What Is A Dedicated Server? The Ultimate Guide

Deciding whether to host your website on a dedicated server is a big move. It’s usually an option reserved for more established sites or those that have experienced significant growth, as you’ll be getting your hands on a lot of processing power. Is it right for your business? Find out in our comprehensive guide.

What Is a Dedicated Server?

It’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s a server that’s 100% dedicated to your website, so you won’t be sharing server space or computing resources with anyone else. This translates into better performance, faster speeds, and higher traffic volumes.

Why Would You Need a Dedicated Server?

Control

You get total control and responsibility for server management. Our experts, can install any software you’d like, and can even run your own bespoke operating system.

Performance

Dedicated servers have huge resource pools to draw from and are designed to handle thousands of daily visitors. It’s rare to see any performance issues or slow-downs

Flexibility

Since you get a server all to yourself you can make any modifications you wish. Add more CPU cores, RAM, and disk space all without having to change data hosts

Security

You control every aspect of your site’s security. You can add as many protective layers as you like alongside developing custom software for added protection

Reliability

Since you’re not sharing server space with anyone else, your website uptime is improved and you don’t have any neighbors stealing your resources

Customization

You can develop a site that’s totally customized to your business needs, plus you’ll get enough processing power to handle huge visitor numbers

How Does Dedicated Server Hosting Work?

Each server is made up of memory storage and computer processors. The more memory you have, the more data you’ll be able to store on your websites, such as video media, blogs, and text. In addition, it determines how large your eCommerce store can be and how many products it can display at any one time.

Processing power determines how fast your website will run, and the more you have, the more visitors it can handle. With a dedicated server, how much storage space and computing power you’d like is completely up to you. You should assess how large your traffic volumes are going to be and you can plan accordingly.

Obviously, the more processing power you use, the more expensive the hosting plan will be.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Dedicated Server Hosting

Advantages of Dedicated Server Hosting

• Improved performance
  Those moving from shared hosting, or even VPS solutions, will see a noticeable uptick in performance. Dedicated servers have some pretty impressive technology behind them and the processing power means your site can handle huge volumes of traffic.
  It’s a particularly popular solution for large corporations, and you’ll find lots of multinational companies using dedicated hosting. What’s more, you won’t have any other organizations or websites competing for your resources, making it one of the most efficient types of hosting there is
  

• No equipment overheads
  Since the server equipment itself will sit in the host’s data center, you don’t have to stump up the cost of the initial purchase. Plus, the host will handle any maintenance and technical issues too, further taking the strain off your own company's resources.
  Many organizations find that dedicated hosting solutions mean expensive in-house IT teams aren’t required either and are happy to act on the guidance of the data host’s team of customer service experts
  

• Very secure
  As well as the firewalls, antivirus, and other security measures employed by the data center, users of dedicated hosting solutions have a huge amount of freedom to add additional security controls.
  These can range from something as simple as adding a third-party malware scanner, to a top-of-the-range security operations suite that monitors all traffic in and out of the server. Many of these centers will trigger alerts to users allowing them to investigate any issues personally
  

• Choice of operating system
  You get total control over your operating system and can opt for Windows or Linux servers, or anything else that works for your business. With Verpex you get fully managed services, which grants you administrative privileges to install any software you want without efforts. This means you can build a truly bespoke website using the software of your choice.
  What’s more, dedicated hosting options allow you to install systems you’ve developed yourself too. So if you’ve got an in-house team of tech wizards that create systems for you, a dedicated server is a no-brainer to host on
  

• Speed
  A problem with shared hosting, and even some other web hosting types, is that websites can start to suffer from long loading times and outages. This is often because users have exceeded storage limits, or are receiving much higher traffic volumes than expected.
  Dedicated servers fix a lot of these issues by providing significantly beefed-up processing and storage abilities. You’d have to be getting astronomical amounts of traffic before you noticed any sort of slow-down
  

• Exclusive access to resources
  Related to the speed issues we’ve touched on above, dedicated servers stop anyone else from muscling in on your resources. This is a common problem with shared hosting, and one of the reasons why it’s so cheap. However, dedicated hosting eliminates this issue by housing you in a completely private environment, you’ll never have to compete for resources again

Disadvantages of Dedicated Server Hosting

• It’s very expensive
  It’s understandable that all of this storage space and processing power come at a cost, and dedicated servers start from around $70 per month. Those looking for more powerful or bespoke packages can see prices rise to hundreds of dollars per month and higher
  

• Technical knowledge
  To get the most out of your server you’re going to need a lot of technical expertise, or have a team that knows its stuff. Getting to grips with installing and managing software on servers is no easy task, so this is an option for experienced developers
  

• It’s difficult to switch services
  Since a lot of dedicated solutions are specific to each organization, you’ll often find it quite difficult if you want to migrate your website and data to another provider, or to an in-house server

Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS)

A Virtual Dedicated Server works in a similar way to a standard dedicated server but is set up in a way that means the service is accessed via the internet. Your data and information will sit on a physical server alongside other websites and organizations, but each one has been split out virtually into segregated environments. So while you’ll be sharing the physical space, you won’t actually be connected to any of your neighbors.

