Is a Dedicated Server for You?

 

Dedicated servers are one of the most stable and most effective ways to host your website. They have a very low crash rate, and are also very customizable. However, while most businesses immediately head for the benefits of dedicated hosting, you may discover that it would be more beneficial for your business to start with a simpler plan before moving on to dedicated servers. This article has been designed to help you make the final decision on the best hosting plan for you.

dedicated hostingWhen making your choice between servers, you will discover that they are generally divided into two categories – a shared server and a dedicated one. Shared servers allow you to keep your website online, but at the price of sharing memory and bandwidth with someone else. A dedicated server gives all server space to you alone to use at will. Of course, the first option is a lot cheaper than the other.

Shared servers are a very good choice for those who are just starting out in the online world and who aren’t sure if their business will be successful. If, on the other hand, you do have online experience and already have a great audience for your business, who can skip the first step of shared hosting and go straight for your own dedicated server. Bear in mind though that dedicated servers are also more demanding in terms of setup and technology. So if you aren’t web savvy, you may need to hire a professional to do the maintenance work for you.

One of the first benefits of opting for a dedicated server is the server response, which is a lot slower on shared servers. This is because the response time does not only depend on your website, but on all the other websites that are sharing your server as well. The downside is that you will never know just how many other websites are sharing your web space, so you cannot calculate server response times on your own. This is not an issue with dedicated servers though. Because you are the only owner of the server space, there are no other websites there to intervene with your website’s work. This also means that it is very unlikely that you will ever experience nay downtime or server errors.

If you have any special software installations that you wish to apply to your server, you will not be able to do this with shared hosting. The simple reason for this is that any major software upgrades that are done on a single shared server will affect every website on it. As such, it is not possible for your hosting provider to always have to get in touch with all website owners of a single server and get their consent on the matter. With a dedicated server you can play with software and applications as much as you want, and you will be able to create very original web design that will run faster and be more cost effective.

Depending on the information contained within your files, you should know that shared servers do not have the high level of privacy and security that dedicated servers do. This is particularly important if you are running an e-commerce website and you wish to have you clients’ information remain private since it will contain payment information. A dedicated server is a much better option in this case and can save you quite a few headaches in the long run.

Almost every dedicated server provides you with automated backup so that you do not have to worry about any of your files ever being lost. So, if you do have a complex business running, a dedicated server will be the best option for you.