If you’re looking for a dedicated server, the process can be overwhelming. However, don’t worry! Dedicated servers are designed to handle any type of workload you throw at them. With that being said, there are several things you’ll want to consider when purchasing your own dedicated server.
Your Performance Requirements
Before you even start looking at servers, you need to know what your performance requirements are. This will help you narrow down the options and make sure that you get a server that is suitable for your needs.
Here are some things you should consider:
When you’re choosing a dedicated server, one of the first things you’ve got to figure out is how many users you expect to have.
This is important because if your business explodes and suddenly you’ve got hundreds of thousands of new people coming to your website every day, it may be time to upgrade your server.
It’s also important because this number can affect your budget: if you expect only 100 daily hits, then an expensive $500/month dedicated server is probably an overkill. If you’re expecting more than 10,000,000 daily hits, then that same server might be underpowered for the job.
How much RAM do you need (e.g., 1GB RAM)?
If you’re new to hosting and have no idea where to begin, here’s what you need to know about choosing the right server for your needs.
Depending on how much traffic your site gets and what kind of content is featured on it, you’ll need to make sure that the servers you choose reflect the number of resources they provide.
For example, if your site will have lots of traffic and use a lot of bandwidth every day, you need to make sure that the RAM is adequate enough to handle everything including cache. A cache can considerably reduce your website load time.
The type of RAM needed depends on what kind of server you choose. For example, if you use an Apache server with PHP or MySQL installed, it needs 1GB RAM.
If you’re using a virtual private server with Oracle, it uses 4GB RAM for the operating system and another 100MB for each database. If you’re using Windows Server 2008.
These numbers are minimums and if your application received a ton of hits every hour, you might want to take that into account when calculating the required amount of RAM.
Consider potential downtimes
Downtime is the time that a server is not available to users of your website.
Downtime can be caused by hardware failure, software failure, network failure, or human error. The causes of downtime can vary, but they all have an effect on business and cost you money.
When choosing a dedicated server provider, you should look at their track record of keeping servers online with minimal or no downtime and make sure that their facilities are TIER 3 and TIER 4 certified.
Scalability
Scalability is one of the most important factors when choosing a dedicated server for your business or personal needs. Scalability means the ability to increase capacity as needed and add additional servers, storage, memory, and network connections as needed.
This can save you money as you can upgrade your machine only when absolutely necessary and you are not required to pay upfront for those unused resources when your app is small.
Budget
Before you make a decision, it’s important to determine your budget.
This will help you find the perfect server package that fits your needs and gives you the most value for your money.
There are many factors that affect price in addition to base dedicated server costs like operating system licensing fees, backup services, technical support, bandwidth costs, security features such as firewalls and antivirus programs, control panel software, etc.,
You have to keep all that in mind when making your decision to avoid getting unexpected bills.
Technical Support
Technical support is an important factor to consider when choosing a dedicated server. The best technical support should be available 24/7 and your issues should be addressed as immediately as possible.
24/7 availability:
A dedicated server host should provide technical assistance to you whenever you need it—whether that’s on the weekend or at 2 am on Christmas morning (though hopefully no Christmas mornings will be spent working).
If your provider offers this type of around-the-clock service, it means that they’ve got their stuff together.
Faster Response Times and SLAs
When you’re facing a critical issue, it is crucial to get timely support. Make sure that the dedicated server provider you’re about to choose offers priority support else steer away.
Network Quality
The quality of your network is one of the most important factors when choosing a dedicated server. There are multiple factors that determine the quality of your network connection and how it relates to your overall performance, including:
Bandwidth Speed
Bandwidth Speed is the amount of data that can be transferred from one point to another in a certain amount of time.
Higher bandwidth means faster transfers and more efficient use of bandwidth, but this isn’t always necessary if you’re not transferring large amounts of data regularly.
For example, downloading essential files and DB operations won’t require as high a bandwidth as streaming video or playing online games will.
Latency
Latency is the time it takes for information to travel across networks between computers (also known as ping).
Latency can cause problems like lag or stuttering gameplay in online games.
However, high latency doesn’t necessarily mean slow speeds or decreased throughput over long distances either. You need both low latency together with good transfer speeds and large amounts (MBps) per second in order for there not to be any network bottlenecks.
For critical applications like Games, Video Calling, etc., consider using a server with the lowest latency for your target audience.
Backup Services and their reliability
When you’re choosing a dedicated server, it’s important to consider which of the backup plans you are going to choose.
Backup services are usually offered by the hosting provider as an add-on. This is a useful option for those who do not have an IT team or don’t want to spend money on hiring one.
The host will perform regular backups of all of your data and in case anything happens to your servers, such as hardware failure or power loss, you can contact the hosting provider and they might be able to set up a replacement server for the time being. Usually, this is a cost-effective and hands-free option.
You can also follow the DIY approach and design your very own backup method. This offers you more control over your backups and you don’t have to rely on any third party.
However, setting it up and monitoring it regularly is a tedious task by itself and might make sense only for large corporations with IT teams to take care of the architecture, or for someone who is tech-savvy.
Customization options
Customization options are great because they allow users to tailor their servers exactly how they want them without having to pay for unnecessary extras that they don’t need anyway.
This can be especially useful for those who want their machines to run as efficiently as possible while still providing maximum performance at all times.
Before signing up for a dedicated server service from a company, make sure they are flexible and open to customizing your server as per your needs, so that you can scale your server with more RAM, Storage, CPU, etc., whenever you want in the future.
Conclusion
We hope this article has helped you to understand the important factors to consider when choosing a dedicated server. Dedicated servers are great for businesses that need full control over their web hosting and don’t want to be restricted by shared hosting plans.
They will also give you access to your own physical server, which no one else can use. In addition, they offer more resources than Cloud VMs—at far better pricing advantage (like price per CPU/RAM)—which means better performance in general for a comparatively lower cost.
However, there are many other factors that go into choosing an appropriate plan for your business needs or personal website needs (such as scalability), so don’t forget them when making decisions about what kind of plan works best!
