When to upgrade from a VPS to a VDS

Upgrading too early wastes money, and too late costs you users. Let the data decide. These checks use Ubuntu and Debian commands, which may vary elsewhere.

Signs you may have outgrown a VPS

• Lag spikes at the same busy times each day
• Performance that varies a lot between runs of the same job
• High steal time in top or htop
• CPU near the limit while RAM and disk are fine
• Game server tick rates dropping under load
• Database queries that slow down randomly

How to measure

1. Run htop during your busiest hour
2. Check uptime for load averages, and compare them with nproc
3. Use vmstat 5 and watch the wa and st columns
4. Note what the numbers look like when things feel fine

What the numbers mean

• High us and sy with no free CPU: you are CPU bound
• High wa: the disk is the bottleneck, not the CPU
• High st: the CPU is being shared
• Low free memory and heavy swap: you need more RAM

Try cheaper fixes first

• Close or remove unused services
• Add an index to slow database queries
• Cache pages or results
• Add swap for memory spikes
• Upgrade to a larger VPS if RAM or disk is the problem

When VDS makes sense

If CPU is clearly the limit, steal time is visible, or you need steady performance for a game server or database, dedicated cores are a logical step.

How to switch

1. Back up your data with tar and rsync
2. Ask us on Discord about the right plan and location
3. Plan changes are available any time with Tabi Cloud
4. Move your files, test, then update your DNS A record if the IP changes

Tips

• Lower your DNS TTL a day before moving
• Keep the old server until the new one is proven
• Verify services start at boot

Open a ticket on Discord or email us if you want help judging your numbers.