Having a Dedicated Server, When Does This Make Sense?
July 30th, 2008
It’s a great thing to have a website that is well liked, especially if the website concerns your business. However, you’ve probably never thought popularity could cost you money. There will be a specific amount of bandwidth allocated to you monthly on a shared web service. Traffic overages are dealt with differently depending on your provider’s agreement.
Some of them will all of a sudden shut down your website, that means your visitors will only view a page instructing them that you have extended over your allotment. Others will allow your page to keep running, and will charge you for the extra bandwidth. You could find yourself facing steeply increasing costs if your site starts to get more and more hits.
It is for this reason that it is critical to keep a careful watch on your daily bandwidth usage and site traffic statistics. If you think you may exceed the allotment you were assigned for your bandwidth, now is the time to look at whether getting a dedicated server may be right for you.It might be tempting to use one of the shared hosting servers that claims to offer “unlimited” bandwidth. Be aware that the fine print probably contains limits.
Shared hosts also have a lot more down time than a dedicated server. By upgrading, you’ll be increasing the amount of time your site is available to its visitors, and eventually attract even more. Upgrading to a server of your own will improve reliability and performance, as well as giving you total control over your website.
A dedicated server will afford a greater degree of control over the applications that you want to run and will not leave you wondering why the host is down. You can also run more sites on one server - as much as a few hundred. However, it’s important to budget for extra fees. The initial cost will be high but having a dedicated server is worth the expense.
There’s a setup fee, and a dedicated server can cost as much as $200/month. However, if you stop and think about it, you’ll realize that that amount per month in exchange for reliability is a good deal, versus poor reliability and occasionally being charged several hundred dollars for bandwidth overage.
If you want to put an end to the nightmare of shared hosting, investigate options for a dedicated server. You won’t have to deal with problems from scripts other users are running, downtime, or extra charges just because you’ve become popular. If the service you have is doing a good job, you might want to ask about having them provide you with a dedicated server. It’s advisable to look at other options if you’ve been disappointed with customer service and have had other difficulties.
If your site is growing in popularity, keep an eye on the bandwidth your visitors are using. If you don’t pay very close attention, your site’s popularity could end up costing you a lot of money. Instead of having to worry every month whether or not you’ll exceed your allotment, try switching to a dedicated server that will put an end to unexpected fees and extra downtime.
In the end, a dedicated server may cost a bit more, but it’s well worth it. Control, reliability, and all the bandwidth you need to serve your site’s visitors make a dedicated server cheap for the price.
Tags: Hardware
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