool that measures latency to an address.
Looking glass	A page a provider runs in each data centre so you can test the network from there before you buy.
Test file	A file on a looking glass page you can download to get a rough idea of speed from your location.
CDN	A content delivery network: a service that keeps copies of a website's files in many cities, so distance matters less.

What location changes

• Latency. Distance adds delay. A server in the same region often feels instant. One on the other side of the world adds a noticeable pause to every click, keystroke or game move.
• Speed for big transfers. Long routes can be slower for large downloads and uploads, though this varies a lot by network.
• Which websites and services treat you as local. Some streaming services and websites show content based on the server's country. Check their terms, as many do not allow bypassing region rules.
• Which laws apply. The data centre's country affects which laws cover your data. If you handle personal data for others, this can matter. Get proper advice if you are unsure.
• Time zone of logs. A small point, but the server clock starts in some time zone. You can change it later.

What location does not change

• The plan's specs. RAM, cores and disk are set by the plan, not the city.
• Your security. A server in any location needs the same care. See securing your VPS.
• The rules. RackNerd's acceptable use policy applies in every location. A different country does not mean looser rules, and local laws also apply.
• Fair use. Unmetered does not mean unlimited, wherever the server is.

Start with who uses the server

Ask one question: who will talk to this server most?

• Mostly you. For a VPN, a personal cloud or a learning box, pick a location near you.
• Mostly your visitors. For a website or app, pick a location near most of your audience. Your analytics, if you have them, can show where visitors come from.
• Mostly other servers. For backups or a bot that talks to another service, pick a location near the other system.
• A mix. Choose the middle of your users. In the US, central locations are often a fair compromise between the two coasts.

Location by job

A rough guide. Your own tests matter more than this table.

Job	How much location matters	Pick
Game server	A lot	Near your players. See VPS for game servers.
VPN for browsing	A lot	Near you, unless you need a specific country. See VPS for a VPN.
SSH and remote work	Quite a lot	Near you, so typing does not lag.
Website or blog	Some	Near most visitors. A CDN reduces the effect. See VPS for websites.
Self-hosted apps for you	Some	Near you. See VPS for self-hosting.
Backups	Little	Somewhere other than your main server, for safety.
Bots, scheduled jobs, automation	Little	Near the services they talk to, or anywhere cheap.

If you live outside the US

Many RackNerd plans are in US cities, and the location filter on this site also lists cities in Canada, Europe and Asia, such as Toronto, Montreal, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Strasbourg and Singapore. Which plans are available in each location changes, so check the list at the top of this page.

• In Europe. A European location is usually the obvious choice for interactive use. For a site with mostly US visitors, the US east coast can be a fair middle ground.
• In Asia and Oceania. Singapore is often the closest option when it is offered. If it is not in stock, the US west coast, such as Los Angeles, San Jose or Seattle, is often the next nearest by network, though routes vary.
• In South America. Miami or another US east coast or southern location is often the nearest choice. Test before you decide.

A server far away is still useful for jobs where delay does not matter, such as backups, scheduled tasks or a website behind a CDN.

How to test before you buy

You can measure latency from your own computer in a few minutes, before you spend anything.

1. Find the looking glass pages. RackNerd runs a looking glass page for many of its locations. Look for them through RackNerd's own website or support pages. Each page shows a test IP address and often a test file.
2. Run ping from your computer. Open a terminal (Command Prompt on Windows, Terminal on macOS or Linux) and ping the test IP for each location you are considering:

   ping -c 10 TEST_IP_ADDRESS

   On Windows, use -n 10 instead of -c 10. Replace TEST_IP_ADDRESS with the address shown on the looking glass page.
3. Read the result. Look at the average time in ms. Lower is better. Compare locations against each other rather than against a fixed target.
4. Try the test file, if offered. Download it once from each location you are considering. It gives a rough idea of transfer speed from where you are. Results vary by time of day and by your own connection.
5. Test at the time you will use it. If you game in the evening, test in the evening. Networks can be busier at peak times.

As a rough feel, which varies by person and job: a few tens of milliseconds feels instant for most uses, around 100 to 150 ms is fine for websites and most remote work, and much higher than that is noticeable for games and typing over SSH.

Pick a second choice

Sale plans often sell out in one location while staying in stock in another. Decide your second choice now, so you do not have to think when your first choice is gone.

• Pick a second location with test results close to your first.
• Write both into your buying rule. RackNerd 11.11 and flash sales explained shows how to write one.
• Set location filters on the email alerts on the home page so you only hear about locations you would actually buy.

Limits

• Tests are a snapshot. Routes change, and a location that tests well today may test differently next month.
• Ping is not the whole story. It measures delay, not reliability or throughput. Watch your real workload in the first days after you buy.
• Moving is not simple. Changing a server's location later usually means a new server and moving your data yourself. Assume the location you pick is the one you keep.
• Location will not fix a slow app. If your website is slow because the server is short on memory or the software needs tuning, a closer server will not help much. See web servers.

When to step up

Some jobs need more than a good location.

• Busy game servers often need more memory and CPU as player numbers grow. A 4 GB to 8 GB VPS gives more headroom.
• Users on several continents may be better served by one server plus a CDN than by one bigger server. For apps that cannot use a CDN, two smaller servers in different regions is an option, but it is more work to keep in step.
• Constant heavy load suits a dedicated server better than a VPS. Check which locations have one in stock before you plan around it.

To compare what is available now, start with the cheapest RackNerd VPS guide and check the sales page for sale plans in your chosen locations.

More in the series

This is part 4 of 5. Previous: Is a yearly VPS deal worth it?. Next: Your first hour on a new RackNerd VPS. See the whole series.