A 20Gbps dedicated server sits in an awkward spot. It is the step above a 10Gbps port, and a fifth the size of a 100Gbps port, which only a few workloads can fill. It is also the port size where bonding enters the picture, on top of the disk and single-connection limits that already bite at 10 Gbps. This guide covers what 20 Gbps moves, what it costs on each NexonHost build, and the three things that decide whether you will ever see the full number.
What a 20Gbps port moves
| Measure | 10 Gbps | 20 Gbps |
|---|---|---|
| Per second | 1.25 GB | 2.5 GB |
| Per hour | 4.5 TB | 9 TB |
| Per 30-day month at line rate | 3,240 TB | 6,480 TB |
| Packets per second, full-size packets (1,500-byte MTU) | ~0.81 million | ~1.63 million |
| Packets per second, minimum 64-byte frames | ~14.9 million | ~29.8 million |
The monthly figure is a ceiling, not a forecast. What it tells you is that a 20Gbps dedicated server is bought for its peak rate, not its monthly total. If your graph shows long plateaus above 8 Gbps on a 10Gbps port, you are queuing at peak and 20 Gbps is the next step.
Who needs 20 Gbps
- Download and update distribution. Game patches, software releases and package mirrors, where a release day concentrates weeks of traffic into hours.
- Video origins and edge nodes. At 7.9 Mbps per 1080p viewer, video plus audio, a 20Gbps port at a sensible 80% planning ceiling, after TCP/IP overhead, carries about 1,900 concurrent streams.
- Backup and replication targets. Pulling 100 TB across a saturated 20 Gbps link takes about 12 hours after protocol overhead; at 10 Gbps it takes about 24.
- Scrubbing and proxy nodes. Every byte comes in and goes out again, and attack traffic arrives on top of the legitimate load, so the inbound side fills first.
Most web applications do not belong on this list. A busy shop or SaaS product rarely peaks above a few gigabits. How much bandwidth does a server need? works through the sizing, and When a 10Gbps dedicated server makes sense covers the step below this one.
What 20 Gbps costs on each build
The port price is added to the server's base price. Store prices on 2 October 2026:
| Build | Port ceiling | 20 Gbps port | Total with 20 Gbps |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2× Xeon E5-2630 v4 | 20 Gbps | €1,000 | €1,079 |
| 1× AMD EPYC 9254 | 50 Gbps | €1,550 | €1,919 |
| 2× AMD EPYC 9554 | 100 Gbps | €1,550 | €2,429 |
| 2× AMD EPYC 7702 (Bucharest) | 100 Gbps | €900 | €1,889 |
Port prices are the same across the builds in each family. The store lists the Xeon ports as unmetered (guaranteed), the EPYC 9004 ports as guaranteed, and the 7702's as unmetered.
Three observations. The Xeon builds are the cheapest way to buy 20 Gbps outright, at €1,079 a month, and their €50 per gigabit is the same rate as their 1 Gbps port; only the Bucharest-only EPYC 7702's port is cheaper per gigabit, at €45. On the EPYC 9004 builds the per-gigabit price falls as you go higher: €77.50 at 20 Gbps, €75 at 25 Gbps (€1,875) and €70 at 50 Gbps (€3,500). And if you expect to outgrow 20 Gbps within a year, start on an EPYC build so the next step is a port change, not a migration.
Bottleneck one: one interface or two
A 20 Gbps port can be delivered as a single faster interface or as two 10 Gbps links bonded together, and the difference shows up in practice. On the EPYC 9004 builds the store lists the network card, 2 × 25 Gbps SFP28 on the 9254 and 2 × 100 Gbps QSFP28 on the 9554 and 9754, so 20 Gbps fits on one interface. For the Xeon builds, ask which it is.
Bonded links using the standard 802.3ad (LACP) mode spread traffic across members by hashing header fields: MAC addresses by default, or IP addresses and ports with the layer3+4 policy. The Linux kernel's own bonding documentation is explicit that, with the layer3+4 hash policy, a single connection will not span multiple slaves, and that in all balance modes except round-robin no single connection can use more than one interface's worth of bandwidth.
That is fine for a server talking to thousands of clients at once, provided the bond hashes on layer3+4. Under the default MAC-address hash every packet to the internet goes to the same gateway, so outgoing traffic generally stays on one link. Either way, one big transfer between two machines, such as a backup stream or a database replica, tops out at 10 Gbps on a bonded pair. For a few large flows, ask for a single interface, or use layer3+4 and split the transfer across more parallel connections than there are links.