It’s best to think of it like renting a space in an apartment block, you have a predefined space for a fixed cost that your neighbors don’t have access to, and vice versa. You can still get a lot of the benefits of a dedicated server, such as high speeds and processing power, but it’s a cheaper way to go about it.

How Do you Set Up a Dedicated Server?

If you’ve chosen an unmanaged package you’ll need to do everything yourself. This includes choosing your operating system, your DNS software and you’ll need to set up an email server too. Plus, you’ll need to install various security features such as firewalls and DDoS protection, as well as arrange for backups of your data to be taken and stored.

If this all sounds a little complicated, you can pay a little extra for a managed service. Here, the data host will take care of the full set up process for you.

How To Choose the Right Dedicated Server Plan?

• Check your bandwidth needs
  Dedicated server packages come with preset amounts of bandwidth and processing power. Check how much traffic your site currently receives and have a chat with a customer service rep to find out which level is best for you

• Assess your technical knowledge
  If you need a lot of processing power, but don’t have the technical skills to manage a dedicated server yourself, you should consider trying a managed service. Conversely, if you want to make a lot of customized modifications, go for an unmanaged package

• Consider security
  Think about the type of data you’ll have on your site and find a package that has a lot of built in protections to secure it

How to Choose a Dedicated Server Hosting Provider

• Uptime guarantee - Only ever choose a host that can guarantee at least 99.99% uptime. Anything less is a sign your site performance could suffer

• Customer support - Getting to grips with a dedicated server is a complex task regardless of whether you choose a managed or unmanaged service. This is why it’s vital your host has a great customer service team to support you

• Budget - Prices across the industry can vary considerably these days, but higher prices tend to mean better quality of service

• Performance and reputation - Customer reviews are a good way to gauge how good the performance of your site will be. Make sure to do your research before choosing

• Freedom of operating system - A good hosting provider should give you total freedom to choose the operating system of your choice. Make sure it's covered by your chosen host

What Other Web Hosting Types Are There?

Dedicated Server Vs. VPS

VPS options are similar to the virtual dedicated servers we’ve touched on above, and are a more reasonably-priced alternative to a full dedicated solution.

Dedicated Server Vs. Cloud

Managed cloud hosting might just be the most flexible and popular type of hosting right now. It’s more easily scalable than dedicated hosting, is much cheaper and you don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to get started.

Dedicated Server Vs. Shared Hosting

Shared hosting sits right at the opposite end of the spectrum to dedicated hosting. Shared packages are designed for small businesses and low-volume sites, and are incredibly cheap. Dedicated servers on the other hand are expensive and intended for large clients.

Making the Move to Dedicated Server Hosting

• You’ve got site slow-down - If visitors are noticing significant slow-down when landing on your home page, this is a sure sign you’ve got bandwidth issues. Making the move to a dedicated server could be the solution to fix this

• Your company has grown - If you’ve seen significant growth recently, and are getting large amounts of traffic to your site, you might want to consider switching to a dedicated server in order to handle all of the new visitors. It’s a good choice if you expect even more growth in the future as a dedicated server will give you enough room to handle any growth spikes.

• To Customize security - If you’re running a site that deals with a lot of confidential information, moving to a dedicated server is a good move. The private environment, coupled with a huge range of security customization options, means your data should be very safe

Summary

If you’ve got a memory-hungry website, or have thousands of visitors to your eCommerce store each day, then a dedicated server will be a good choice for you. The sheer processing power, bandwidth, and memory it can offer are unrivaled by other types of hosting. Still, you should bear in mind this comes with quite a hefty price tag, and it won’t be the best solution for everyone.

If you run a smaller site or don’t have the technical expertise to manage dedicated servers, you’d be much better off going for either shared hosting or a managed cloud option. The decision will ultimately be based on the needs of your business at the end of the day.

Frequently Asked Questions