Storage-optimized VPS with large disks for backups, archives and self-hosted file servers.
The rankings are warming up.
Storage VPSs prioritise large HDD or SSD volumes over raw CPU power. The right choice for archival needs, off-site backups, file servers (Nextcloud, Seafile), Plex instances or Minio S3 nodes. Expect 1-10 TB of storage for the price of a small standard VPS. Watch out for limited IOPS on the largest HDD tiers - check specs before subscribing.
A VPS shares a physical server's hardware with other VPSs through virtualisation, while a dedicated server is entirely yours. A VPS costs less but offers more limited raw performance.
KVM is the modern reference with full hardware isolation and near-native performance. OpenVZ is lighter but limited to Linux. Xen still powers some legacy platforms.
NVMe delivers 3-5x more IOPS than classic SATA SSDs - critical for databases and I/O-heavy workloads. SSDs remain enough for most standard websites and applications.