Everyone knows that when it comes to running an online business, customer trust is everything. You want your web app to be stable, your e-commerce store to be secure, and your traffic-heavy media website to be blazing fast. By far the most effective way to achieve that is to move your online business to a dedicated server.

What is a dedicated server? Exactly that — a complete physical server hardware allocated exclusively for your company’s needs. Let’s see how dedicated servers differ from other hosting options and what are their opportunities for customization. 

How Are Dedicated Servers Different?

Starting out, most companies tend to rely on shared hosting or virtual private server solutions: they are cheap and generally easy to set up. The compromise here is in sharing your server resources with someone else and having no control over hardware or software, which can lead to less than ideal stability, security, and speed. 

Dedicated servers might seem to cost more at face value, but are independent and completely customizable to your growing needs. In fact, once you realize that you have a complete choice of an operating system, processing power, memory and storage capacity, as well as bandwidth, and calculate the price per GB of storage or MB of RAM, or even GHz of CPU, you’ll find that dedicated servers present some of the best deals when it comes to hosting. Here are just a few of the decisions you get to make.

Linux vs. Windows

When you order a dedicated server, you choose an operating system it will run on: Linux or Windows. 

Windows, in many ways, is easier to install and integrates natively with your Microsoft software (e.g. Sharepoint, Outlook), Microsoft SQL databases, and ASP.NET. However, you do have to pay extra for licensing fees.

Linux is free and open-source. A server running Linux is likely to be more efficient: it uses less CPU power and could be modified without rebooting. Since Linux servers don’t provide a graphical user interface (GUI), you need to set them up via a command-line interface (CLI) instead, which could take more or less time depending on your experience with it (a good hosting provider can certainly help). Finally, as attacks on Windows servers are much more frequent, Linux is also arguably a more secure option of the two.

Single vs. Dual CPU

Most servers today run on powerful Intel Xeon chips (e.g. E3, E5, Silver) that are specifically designed for server infrastructure. Each chip can handle a certain number of independent processing units called cores. An E3 might have 4, for Silver it could be 8, and E5 can have up to 12. The more cores in your processor the more powerful and capable (and more expensive) your server is going to be. In addition to that, some servers might even have a dual CPU, running two Intel Xeon chips at the same time. 

So while a local online store could run on a single quad-core Intel Xeon E3 without any issues, a rapidly growing web app might look at a dual 12-core E5 or even more.

How much RAM do you need?

Random-access memory (RAM) is a crucial part of your dedicated server’s operations. Generally speaking, your CPU uses RAM to store data required for its calculations. The more memory you have the faster your server will be at processing any tasks. 

The amount of memory in a server can range from just 8 GB to hundreds and will depend on the configuration and purpose of your business.

The higher the traffic load the more RAM is required. Similarly, a complex CMS and dynamic website would use more RAM than a static one. Windows servers often require more RAM than Linux. Besides, any additional features, such as email, continuous monitoring, databases, control panel — all use extra RAM too. 

HDD vs. SSD

When it comes to storage, you essentially have two choices: HDD (hard disk drive) and SSD (solid-state drive). SSDs are newer, faster, and more resistant to impact than HDDs. However, they are also much more expensive.

In terms of speed, SSDs could read up to 700 MB of data per second and write up to 500 MB, whereas HDDs max out at about 230 MB and 190 MB respectively. In terms of storage, 1 TB of HDD costs about the same as 128 GB of SSD. So if speed is not as critical as having lots of storage, HDD might be a better way to go. Otherwise, SSD is highly recommended. 

For more information about HDD vs. SSD, check out our blog ‘SSD vs HDD Storage for Your Dedicated Server‘.

How much bandwidth do you need?

Bandwidth measures the amount of data generated by your visitors and could be presented in real time as gigabits per second or cumulatively as gigabytes per month.

The more traffic goes through your online business the more bandwidth you need. While smaller companies might only use a few gigabytes in any given month, the amount of required bandwidth could quickly grow into terabytes, especially if you host videos on your website. Dedicated servers offer much more bandwidth than any other hosting option right from the start, which makes them an ideal choice for anyone who doesn’t want to constantly monitor their usage.

Make effective server decisions

As you can see, dedicated servers require lots of decisions to be made upfront, and potential error costs — miscalculating your technical needs — are high and could result in significant downtime. That’s why it’s worth considering managed dedicated server hosting through a provider like MULTACOM.

With MULTACOM, our team of server engineers will become your trusted technical partner in setting up and maintaining your dedicated server. As we’ve been configuring scalable and robust server solutions for decades, we know exactly what your online business needs right now and how those needs might change in the future. Located in downtown Los Angeles, we are positioned to provide excellent connectivity for businesses worldwide.

Contact us today, and one of our engineers will be happy to walk you through a short overview of your server requirements.