Summary of my 2023 Black Friday server shopping details.

1. ColoCrossing Buffalo $24 + ColoCrossing Los Angeles $15

The vendor released coupon codes on LowEndTalk all at Beijing midnight hours. The $99/year Los Angeles limited dedicated server was also released at midnight, so for someone like me who doesn’t stay up late, it’s a miss.

But deep down, I really envy those who got the recurring 35% discount and the $99/year dedicated server.

2. InterServer’s $3/month Storage VPS

Good disk IO speed, much better than Servaria’s stone-slow storage VPS.

3. Crunchbits VPS ($22.69)

3 CPU cores, 4GB RAM, 125GB disk for just over $22 - definitely worth it.

Some users got their accounts banned after PayPal disputes with Crunchbits, so be careful if you want to join.

4. OneProvider Los Angeles Dedicated Server ($18.99/month)

Couldn’t get ColoCrossing’s limited $99 dedicated server, so I’ll settle for OneProvider’s dedicated server. Black Friday dedicated servers at half price, and the Los Angeles model has unlimited traffic.

Yesterday I successfully spawned a VM on the dedicated server - this 4-core 4GB RAM 120GB disk VM is for my roommate to play with.

5. DMIT GIA Proxy Server ($36.9/year)

In April 2023, DMIT’s San Jose product line cancelled all 4837 routes due to disputes with China Unicom over billing time. This also affected downstream BandwagonHost Fremont 4837 and Lightnode related products. via

In March this year, I bought DMIT’s 4837 route server for $36+. Shortly after, news came that DMIT was cancelling 4837 routes, and I eventually got most of my refund.

On Cyber Monday, DMIT restocked the $36+ GIA plan - without hesitation, I went for it. This is better than BandwagonHost’s $46 proxy server. [$10 cheaper, double the RAM, free IP changes]

6. Monster Cloud 4837 Route (99 RMB/year)

Couldn’t get the 99 RMB triple-network optimized Los Angeles VPS, so I got a US West Seattle 4837 route VPS instead. Backup proxy server.

7. Servarica Unlimited Storage VPS ($5/month)

This is my most regretted purchase. Ridiculously low disk IO - updating packages took 10 minutes. Won’t renew, already submitted a ticket + PayPal dispute, trying to get $3 back from the $5.

The advertised unlimited storage with 1GB daily increase sounds nice, but the VPS is terrible. IO speed is slow as a turtle. InterServer’s storage server IO reaches 100+ MB/s, while this one only manages 5.9MB/s.

8. RackNerd Flash Sale ($10.99/year)

Got the first and fourth waves. The first wave I paid for my roommate, and I paid for the fourth wave myself.

Of course, my November server spending was far more than this, because November also had Singles’ Day. My November could be described as crazy.

After Black Friday + Cyber Monday ended, I won’t be buying more servers for a while. Hoping to make good use of all these purchases and not let them collect dust.