What Is a Dedicated Server? Everything You Need to Know About Having Your Own Server
What Is a Dedicated Server and Who Needs One?
What is a dedicated server? It’s your best friend if you expect to scale your site to millions of hits per day. Read here for more info about finding a server.
Are you a site owner with a slow website?
You only have three seconds to keep at least half of your visitors on your page before they click off. If your site is slow, you’re losing visitors – fast.
The type of hosting you choose is often the choice that affects your site speed most. Switching to a dedicated server could speed things up, and give you space for your site to grow.
But what is a dedicated server, and is it right for you? Let’s find out together.
What Is a Dedicated Server?
For websites with a large number of daily visitors, or with potential to scale, dedicated hosting is the best option for them.
A dedicated server is exactly that, dedicated. An unfair share of resources against other websites won’t happen if your site is hosted on a dedicated server.
You rent the entire server for your website, with all the resources available to it entirely dedicated to serving your site. The processor speed, RAM and storage, as well as the bandwidth your server has available, are all yours to use.
You also have control over what software your server runs, as well as the security measures you can put in place.
Do I Need a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated servers offer advantages, but they’re not recommended for people looking for a hands-off approach to their hosting. It’s also not recommended for site owners with fewer visitors or lower resource needs, such as storage.
However, if you need website hosting that is quick, customizable, or requires specialist software, a dedicated server might be the best option. A dedicated server is also far more scalable for increased storage usage or visitor numbers.
Your site speed is important, too. As you won’t be sharing your server with other visitors, your bandwidth will be dedicated to your site alone, but your site can be affected by other slowdowns, such as the software you use.
If you’re worried about your site speed, then Google can help you test it with their mobile speed testing tool.
Dedicated Server vs Shared Hosting vs VPS
Other than a dedicated server, the other two main types of hosting available are shared hosting and virtual private servers (or VPS).
Shared hosting is the opposite of a dedicated server – you’ll share your site, including all of the resources, with many other websites on one server. If one site causes a slowdown or a security breach, it’ll affect the others.
A VPS can isolate your site by giving you isolated resources, but you’re still one of several ‘virtual’ servers being hosted on one main server. You won’t have the best speed, storage or bandwidth available.
For the best allocation of resources, and for the best speed, a dedicated server is your best option compared to either shared hosting or a VPS.
Want to learn more about these other forms of hosting? Check out our FAQ on shared hosting and domain registration to learn more.
The Benefits of Dedicated Server Hosting
What is a dedicated server, if not the best type of hosting for large-scale websites with lots of visitors?
Unlike shared hosting, you’re in control. You can implement the software you need and scale your site to match your traffic. You won’t have to share it with other websites, so you won’t have to worry about site slowdowns.
If you’ve got a high traffic website to host, dedicated server hosting is the right choice for you. Take a look at the dedicated server packages we offer and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.
