How can I join the beta?
We'll send you out a V-Key and access details as soon as possible (or tell you if we're currently at capacity). You won't have to pay for your participation in the beta, and we'll not keep your details if you want to leave.
Should I use BigV for mission-critical hosting yet?
That depends on your mission, captain. During the beta period we may decide to stop and start all our customers' VMs with 1-2 days warning (or without if something goes wrong). So while we may have short periods of down time, we are not anticipating any need for longer down time, nor data loss. So if that fits with your usage, go right ahead. You may also find our idea of "not quite good enough yet" already exceeds the service level by less committed hosts - we couldn't possibly comment.
Can I really have 120GiB of RAM in my server?
Yes, during our beta there is limited capacity for 120GiB servers, though you may find your request temporarily rejected while resources are rearranged. A rejection is more likely if you ask to convert a server from 1GiB to 120GiB, whereas the system tries to allow you to make more modest increases without notice.
After the beta, will I have to pay for powered off servers?
As things stand, our pricing assumes that we keep reserved space for all machines, whether they're powered on or off. We may eventually offer a discount for machines which spend a proportion of their time powered off but can't say for certain yet.
What's a GiB?
A GiB is a binary gigabyte, usually used for measuring a computer's memory. It's equal to 1073741824 (1024 × 1024 × 1024) bytes.
A GB is a decimal gigabyte, usually used for selling hard discs storage. It's equal to 1000000000 (1000 × 1000 × 1000) bytes, but we find this measurement confusing and unhelpful and we don't use it in BigV!
We try to stick to explicit references to each - more on the confusion at Wikipedia.
Can I use RAID on a VM's discs to make them faster?
Yes, but don't! While we try to keep disc performance similar between 'tail' units, they will not be identical. Furthermore we move your discs around to try to give your VM optimum performance; the more discs you are using the less predictable the overall speeds you'll get. If you need really fast storage, add a single lightning storage unit.
If you're not fussy about speed you could reasonably use RAID0 or LVM on ordinary-grade storage to construct a larger volume.
When will feature X be ready?
Our diary page lists what we're working on next, and we are aiming to roll out one feature at a time. The beta period will end when we've finished testing all the features that we want to test; we will start charging in the mean time though.
Other questions?
If there's anything we haven't answered, feel free to ask: support@bigv.io.
