What a 10 Gbps Port on a VPS Means, and What It Doesn't
10gpsvps ·
A 10 Gbps port sets the highest rate your server's network link can run at. It is a ceiling. It does not say what rate you will get at a given moment, and it does not say how much data you can send in a month.
What is in the plan
Every plan, from VPS 1 to VPS 6, includes one virtual 10 Gbps port. Leaseweb's line item for it reads "1 X 10GE port Virtual". The port comes with the server, so two servers have two virtual ports.
The word that matters is virtual. A VPS does not get a physical socket of its own. Your server sees a network interface, and the hardware beneath it is shared. So we do not call the port dedicated, and we do not promise that 10 Gbps is kept free for your server. A good habit with any provider is to treat a port as shared unless the provider says otherwise in writing.
Bits, bytes and transfer times
10 Gbps means 10 billion bits per second. A byte is 8 bits, so the ceiling is 1.25 GB per second, before protocol overhead takes its share. This table shows the ideal time for a transfer at each port speed, with no overhead and nothing else in the way:
| Transfer | 100 Mbps | 1 Gbps | 10 Gbps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GB | 80 s | 8 s | 0.8 s |
| 100 GB | 2 h 13 min | 13 min 20 s | 1 min 20 s |
| 1 TB | 22 h 13 min | 2 h 13 min | 13 min 20 s |
Those are upper limits from the arithmetic, not results from this service. We publish no throughput figures for it. The test guide shows how to take your own measurements of the network it runs on.
Why one connection may not reach it
TCP keeps only a limited amount of data in flight while it waits for replies. The most one connection can carry is roughly that amount divided by the round-trip time. So distance lowers the ceiling for a single connection, even when every link on the path could go higher.
This is the data that must be in flight to fill a link. It is the link rate multiplied by the round trip:
| Round trip | To fill 1 Gbps | To fill 10 Gbps |
|---|---|---|
| 1 ms | 125 KB | 1.25 MB |
| 10 ms | 1.25 MB | 12.5 MB |
| 50 ms | 6.25 MB | 62.5 MB |
| 150 ms | 18.75 MB | 187.5 MB |
Packet loss lowers it further, because TCP slows down when packets go missing. Both ends also set a limit. On Linux, the last number on each line of this output is the largest TCP buffer in bytes:
sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_rmem net.ipv4.tcp_wmemSeveral connections side by side avoid part of the problem, which is why download tools often split a file. In iperf3, -P 4 runs four streams at once. If four streams give about four times the rate of one, the limit was the single connection, not the path.
The other end counts too
A transfer moves at the rate of the slowest link on its path. A visitor on a 100 Mbps home line receives at most 100 Mbps, whatever port your server has. The same goes for your own machine when you test, and that is the usual reason a test from home stops well short of 10 Gbps.
A large port matters when transfers add up. A thousand people each pulling 5 Mbps is 5 Gbps in total, and a server with a 1 Gbps port could not send that much. It also matters between servers, for example when you move a large backup to another machine that also has a large port.
What the port does not change
The port has no effect on a page that waits for a database, a slow script or a busy disk. It only helps when the network link is the bottleneck.
It also does not shorten the distance to your users. Round-trip time comes from the route and the speed of light in fiber, which the location guide explains.
Port speed and traffic are separate limits
Port speed is a rate. Traffic is a volume. A 10 Gbps port running flat out for 30 days would move 3,240 TB. The monthly allowance is 30 TB of outbound traffic, which is about 0.93% of that.
So this is not an unmetered service, and a server cannot run at 10 Gbps outbound all month within the allowance. The port suits bursts: a large download, a backup or a busy hour. The traffic guide works through the numbers.
