Get the Best VPS Server for Trading and

Learn How to Set It Up to Ensure 100% Uptime

You can think of it as a large building that houses many small apartments. Each apartment is self-contained and has its own furniture, utilities, and privacy, even though they all share the same building structure. In this analogy:

Building (Physical Server): Represents a powerful computer or server located in a data center.

Apartments (VPS): Each apartment is like a VPS, which is a self-contained virtual server within the physical server. It has its own operating system (like Windows or Linux), allocated resources (CPU, RAM, storage), and software applications.

In simple terms, is like another computer.

As you can see, a VPS is an indispensable tool if you are seeking reliability, low latency, security, and scalability for your automated trading strategies.

Believe me, opting for a VPS is a decision you won’t regret. Just as selecting the right broker can significantly impact your trading success, choosing a reliable VPS is equally crucial.

Imagine deploying your trading bots on a VPS, only for it to crash or disconnect unexpectedly. Your automated trading operations would come to a halt.

Throughout my career as a trader, I've tried out several VPS providers—up to five, to be precise. While this number may seem modest, transitioning from one VPS to another can be quite cumbersome, especially when migrating multiple bots and accounts. Therefore, it’s highly advantageous to make the right choice of VPS from the outset.

Moreover, many VPS providers overcharge for features that could be obtained at a lower cost from another provider, often with superior service.

And that's where I can help you.

I’m going to tell you everything you need to know to choose the best VPS server for your trading.

Let's start by the most important one, the RAM memory.

This is a question everyone has when looking for a VPS the first time: how much RAM I need. The answer is, it depends.

There are several factors that will influence the amount of RAM your trading requires, namely:

• • The normal operation of the operating system
  • The number of MetaTrader 5 or MetaTrader 4 platforms you open (each trading account requires a separate instance of MT5)
  • The number of expert advisors deployed and their use of resources
  • The number of symbols each expert advisor trades

Let's look at these points in a bit more detail.

Old versions of Windows like 2012 could support the system with just 500 MB of RAM, but these versions are no longer commercially available.

Most VPSs come with Windows versions from 2016 to 2022, and these need around 1 GB of RAM for normal operation.

Additionally, it’s important to note that this consumption can increase when the system searches for and installs updates. In those cases, the consumption could increase up to 1.5 GB.

With this in mind, we now know that our VPS will need a minimum of 1.5 GB of RAM just to maintain the minimum functionality of the system.

Now let's see how much our MetaTrader platforms can consume.

Maintaining an MT5 platform can require around 200 MB of RAM. The consumption can vary depending on the tools you have deployed, the number of charts you have open, and the graphical objects or indicators deployed.

To minimize the RAM consumption of MT5, make sure to close all tools you do not need, only open the charts your bots will trade on, and ensure you have not deployed any technical indicators.

Opting for a minimal configuration will make your MT5 perform fewer calculations and server requests, thus avoiding unnecessary resource consumption.

If one MT5 platform requires about 200 MB of RAM, if you wish to operate multiple trading accounts, you will need to open multiple MT5 instances: as many as the number of accounts you wish to operate.

And in MT5, although we can connect multiple accounts to the platform, it is not possible to operate multiple accounts simultaneously in a single MT5. To do so, we must open several instances of the platform.

Therefore, to determine how much RAM you need for your MT5s, multiply those 200 MB by the number of MT5s you will require, and you will have a good estimate.

In the case that you still use MetaTrader 4, the consumption does not vary much from MetaTrader 5, although there are some differences.

MetaTrader 4 is less resource-efficient and is not designed for multi-symbol trading. In fact, it stopped receiving updates several years ago.

Nevertheless, what we’ve seen for MetaTrader 5 can be extrapolated to MetaTrader 4.

 As always, it is advisable to start with the minimum specifications and then resize the server if necessary.

We already know how much the platform will consume, so let's see how much our MetaTrader 5 trading robots need, and here is where the biggest differences come in.

Each trading robot can vary greatly in consumption. However, this does not mean it cannot be estimated.

Based on my experience, here’s what you will need.

RAM Consumption of Simple Expert Advisors

If your robot trades a single symbol and makes simple server requests, such as retrieving recent price data or calculating one to ten indicators, then its consumption will generally be around 10 MB per robot.

RAM Consumption of Multi-Symbol Expert Advisors

A multi-symbol robot is a program that trades multiple symbols simultaneously. To obtain its RAM consumption, a simple calculation of 10 MB per symbol can be used, though it could be lower.

If the multi-symbol expert advisor is well-optimized, its consumption could be around 5 MB per symbol.

This is possible through a framework with object-oriented programming.

RAM Consumption of Portfolio Expert Advisors

A portfolio robot is a program that trades multiple strategies, with a strategy being a set of rules applied to one or multiple symbols.

In other words, we are dealing with expert advisors that trade multiple multi-symbol experts.

Therefore, regarding RAM consumption, in the case of portfolio robots, we are still dealing with multi-symbol robots. The important thing is the number of symbols that will be traded.

Given all the information, you can now determine firsthand how much you need for your trading. Here are some examples:

1. Beginner Trader: Trades a single account and will deploy 1 to 20 expert advisors, one per symbol. This trader would do well with a VPS with 1 CPU and 2 GB of RAM.
2. Advanced Trader: Trades one to four accounts and will deploy expert advisors to trade up to 300 symbols in total. This trader would do well with a VPS with 1 or 2 CPUs and, most importantly, 4 GB of RAM.
3. Extensive Operations: If your trading involves more than four accounts and collectively, your expert advisors trade more than 300 symbols, you might want to explore higher plans.

These requirements are estimative and could vary case by case. Factors such as expert advisor code optimization, the use of indicators, the optimization of these indicators, etc., also come into play.

Additionally, the timeframes of the traded symbols can influence resource consumption. Trading on M1 will consume more resources than trading on D1, which only runs the expert once a day.

This is an excellent starting point for you to get a general idea of your RAM requirements. I recommend you base your initial choice on these guidelines and then resize your server as your needs change.

For that reason, it is important that your VPS provider allows you to resize the server quickly, easily, and at no extra cost.

Start with the minimum and scale as you go.

There are other resources to keep in mind, although they are not as crucial. Let's see them:

- Operating System: This is a personal preference. If you trade with MetaTrader 5, you can deploy it on Windows, Linux, or macOS. Personally, I've always used Windows, so that's the system I use and teach.

- CPUs: Processing units are only relevant for their contribution to RAM. If you determine that you need 2 GB of RAM for your VPS based on the above, then 1 CPU with 2 GB of RAM will suffice.

- SSD Storage: Usually, about 40GB of storage is sufficient. However, keep in mind that MetaTrader downloads data from the assets it trades. Unless you are interested in storing this data, it is important to limit the number of bars in MetaTrader to avoid storing years of data, which would significantly increase memory consumption.

Cloud servers are not new, but recently they are consolidating as the best option for hosting our trading robots. Let's see why:

In summary, a cloud server offers greater scalability, high availability, better performance, greater security, and a more efficient cost model in the long term compared to a traditional Forex VPS.

These features are essential for algorithmic trading, which requires fast and continuous execution, adaptability to market changes, and maximum security to protect your investments and trading strategies.

If you're looking for the best VPS server for your trading, my recommendation is Zomro.

After trying several providers, it's the one I've found with the best price-quality ratio, and the one I currently use myself.