Bottleneck two: the disks behind the port
20 Gbps is 2.5 GB/s. A SATA III interface runs at 6 Gb/s and, after its 8b/10b line encoding, carries at most 600 MB/s. So a single SATA SSD cannot feed a 20Gbps port from disk, and neither can two.
What can:
- Content that fits in memory. Hot files served from the page cache never touch the disk. The Xeon builds start at 128 GB of RAM, the larger EPYC builds at 512 GB.
- Striped disks. Six SATA SSDs in RAID 0 or RAID 10 can, in aggregate, exceed 2.5 GB/s on large sequential reads; the Xeon builds offer a six-drive option.
- NVMe. A single modern NVMe drive on PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 can supply 2.5 GB/s on its own. Every EPYC 9004 build ships with two NVMe drives in RAID 1; the 9254 takes ten more, and the 9554 and 9754 twenty-four more.
Bottleneck three: one connection's window
TCP can only keep as much data in flight as its window allows. To sustain 20 Gbps over a 30 ms round trip, a connection needs 75 MB in flight. Linux auto-tunes its buffers only up to a default ceiling that depends on RAM: 4 MB for sending, and 6 MB for receiving (32 MB from kernel 6.16). At 30 ms, 4 MB in flight is about 1.1 Gbps, and only part of a buffer becomes usable window, so an untuned single connection tops out around a gigabit. Many clients each taking a share is fine. One client pulling 20 Gbps across Europe needs the maximum values of net.ipv4.tcp_rmem and net.ipv4.tcp_wmem raised towards 75 MB on both ends. The 100Gbps guide works the same arithmetic at 100 Gbps.
One 20Gbps server or two 10Gbps servers?
Two 10Gbps servers in different cities cost about the same as one 20Gbps Xeon, put capacity closer to users, and survive the loss of either machine. One 20Gbps server wins when the data lives in one place, such as a single origin library or a replication target, or when the operational cost of a second machine outweighs the resilience. Xeon vs EPYC helps decide which platform to build either option on.
Where to order
A 20Gbps dedicated server from NexonHost starts at €1,079 a month on the 20-core Xeon build, with an unmetered and guaranteed port, DDoS mitigation included, in any of twelve cities. Each build's top port speed is on the 10Gbps dedicated server page; the full port list and prices are on each build's configure step in the store. If you are not sure you need 20 Gbps yet, start with the unmetered dedicated servers range and upgrade the port when your graphs say so.
Prices and port options are as of 2 October 2026. Check the store's configure step for current port prices.
Sources
- Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO, Linux kernel documentation: xmit_hash_policy (layer2 default; layer3+4: "a single connection will not span multiple slaves") and the 802.3ad notes on single-connection throughput and gatewayed traffic using one device. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- IP Sysctl, Linux kernel documentation: the
tcp_wmemmaximum defaults to at most 4 MB, and thetcp_rmemmaximum to at most 6 MB (32 MB from kernel 6.16), depending on RAM. Retrieved 2 October 2026. - HLS Authoring Specification for Apple Devices, Apple: 7,800 kbps top 1080p H.264 variant; stereo AAC audio 32 to 160 kbit/s. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- NexonHost store configurator: port options and prices for the Xeon E5 v4, EPYC 9254, EPYC 9554 and EPYC 7702 builds; network cards and NVMe drives listed for the EPYC 9004 builds; Xeon disk options. Retrieved 2 October 2026.
- Computed: 20 Gbps ÷ 8 = 2.5 GB/s; × 2,592,000 s = 6,480 TB; packets per second = line rate ÷ ((frame + 20 bytes preamble and gap) × 8); SATA 6 Gb/s × 8/10 ÷ 8 = 600 MB/s; 100 TB × 8 ÷ (20 Gbps × 0.941) ≈ 42,500 s ≈ 11.8 hours (23.6 at 10 Gbps); bandwidth-delay product 20 Gbps × 0.03 s ÷ 8 = 75 MB; 4,194,304 bytes × 8 ÷ 0.03 s ≈ 1.1 Gbps; streams = 20,000 Mbps × 0.941 × 0.8 ÷ (7.8 + 0.128) Mbps ≈ 1,900; €900 ÷ 20 = €45 per Gbps.
