Introduction: What is a Dedicated Server?

Larger websites, or those which serve a high amount of media, are best suited on a dedicated server. This sort of arrangement generally means you’re allowed to rent and use a server to its fullest capacity, provided your content and site are within the providers terms and service. Since you are essentially renting the entire computer for use as a web host, (or streaming media server, game server, ect) you are not usually subject to the limitations found in most VPS or shared hosting environment. In fact, the only real limits placed are bandwidth allotment, and the maximum power of the computers components.

How Much Does a Dedicated Server Cost?

Dedicated web servers are priced based on their configuration, and the amount of bandwidth supplied. General configurations may include 10mbps (megabits per second), and are billed on the 95th percentile; your monthly bill would be calculated by traffic spikes, in which case high-traffic sites could consider the alternative bandwidth cap of 5TB (terabytes) per month, which ensures the same fee, plus overage fees.

Why Would I Need One?

Justification of upgrading to a full server vary, however sites with increasing page views per month will benefit from the investment.

Dedicated Server Options – Operating System:

Windows and Linux are the two major operating systems provided. Both have thousands of monitoring applications and server enhancement tools available, and both bug fixes and security patches are released on a monthly (or sooner) basis. Linux distributions are usually offered at no extra cost, however Windows IIS environments come with a extra charge, which increases your monthly bill.

Windows Server 2003 and 2008 both server web content using Microsoft IIS, and execute scripts written in ASP, which is default on all Windows based server systems. IIS includes plugins (called snap-ins) which can execute PHP, and you can even run Apache on Windows. IIS provides a simple to use interface, while allowing for more advanced options to be used if needed. There are commercial training courses available which teach the very basic fundamentals, to the expert skills needed to deploy IIS based sites across a intranet, or the web.

Linux, on the other hand, is completely open-source and its core functionality can easily be customized on a level unavailable on Windows. For example, a Linux system which is intended to server static content, such as images or cached HTML and CSS stylesheets, can be tweaked to do so, such as removing all traces of any dynamic run-time components. On a purely subjective note, some security experts claim that a LAMP install is inherently more secure than Windows, and therefore the real exploitations to be considered lie within the scripts run on the site itself.

Things to Consider When Buying a Dedicated Server:

There are two main resource allotments to think about when comparing providers, the priority of which obviously dependent on situation.

Bandwidth allotment:
Unmetered bandwidth can prevent unwanted overage fees by capping the maximum output of bandwidth you’re allowed. Once this level is reached, visitors may experience longer loading times which accessing your webpage, or may see the 503 (service unavailable) HTTP message.

The 95th percentile billing option refers to your monthly bill being calculated per peak usage, rather than a set price for a set amount of transfer. This is useful for sites with known traffic patterns, but a high-traffic spike (such as getting linked from a popular site, like Digg or Yahoo) can increase the amount you have to pay at the end of the month, even if the spike lasted only a short time.

Total transfer calculates cost by adding both inbound and outbound transfer and billing for that amount.

Disk space:
For this explanation, disk space refers to both the amount of storage needed for the files stored on the hard drive, as well as the size of any databases created with MySQL or Postgres.

With the cost of hard disks being around $200 for a TB of storage, most providers are able to offer incredible amounts of storage for little price. However, the true cost in this regard is the amount of resources needed to store and serve media that you may embed within your site. Websites with lots of images and video may benefit from moving this content onto a CDN (content delivery network) to prevent bandwidth and hard drive storage overage fees.

Comparing Dedicated Server Providers and Choosing the Best Option

We have provided a quick checklist of twenty-five key points to use when choosing a dedicated host. If you’re in the market for a faster server, check out our quick dedicated server comparison review.