Having a strong, fast, and reliable website in 2021 is extremely important for just about any business.
Imagine your website crashes for an entire day because you had a surge in traffic – you’ll be losing out on a lot of potential revenue.
This is where dedicated servers can help: they ensure that your website runs as fast and as smoothly as possible, with minimal downtime.
Read on to learn more about dedicated servers, including:
- What is a Dedicated Server?
- 7+ Dedicated Server Advantages
- 4 Factors to Consider When Choosing Dedicated Servers
What is a Dedicated Server?
Dedicated server hosting means that your website or software is hosted on a server dedicated only for you.
The most popular hosting option on the internet is shared hosting – meaning, you share a server with dozens of other websites.
However, shared hosting has some clear disadvantages:
- Your website loads slowly (especially when your traffic increases).
- Potential security risks. If a website hosted on your server gets DDoS-ed or hacked, your website will go down too.
- You don’t have full control over your website/servers.
By using dedicated server hosting, however, you avoid all these issues AND get access to other clear benefits.
7+ Dedicated Server Advantages
1. Dedicated Hardware
First and foremost – the clearest dedicated server hosting advantage is that you get your personal dedicated hardware.
This is advantageous for 2 key reasons:
One – you don’t have to worry about sharing your server resources with other websites.
Two – you have root access to your server, and can customize it to your needs.
2. High Performance
Dedicated servers perform significantly better than other hosting alternatives.
Your website is significantly less likely to crash, you have a lot more bandwidth to handle traffic in your peak hours, and most importantly, your website loads way faster than with shared hosting.
In addition, dedicated hosting also outperforms cloud hosting. Even if the two servers have the same amount of RAM, CPU cores, and drive space, dedicated server hosting will still lead to faster website performance.
3. Increased Security
Let’s consider the following scenario:
It’s your peak traffic hour, and there are thousands of visitors on your website buying your product/service.
Then, all of a sudden, someone on your shared server hosting gets hit by a DDoS attack, which also slows YOUR website down to a crawl.
This can lead to a lot of losses for your company, potentially numbering in thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
With dedicated server hosting, though, your servers are your own and you don’t run such risks. In addition, you can customize the security settings on your servers, ensuring better protection.
4. Reliability
In 2021, server reliability is extremely important.
If your website goes down for any reason, your customers will head to your competitor.
This brings us to another clear advantage of dedicated server hosting – they’re extremely reliable:
- Your website can be up and running 24/7, 365 days a year, with minimal downtime.
- The website will run extremely fast & smoothly, even during your peak traffic hours.
5. Flexibility
Dedicated server hosting makes growing your website significantly easier.
Let’s say you just experienced a surge of new users to your SaaS, and now your website is slowing down to a crawl because you’ve been using shared hosting.
If you were using dedicated hosting, you’d simply be able to upgrade your hardware to handle the traffic surge – all in an hour or two.
6. Root Access
With a dedicated server, you have root access to your own servers.
Meaning, you can install applications server-wide, upgrade security measures, manage your users, and even set up backup on your dedicated server – none of which is possible with shared hosting.
7. Cost
Price is another key advantage of dedicated server hosting.
If you need a dedicated server, but don’t have the resources to buy/manage one yourself, you simply rent a server from a dedicated hosting provider.
The hosting provider takes care of all the server maintenance, allowing you to focus on what really matters for your business!
Here’s a detailed breakdown of dedicated server pricing.
8. Technical Support
The very best dedicated server hosting providers offer 24/7 technical support.
After all, if something happens to your servers (technical issues, DDoS attack, or whatever else), you need the problem solved ASAP. You don’t want any damage done to your business due to server issues.
Not convinced yet? Check out these 5+ reasons why you need a dedicated server!
4 Factors To Consider When Choosing a Dedicated Server Provider
Thinking of getting dedicated server hosting?
Makes sense – all the advantages we covered in this article are very hard to pass on.
