Tick Data Suite backtesting not recommended on a VPS

Modified on Sun, 10 Mar 2024 at 12:30 PM

It is advisable to avoid a VPS instance as your primary Tick Data Suite backtesting environment if at all possible.


Most VPS providers overcrowd their servers, which results in poor CPU and disk performance and, in some cases, even swapping. Although you won't see the swapping in your Task Manager because it's done by the hypervisor, not by your Windows OS - it's very noticeable when you switch from one task to another, and it appears frozen for some time before becoming responsive.


While VPS instances may be fine for running a few EAs on live or demo accounts, all the circumstances described above typically result in extremely poor backtest performance when compared to a bare metal machine, not to mention potential problems if, for example, the size of the optimization cache (which is enabled by default) exceeds the limited available disk space. If you prefer to have an online backtest environment, I suggest renting a dedicated server; depending on the provider, such dedicated servers are not much more expensive than a VPS nowadays. For example, we use Hetzner for our dedicated server needs.


If you're a Mac user, you're much better off installing the Tick Data Suite in a Windows VM running in Parallels, VirtualBox or VMWare. However, this will only work if you are using an x86 Mac; it will not work on Apple M CPUs.


TL;DR the Tick Data Suite works fine on VPS instances but you can expect poor backtest performance.