What Is A Dedicated Hosting Service? Do You Need One? FAQs.

What is a Dedicated Hosting service?

A Dedicated Hosting Service, which is also known as Dedicated Server Hosting, is when you pay for the exclusive use of an entire physical web server, which is usually located in a data center.

With a dedicated hosting service you lease the entire machine for your own private use. This gives you a massive amount of processing power, flexibility and control over a whole server without sharing it with anyone else. With all this power, you can run all your own websites as well as host websites for clients, run web applications, etc.

Dedicated Hosting service allows you to have complete control over your website’s server, its resources and hosting environment.

There are Web Hosting providers that provide any server management services at all. These are usually only recommended for experienced web server users who know how to run and manage an entire web server on their own.

However, some Web Hosting providers do offer managed, dedicated hosting service plans as well for inexperienced users.

What do you need a Dedicated Hosting Service for?

There are many reasons that a person or business would want to use a Dedicated Hosting Service.

A few examples of users include:

• High Traffic Websites.
• File Sharing Sites.
• Database Servers.
• DNS/DHCP Servers.
• File and Print servers.
• Gaming Sites.

Dedicated Hosting is great for power users that have their own software/scripts that they need to run 24/7.

Do I need a Dedicated Hosting Service?

In most cases, no. Shared Hosting is faster and more cost effective. Should you require complete control over your server(s) as well as the processing power/bandwidth needed for quick page loads, dedicated Hosting is an excellent investment.

In these cases, it would be advantageous to look into dedicated Hosting. For most small businesses, this is overkill and not recommended.

It depends on what you need now and in the future.

If you are looking at expanding your business exponentially, you might want to go with VPS Hosting now so that infrastructure can grow as traffic increases without having to upgrade existing servers or purchase new ones.

Dedicated Hosting “packages” are available on Dedicated Servers that provide a range of features and performance levels, suitable for different types of businesses.

The most expensive packages are likely to have the highest performing hardware – Intel Xeon processors, large amounts of RAM etc.; the cheapest packages are more likely to have older, slower CPUs.

There is a direct correlation between price and performance.

If you have a web application that needs lots of dedicated RAM, then your host should have plenty of memory available to allocate to your site.

If your site takes up a lot of disc space, check the Hosting company’s terms to see what the monthly limits are on storage, bandwidth etc.

Dedicated Hosting will also give you more control over your webspace than any other kind of Hosting service.

Dedicated Servers are not required for most small businesses unless you want to have exclusive use of a machine or if you have software that is resource hungry.

What are the advantages of a Dedicated Hosting Service?

A dedicated Hosting service gives you total control of the computer (server). As long as you pay the monthly fee, you will be able to do whatever you want with it. You can install any operating system or software on it that you like.

You also have exclusive use of the machine meaning no one else is using it besides you, this is unlike some virtual Dedicated Servers where several customers will be on one machine.

Dedicated Hosting service gives your site and users the ability to do things that may not be possible with other types of hosts.

One example would be using a special application or script that requires more memory than what’s available on a Virtual Private Server, yet not quite enough memory to justify a Dedicated Server.

What are the disadvantages of a Dedicated Hosting Service?

One disadvantage of course is the initial cost that you will need to pay in order to get your own machine.

You also may be responsible for maintaining it which can take up time if you’re not familiar with server management.

Dedicated Hosting is more expensive than shared, but you get what you pay for. Unless your business model really needs dedicated, you’re better off using a VPS or Shared Hosting service.

How much faster is Dedicated Hosting than other Hosting?

Dedicated Hosting is significantly faster than other types of Hosting. You can achieve speeds up to 10x faster depending on the type of server you choose.

A Dedicated Server often has an array of high-performance hardware, with little competition for usage of that hardware, resulting in longer time periods to complete tasks before re-allocating them.

This allows the server to complete tasks faster than less powerful, multi-use machines.

How expensive is a Dedicated Hosting Service?

Dedicated Hosting can be expensive, depending on what you’re looking for (how much bandwidth, storage space).

On average, dedicated Hosting can range anywhere from $100+ dollars a month.

What is the main concern of a Dedicated Server?

A Dedicated Server is a physical property, a machine.

That means, the only person that uses it is you. You have full control over what happens with your hardware and its resources.

With a Dedicated Server, no one else will interfere with what you do online.

This specific service allows you to take advantage of the entire machine’s available resources for much better levels of performance.

You can choose between unmanaged or managed servers, depending on your preferences.

With an unmanaged one, you are responsible for handling all the necessary tasks to keep it running smoothly, including patching applications and managing updates.

A managed server will give you full support with everything that entails maintaining a dedicated machine, leaving you to perform all the tasks you wish to accomplish.

Which type of sites should use Dedicated Servers?

Another factor that separates a Dedicated Server from a Shared one is its abundance of resources.

The sheer amount of hardware provided here meets any demand, from running resource-intense software and websites to playing games without worrying about other users affecting your performances.

You can even create a custom environment with the OS and software of your choice to suit your exact needs.

Those who require high-performance servers should definitely opt for this kind of Hosting service, whether it be for running resource-demanding applications or websites that will benefit from all the available hardware.

Gameservers are another example that can greatly benefit from this type of server.

Of course, any business that requires a high-performance machine to keep up with their growing needs or wants to have full control over the hardware used should use Dedicated Servers.

Also, large businesses that depend on certain applications do not want any other companies using them at the same time can also take advantage of this type of Hosting.

Are Dedicated Servers worth it?

A Dedicated Server is a physical server that runs under your full control. With a Dedicated Server you have all the root access to the entire machine and its resources.

A Dedicated Server comes with 24/7 technical support, security, flexibility and peace of mind at one fixed monthly cost.

If all those features are vital to your business, then a Dedicated Hosting Service would definitely be worth it.

Is a Dedicated Server more secure?

A lot of people consider a Dedicated Server to be more secure than Shared Hosting, because you do not share the server with anyone else. It’s yours only!

And it’s true, you won’t share the server with anyone. But that does not mean a Dedicated Server is more secure than Shared Hosting.

Why?

The reason behind this is that in shared Hosting your website files are owned by another user and he/she has the root access to your site.

Of course, they can’t easily access your files, because it’s password-protected.

But if someone can access your cPanel they could easily delete all the websites that are using the shared Hosting account.

What is a Dedicated Hosting service? Summary.

To summarize, a dedicated Hosting service is a type of Web Hosting where you share a physical server with no one else.

You have full and exclusive access to the machine’s resources and all data on its hard disks, plus root-level (or administrator-level) access so you can install pretty much whatever software application you need.

A dedicated Hosting service is the most powerful type of Web Hosting available on the market. It offers lots of resources, which allow you to run any applications or scripts that are required by your website, without any limitations.

Since you have full control over your virtual private server, you can install and configure pretty much any software that you want.

This makes a Dedicated Server the perfect option if you need to run applications which are resource-intensive, such as Magento or Joomla.

Moreover, since all Web Hosting companies deliver several tools that help you create a professional blog much faster and easier, a dedicated Hosting account is a perfect solution for those who wish to edit their website’s appearance by themselves.

The biggest advantage of Dedicated Hosting. No limits.

If you need to run resource-intensive web applications or if your site is really popular, then a shared Hosting account will not probably meet your expectations because these types of accounts have limited resources.

This means that if you exceed the amounts you’re allocated, you will not be able to run more applications on your site.

With a dedicated Hosting service, on the other hand, you can forget about this type of problems because you have full control over your server’s resources and no one limits your activity.

With a dedicated Hosting account, you can also rest assured because with the proper maintenance, your server is always going to be fast and reliable.