You might be wondering, though, how do you pick a dedicated server provider that’s the best fit for your business?
We recommend you consider the following 4 factors:
1. Hardware Options
First things first – consider your hardware requirements.
Depending on what you’re using the server for, you’ll have different hardware needs.
If you’re using dedicated server hosting for data backup, for example, then you’ll need a LOT of hard disk space (but the servers themselves don’t need to be extremely fast or powerful).
Alternatively, if you’re using a dedicated server to host your website, then you don’t need nearly as much disk space, but you’ll need powerful servers to handle the traffic.
If you’re not too tech-savvy, reach out to a potential dedicated server provider and they’ll help you pick a server that’s right for you.
At RedSwitches, we can help! Get in touch with us here.
2. Pricing
Pricing, of course, is also a very important factor.
Some dedicated server providers are going to be significantly more expensive than others.
We recommend you look for a dedicated server provider that can give you the best bang for your buck.
RedSwitches dedicated servers start at only $100/month – offering more for your money’s worth than most popular dedicated hosting providers out there.
3. Server Location
Your server location matters a lot.
On one hand, server location can impact your SEO. If your server is in the same location as your customers, your website will rank faster.
On the other hand, it also impacts your website speed. If your customers are in Holland, but your website is hosted in Canada, the site will load quite slow.
So, when picking a dedicated server, we recommend you pick the one with locations where your target customers live.
4. DDoS Protection
DDoS attack is a type of hacking that overloads your servers with requests.
The hacker sends thousands of requests per minute, and your server is unable to fulfill all of them fast enough (which leads to a slower response time for all your website visitors – even the legitimate ones).
The best dedicated servers come with DDoS protection.
If you get hit by a DDoS attack, the server manages to catch malicious traffic and block it, allowing uninterrupted website access to your real website visitors.
Time to choose a dedicated hosting provider? Check out these top 10 dedicated server hosting providers!
Key Takeaways
Now that we’ve covered everything you need to know about dedicated server advantages, let’s recap the most important learning points:
- Dedicated server hosting is a type of server that hosts your website/software/data on dedicated hardware that’s not shared with other people.
- The key advantages of dedicated server hosting are the following: dedicated hardware, better performance, increased website security, reliability, and more.
- When picking a dedicated server, we recommend you consider the following factors: what kind of hardware you need, where you can get the best pricing, the server location, and whether it has DDoS protection.
Dedicated Server Advantages FAQ
#1. How Does a Dedicated Server Work?
Dedicated server hosting is when a provider leases you their servers at a fixed monthly fee. All you have to do is pick a provider, let them know about the type of hardware you need, and you’ll be able to get your dedicated server up and running within hours.
#2. Is a Dedicated Server Worth it?
Dedicated servers are definitely worth it. They make your website significantly faster and more reliable, while also being extremely affordable.
Other advantages to dedicated server hosting include access to dedicated hardware, better security, reliability, root access to your personal servers, and more.
#3. Are Dedicated Servers Better Than Shared Servers?
Dedicated servers are significantly better than shared servers. They load faster, allow for better website security, anonymity, and so much more.
#4. What are The Main Reasons For Using a Dedicated Server?
The main reasons for using a dedicated server are:
- Access to dedicated hardware. Your servers are your own, and you can customize them to your needs.
- Better website performance. Your website loads significantly faster than with other hosting alternatives.
- Increased security. You have the option to improve your security on your dedicated servers, installing better security software, monitoring malicious traffic, and more.
- Better reliability. Your website can be up and running 24/7 with almost no downtime.
And more!
#5. How Much Does a Dedicated Server Cost?
Dedicated servers costs start at $100.
#6. What is the Best Dedicated Server Hosting Company?
RedSwitches has the best dedicated servers on the market – we offer competitive prices for high-quality servers hosted in 7+ different countries.
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- Unmetered Dedicated Server – Definition and 5+ Use Cases
- What Is a Cloud Dedicated Server & How Does It Work?
