indyamail said:
Most VPS systems donot allow overselling. In case someone found a way around this through some hacking or custom coding, this is unethical (though debatable).I can assure you from the best of my knowledge not many providers will oversell. I personally find the thought of that swell my stomach and make me sick.
I disagree. Most all of Virtuozzo and OpenVZ hosts are overselling. Xen can't oversell Ram, but there's nothing stopping the host from overselling other resources, like disk. The overselling of a VPS is not necessarily a bad thing. If done responsibly the end user probably won't even notice. The fact is, about 2% of customers will try to use what is actually given to them. Overselling effectively increases Supply with little (remember, we're talking about overselling responsibly here) to no performance decrease.
Can overselling make a clients experience bad? Yes, it's definitely possible. We are still talking about shared resources, so if the host isn't actively monitoring and balancing, nodes can become loaded. But again, as long as it's not abused the end user probably won't even notice.
The VPS market is growing daily, and competition is getting fierce. Big guys like GoDaddy and 1&1 got into VPS for their share of the market, although they don't seem to have their act together yet and tend to get not-so-favorable reviews. Hosts need to make money, plain and simple. If they don't, why would they want to offer their service. Without overselling the hosts have to lease resources at a premium. With overselling and the increased supply, prices come down.
People tend to boo-hoo overselling resources, but most don't want to pay a lot either. Some would rather pay more and know what they're getting, and there are hosts out there that accommodate that. The majority though, want to pay as little as possible.
