NVMe or SSD for a Minecraft server
A Minecraft server is a program that writes to disk all day: the world saves itself every few minutes, terrain is read in as people walk, and a backup reads everything back out again. This page is about when that disk is the thing you feel, what NVMe changes, and how much room a world genuinely needs.
What the two words mean
- NVMe
- SSD
- Chunk loading
- World saving
- Backups
Both are flash storage with nothing that spins, so both are enormously faster than the hard disks that hosting pages used to argue about. The difference between them is the connection: NVMe drives sit on the lanes that run straight to the processor, and SATA SSDs sit on a bus that was designed when the thing on the other end was a spinning platter.
In practice that shows up as latency rather than as raw throughput. Reading one chunk is a small request, and what matters is how quickly the answer comes back, not how many megabytes a second the drive could manage if you asked it for all of them at once.
The four moments a Minecraft server touches the disk
| When | What happens | What you see if the disk is slow |
|---|---|---|
| Somebody walks into new terrain | Regions are read in, or generated and then written | A pause at the edge of the loaded area |
| The world saves itself | Everything changed since the last save is written | A hitch every few minutes, for everyone at once |
| A backup runs | The whole world is read and compressed | A slower server for the length of the backup |
| The server starts | Plugins, configs and the spawn area are read | A longer wait after a restart |
The question that beats NVMe against SSD
Whether the disk is shared, and with how many. A fast drive split between too many busy servers behaves like a slow one exactly when everybody is online, and no label on the order page tells you that. It is the reason our Performance line gives a plan an NVMe slice of its own rather than a share of one.
The same argument for the processor, with what the difference costs
The sizes on Standard, and what each one costs
Every plan includes a disk, and you can take a larger one before you order. Standard includes 100 GB NVMe; the table below is the full list for that size, straight from the same price list the checkout charges from.
| Disk | Extra per month |
|---|---|
| 100 GB NVMe | Included |
| 160 GB NVMe | Included |
| 200 GB SSD | Included |
| 200 GB NVMe | €3.99 |
| 400 GB SSD | €2.99 |
| 512 GB NVMe | Included |
How much space you actually need
Less than the numbers suggest, in most cases. A vanilla world that a group has been building in for a year is usually a few gigabytes, because only the parts somebody visited exist on disk. A modpack world grows faster, since each block stores more, and pre-generating a map is the one thing that turns a small world into a large one in an afternoon.
Backups do not come out of it. Ten of them live away from your server, and when a new one needs room the oldest moves to a bin that keeps it another seven days. So the size on your plan is a question about your world, not about your history.
When the disk is not your problem
If the stutter happens while nobody is loading new terrain and no backup is running, the disk is not what you are feeling. That pattern is a tick problem, and it is read from a different number entirely.
Questions about disks
What is the difference between NVMe and SSD?
Both store on flash and neither has moving parts. The difference is the road to the processor: an NVMe drive talks over the same lanes a graphics card uses, while a SATA SSD talks over a bus designed for spinning disks. The flash is similar; the queue in front of it is not.
Will I notice NVMe on a Minecraft server?
At the moments the server touches the disk, which are fewer than people think but very visible when they happen: loading a region somebody just walked into, writing the world every few minutes, restarting, and reading everything back for a backup. Between those the disk is idle and makes no difference at all.
Does it matter whether the disk is shared?
More than the NVMe label does. A fast drive divided among too many busy servers behaves like a slow one at exactly the wrong moment, and that shows up as a pause while chunks load. Asking whether the storage is shared is a better question than asking whether it is NVMe.
How much disk space does a Minecraft server need?
A vanilla world that twenty people have been building in for a year is usually a few gigabytes. A modpack world grows faster because each block stores more, and a pre-generated map is the one case that gets large quickly. Most servers run out of backup history before they run out of world.
Do backups need extra space on my plan?
Not on your own disk. Backups live away from the server, ten of them, with the oldest moving to a bin that holds it for another seven days. That is why the disk size on your plan is about the world and not about the history.
Which one should I pick here?
NVMe is the default under every plan and it is what you want if your world loads while people are walking. The SSD options are larger for the same money, so they are the better answer when you keep old worlds and a pile of files around. On Standard the included disk is 100 GB NVMe.
Delivery: most servers are handed over instantly and run within seconds of payment, the rest follow within 60 minutes during the day and within 12 hours at night.