SSD VPS Hosting: Our Upgrade and What to Look For (2026)
Faster storage makes a faster website. In December 2013 we moved QuickOnlineTips from a regular KnownHost VPS to their new SSD VPS hosting, an early step up from spinning hard drives. SSDs are standard today, and many hosts now use even faster NVMe drives. Here’s our story and what to look for in SSD or NVMe VPS hosting in 2026.
Quick answer: SSD VPS hosting stores your site on solid-state drives instead of mechanical hard disks, so files and database queries load much faster. In 2026 almost every good VPS uses SSDs, and NVMe SSDs are faster still. When choosing a plan, compare drive type (NVMe beats SATA SSD), RAM, CPU cores, managed support, backups and data centre location rather than storage size alone.
Table of Contents
Our 2013 move to SSD VPS hosting
We had been on KnownHost’s managed VPS hosting for years (see our 2-year hosting review). When KnownHost launched SSD VPS plans, we switched. The new plan had less raw disk space than the old hard-drive plan but a big increase in RAM and bandwidth, and cPanel cost an extra $5 a month.
The switch was painless: both servers were in KnownHost’s Texas data centre (our data centre choice paid off), support backed up and restored the site through cPanel, and there was no downtime, IP change or migration fee. The site, especially the mobile version, felt noticeably snappier.
Why SSD storage is faster
- No moving parts: SSDs read data electronically instead of waiting for a disk to spin.
- Faster database queries: WordPress makes many small database reads per page; SSDs handle them far quicker.
- More reliable: no mechanical parts to wear out or crash.
SSD vs NVMe vs HDD hosting
- HDD: cheapest per gigabyte, slowest; now mainly used for backups and archives.
- SATA SSD: much faster than HDD; fine for most sites.
- NVMe SSD: connects directly over PCIe for even higher speed and lower latency; the best choice for busy WordPress sites and online stores.
What to look for in an SSD VPS plan
- NVMe storage if the price difference is small.
- Enough RAM (2-4 GB for typical WordPress sites with caching).
- Managed support if you don’t want to administer Linux yourself.
- Automatic off-site backups.
- A data centre close to most visitors, plus a CDN.
Our guide on how to choose a VPS hosting plan covers the full checklist, and managed WordPress hosting is an alternative if you’d rather not manage a server.
FAQ
Is SSD hosting worth it?
Yes. In 2026 SSD storage is standard; avoid hosts still using hard drives for web servers.
Is NVMe better than SSD?
NVMe is a faster type of SSD. It’s noticeably quicker for database-heavy sites.
Does SSD hosting improve SEO?
Indirectly: faster servers improve page load times and Core Web Vitals, which help user experience and rankings.
If you use too memory intensive plugins, you can also notice significant site slowing. But then a good well optimized server can do many things to get a superfast first time byte. You can use a CDN to deliver static files, compress and minify files using external tools
I have never thought about this, but after reading your post I think I will make some changes. Is it truth that it can be pain in the a… to move site from one server to another?
Now your website is really fast, it loads in just a second with all the content except Adsense ads.
Do u have any experience of Google pagespeed service ? Just installed it but seeing decline in traffic. trying to figure out if pagespeed service causing the fall in traffic.
We were considering installing pagespeed on our server, but our hosting advised against it as there some people reported some issues. If you use too memory intensive plugins, you can also notice significant site slowing. But then a good well optimized server can do many things to get a superfast first time byte. You can use a CDN to deliver static files, compress and minify files using external tools. All these help.
My personal experience with Pagespeed is bad. Is it fast? yes, very fast. But not worth using, reason being that there are times certain images doesn’t load, sometimes it returns a black page for no reason, sometimes certain script fails to load. and most anonying is it creates unknown urls for every url. google will index http://www.domain.com/my-article/?=modpage or something like that… i cannot remember the query string.
Yes, able to see the difference . I was on Bluehost VPS , it really sucks. Planning to go for Hostgator :)
If I remove the widgets and related images… the site loads instantly.
This looks good :)