{"id":13302,"date":"2025-06-17T17:49:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/?p=13302"},"modified":"2025-06-17T17:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:50:11","slug":"14-years-of-vps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/blog\/14-years-of-vps\/","title":{"rendered":"14 Years Ago, Everyone Said We Were Crazy"},"content":{"rendered":"

SSD Nodes was started 14 years ago. Back then, our CEO was in college working a minimum wage job<\/a>. The idea was simple - sell good servers for way less money than everyone else.<\/p>\n

Sounds crazy, right? Turns out it worked.<\/p>\n

The Early Days Were Rough<\/h2>\n

2011 was different. SSDs cost a fortune. Most hosting companies wouldn't touch them because the margins were terrible. Amazon didn't even offer SSD instances until 2012 or 2013.<\/p>\n

We bought them anyway. Credit cards were maxed out, every dollar was scraped together. People thought we were idiots.<\/p>\n

Maybe we were. But we're still here and those people... well, some of them aren't.<\/p>\n

\"Early<\/p>\n

Starting in a college dorm room with basically no money taught us something important - nothing can be wasted. Every server purchase mattered. Every customer support ticket was precious. Everything had to be done right because we couldn't afford to get it wrong.<\/p>\n

Even now with 20+ people on the team and servers in 14 countries, we are still resourceful and flexible.<\/p>\n

As our CEO Matt Connor reflected in our 7th-year interview<\/a>: \"I still think we're a startup in so many ways just because we're growing, we're learning, we're trying new things.\" That startup mentality has carried us through 14 years of continuous innovation.<\/p>\n

What We Built This Year<\/h2>\n

Our 14th year was busy. Here's what we shipped:<\/p>\n

Nested Virtualization<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"Nested<\/p>\n

Virtual machines can now be run inside<\/em> your VPS<\/a>. This is a game-changer for development work. You can test dangerous code changes, try different operating systems<\/a>, or run multiple isolated environments all on one server.<\/p>\n

Break something in the nested VM? Just delete it and start over. Your main setup stays untouched. Check it out here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

API That Actually Works<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Our new API<\/a> allows everything to be controlled through code. Servers can be deployed, settings managed, deployments automated. It's what people have been asking for since day one.<\/p>\n

Gaming Servers<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"SSD<\/p>\n

We optimized our Performance VPS instances for gaming<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can host pretty much any popular game<\/a>. Minecraft servers for your friends. Counter-Strike matches with low ping. Rust servers that don't crash when 100 players join. ARK worlds that actually load fast.<\/p>\n

The hardware is the same as our regular Performance VPS - we just realized gamers need reliable servers that don't cost a fortune. Most gaming hosts charge 3x what we do for worse performance. Check out our Gaming servers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vippy Improvements<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Vippy<\/a>, our custom virtualization software was made faster and more efficient.<\/p>\n

Less overhead means better performance for the same price.<\/p>\n

Public Uptime Stats<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This one's huge. Real uptime numbers<\/a> are now shown for all 14 locations. No hiding behind marketing speak. You can see exactly how our servers perform every day.<\/p>\n

Most companies would never do this. What if the numbers are bad? What if downtime is seen by people?<\/p>\n

Here's the thing - our uptime is actually really good. 99.99% across the board. Why not show it off?<\/p>\n

The Numbers After 14 Years<\/h2>\n