TL; DR: InMotion Hosting recently added NVMe storage to most of its hosting plans, which will boost performance power for its users by tenfold. The hosting company sets out to normalize NVMe drives within the hosting environment by offering the storage solution at a standard price instead of a premium. The release also upgraded other essential hosting resources, including RAM and disk space. Users now receive double the amount of these resources without paying more. The NVMe release improves the platform’s speed and gives users peace of mind with guaranteed uptime for online success.
Before there were SSD drives, spinners reigned in the storage drive market. You may remember the distant inner crankings of your computer as it worked to boot up your operating system and store your information. Spinners, also known as hard disk drives or HDD, were a key component of performance capability in servers, but they had flaws.
As technology advanced, so did the hosting industry. And soon enough, the hosting sector ditched the internal operating issues of HDD and migrated to SSD drives. During the era of SSD adoption, InMotion Hosting led the helm to standardized SSD usage in the hosting market. SSD storage provided reliable performance and more efficient disk reading speeds than HDD drives had.
But progress is inevitable in the ever-changing digital landscape, and improvements are always on the horizon. In the last couple of years, a new drive, NVMe, has emerged as a staple for many cloud hosting services for its long-lasting, high-performing capabilities. Trey Faison, Director of Systems and Software Development at InMotion Hosting, explained the NVMe drive is a slightly more expensive drive, usually sold at a premium. Still, InMotion Hosting plans to make it the standard in hosting as it did previously with SSD storage.
“We wanted to find a way to rebuild the platform, with that in mind, and keep it the same price,” said Trey. “Let the NVMe drive be the norm, not just the premium. NVMe is the next generation of drives in general. And that’s what we released in early May.”
InMotion Hosting currently offers NVMe SSD storage in all its shared and managed VPS plans except for the lowest ones. All of its WordPress hosting plans also include the drive. The team made sure to maintain the pricing as well. InMotion Hosting users can also appreciate its additional upgraded plan features.
“We couldn’t necessarily rebuild for NVMe and not increase the RAM and the disk space. So when the upgrade debuted, we also doubled the RAM and the disk space, again, at the same price that the plan was 90 days ago,” said Trey.
Packing a Pivotal Performance Punch With Latest Upgrade Release
Up until 2014, InMotion Hosting marketed spinners as its primary storage option. That same year, the hosting company switched to SSD storage to respond to customer needs and improve experience and performance. This move helped set the path for the entire hosting sector to adopt SSD storage and set it as the standard for processing drives.
In May 2022, InMotion Hosting took another innovative leap with NVMe drives. This storage device is different from its predecessors and can reach read-write speeds that make it ideal for gaming or high-resolution video editing. Although NVMe drives are slightly more expensive, they pack a performance punch that the previous SSD SATA doesn’t.
“You have to spend a bit upfront, but it’s a drive that will last much longer. So you’ll have fewer replacement costs. In real testing, it can be as high as 270% faster with the drives. So we think it’s worth it,” said Trey.
NVMe storage optimizes performance with lightning-fast speeds by reading data four times faster and seeking it 10 times faster than other SSD storage drives. The NVMe infrastructure does so by leveraging a more sustainable interface.
“NVMe is a faster drive, but it also uses the PCIe bus or interface far faster. You can put far more information through it. So that’s how it all shakes out to be a better experience,” said Trey.
When SSD storage emerged, it helped solve the internal operations issues of HDD but didn’t address the interface. NVMe storage, on the other hand, has an upgraded interface that helps solve latency issues users may find with SSD storage. Users can have a longer-lasting product and leverage better hosting performance with NVMe.
Providing a Time-Tested Solution for Small Business and eCommerce Users
InMotion Hosting continues to answer customer needs by onboarding its NVMe product. By including the drive in most of its plans, more customers will have access to the technology at an affordable price. NVMe drives also help solve the pain points of one of the hosting company’s primary audience demographics: small business and eCommerce users.
“NVMe appeals to the people who are small business or eCommerce owners where latency hurts them because uptime is always a concern. High availability helps us. But if you’re not fast and have latency, people will go to the next vendor, and that’s not good either,” said Trey.
The online success of small business owners relies on the availability of their websites. So, NVMe storage provides the boost to maintain uptime and generate a profitable online presence and smooth experience for their customers. And so far, NVMe has been a hit for InMotion Hosting.
“Our sales have been strong in normally the worst months of the year, so people seem to like it. It’s been a really good couple of weeks,” said Trey.
InMotion Hosting users can also appreciate the competitive resources the company offers. Even without factoring in the benefit of the NVMe release, InMotion Hosting goes above and beyond by providing double the market value of RAM and other essential features in their plans.
InMotion Hosting plans are ideal for most users, whether the user is a business with a dedicated dev team or a small business owner with little expertise. Since InMotion Hosting solutions are time-tested, users can trust its functionality and capabilities without getting into exploratory research. The InMotion Hosting team is also committed to facilitating the setup process for its users and providing them with peace of mind.
“We offer something called Launch Assist. Any customer who comes to us with a new account gets free hours they can use for server optimization or transfers. The first 90 days are so key to developing trust and relatability. When in a crisis, people want to know they can contact you,” said Trey.
Navigating Production Challenges and What’s Next
Trey told us that the addition of NVMe drives to the InMotion Hosting feature line has been a year in the making since the team had to navigate quite a few production challenges to get to the finish line. Some of these issues resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and the supply shortages that sprang from it.
“You have to think four or five months in advance. Even now that we have clusters on both coasts, we still have to think if I order something, I might get it in December. I have to keep tabs weekly on how much is used and what is a good timetable for me to put in an order where I’m not going to be super heavy on inventory,” said Trey.
Inflation further complicates the production road map and InMotion Hosting’s inventory estimations, but Trey said he doesn’t allow that to stop the platform’s advancement. He explained that supply chain choices have been risky but have been panning out reasonably well for the company.
Implementing a platform change is a considerable investment, so complete refreshes usually occur on a three- to four-year timeline for InMotion Hosting. But the company doesn’t fail to deliver minor upgrades and tweaks to satisfy their customers. All shared and business-class hosting products were recently upgraded to NVMe. Next up, InMotion Hosting plans to launch NVMe drives for its self-managed VPS hosting packages in August and a new WordPress product that will also feature NVMe storage.
“It’s a managed WordPress that is good for the developer. You can quickly deploy if you have a theme and suite of plugins. And when we do a platform upgrade like NVMe, it affects all products, and we try to enfranchise any of the products that can be on the platform,” said Trey.