San Francisco, United States
Server infrastructure for VFX Studios in San Francisco
Most VFX Studios outgrow their first server in one specific place — and it is rarely the one the plan name suggests. For a large VFX Studios business in San Francisco that is about 28 Cores, 448 GB of memory and 4000 GB of storage on Bare Metal.
- ✓ 5 infrastructure tiers
- ✓ Sized for your workload, not a plan name
- ✓ Same price in all 24 locations
Estimated from fibre distance, not measured from San Francisco. Your real figure depends on your connection and route, and lands inside this range.
Choose the infrastructure for your workload
Three sizes of business, each sized from an assumed traffic figure rather than a measured one. If you know your own numbers, tell us and the estimate changes with them.
Small VFX Studios
1–10 people · ~5,000 visits a month
$803.65 USD USD
per month · VDS
- 4 Cores
- 48 GB RAM
- 3000 GB storage
- GPU on request
About 0.1 requests a second at peak, holding roughly 33.6 GB of working data.
Configure this build →Medium VFX Studios
11–50 people · ~50,000 visits a month
$1,546.15 USD USD
per month · Dedicated Server
- 8 Cores
- 128 GB RAM
- 4000 GB storage
- Managed
- GPU on request
About 0.5 requests a second at peak, holding roughly 96 GB of working data.
Configure this build →Large VFX Studios Most likely here
51+ people · ~500,000 visits a month
$4,063.90 USD USD
per month · Bare Metal
- 28 Cores
- 448 GB RAM
- 4000 GB storage
- Managed
- GPU on request
About 4.6 requests a second at peak, holding roughly 384 GB of working data.
Configure this build →These figures are assumptions stated out loud, not predictions about your business. Memory, cores and disk can all be raised on the same server later, usually within the hour, with no rebuild and no new IP address — so starting one size below the estimate is normally the cheaper mistake.
Why VFX Studios size up this way
Working from about 500,000 visits a month and roughly 266,667 requests a day, storage grows by roughly 2,400 GB a month at this size, which usually decides the build before CPU does; about 384 GB of data needs to stay in memory to keep queries fast; each request costs real computation rather than a cache lookup, so cores matter more here than on a typical site; and a GPU is genuinely used rather than optional, and is quoted separately.
- 4.6 req/sec at peak
- 384 GB working set
- 2,400 GB/month growth
- Linux
Which tiers suit VFX Studios
Including the ones that do not, and why — that is usually the more useful half.
| Infrastructure | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Hosting Managed space on a shared server | Not this one | There is no version of this workload that fits on shared hosting. |
| VPS Flexible virtual infrastructure with full root access | Workable | Useful for development, notebooks and light inference, but not for training or sustained compute. |
| VDS Virtual server with resources pinned to you alone | Workable | Suits CPU-bound preprocessing and data preparation with a guaranteed share of the machine. |
| Dedicated Server An entire physical server, configured to your specification | Recommended | Production compute wants the whole machine, with memory bandwidth that is not being shared. |
| Bare Metal Physical compute for sustained, demanding workloads | Recommended | Training, inference and simulation belong on physical hardware, with GPUs available on request. |
VFX Studios workloads you can host
Simulation and rendering saturate hardware for hours, and the plates they work from are enormous.
- Compositing & simulation
- Render queue management
- Plate storage
- Client review portal
- Colour pipeline
Where your server runs
All 24 locations cost the same, so pick whichever sits closest to the people who will actually use the server.
San Francisco is closest to Santa Clara. Every marker costs the same per month.
Show all 24 locations and distances from San Francisco ▾
| Location | Distance | Est. round trip |
|---|---|---|
| Americas · 9 locations | ||
| Santa Clara, United States | 39 miles | 1–2 ms |
| Los Angeles, United States | 347 miles | 8–17 ms |
| Seattle, United States | 679 miles | 16–33 ms |
| Dallas, United States | 1,481 miles | 36–71 ms |
| Chicago, United States | 1,855 miles | 45–90 ms |
| Atlanta, United States | 2,136 miles | 52–103 ms |
| Toronto, Canada | 2,264 miles | 55–109 ms |
| New York, United States | 2,566 miles | 62–124 ms |
| Miami, United States | 2,591 miles | 63–125 ms |
| Asia-Pacific · 7 locations | ||
| Tokyo, Japan | 5,142 miles | 124–248 ms |
| Hong Kong, China | 6,895 miles | 166–333 ms |
| Sydney, Australia | 7,424 miles | 179–358 ms |
| Delhi NCR, India | 7,679 miles | 185–371 ms |
| Kolkata, India | 7,813 miles | 189–377 ms |
| Mumbai, India | 8,385 miles | 202–405 ms |
| Singapore | 8,440 miles | 204–407 ms |
| Europe, Middle East & Africa · 8 locations | ||
| London, United Kingdom | 5,354 miles | 129–258 ms |
| Stockholm, Sweden | 5,357 miles | 129–259 ms |
| Amsterdam, The Netherlands | 5,452 miles | 132–263 ms |
| Frankfurt, Germany | 5,675 miles | 137–274 ms |
| Madrid, Spain | 5,790 miles | 140–280 ms |
| Milan, Italy | 5,947 miles | 144–287 ms |
| Bucharest, Romania | 6,427 miles | 155–310 ms |
| Tel Aviv, Israel | 7,391 miles | 178–357 ms |
Distances are from San Francisco. Round trips are estimated from fibre distance, not measured — the figure your users see depends on where they are.
VFX Studios in San Francisco
We work with businesses across SoMa, the Mission, the Financial District, the Marina and Nob Hill. San Francisco audiences are tech-savvy and hold sites to a high bar for speed and design.
The closest of our 24 data centres to San Francisco is Santa Clara, about 39 miles away. The price is the same in all 24 locations, so distance is the only variable worth optimising.
San Francisco has a population of about 827,526, which is why the large build above is the one most likely to fit a VFX Studios business here — though the other two are a click away if it does not. Local time is America/Los Angeles, so routine maintenance and backups are scheduled against your overnight rather than ours.
Data stays in the jurisdiction you choose, which matters if you are working to state privacy laws such as the CCPA. Pricing is quoted in USD, and the figure is the same wherever the machine physically sits.
Network reach from San Francisco
Estimated from fibre distance rather than measured, and stated as a range. Your own access network decides the rest.
| Data centre | Distance from San Francisco | Estimated round trip |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Claraamericas | 39 miles | 1–2 ms |
| Los Angelesamericas | 347 miles | 8–17 ms |
| Seattleamericas | 679 miles | 16–33 ms |
San Francisco sits in California, and every one of our 24 locations costs the same — so the only thing worth optimising is which of them your users are closest to. At the large size assumed above, that is roughly 266,667 requests a day crossing that link.
VFX Studios hosting in San Francisco — FAQs
What size server does a VFX Studios business in San Francisco, CA need?
Where would the server for my San Francisco, CA business actually run?
Is a VPS enough for VFX Studios, or do we need a dedicated server?
Can you host compositing & simulation for us?
Can we start smaller and grow?
Other industries in San Francisco
Same city, different workload.
VFX Studios hosting nearby
The same workload, in the nearest cities.