How to Choose the Right Dedicated Servers for You and Your Site
There are two (2) types of dedicated servers – the managed server and the unmanaged server. The difference between both types of dedicated servers is in server security and maintenance.
It’s simple – when you subscribe for a managed server service, you’re provided with all the server resources you need and are required to manage these resources yourself especially as it relates to security. In unmanaged server services, you wouldn’t need to go through all the trouble, your web host does the maintenance for you.
In choosing the right dedicated servers for you and your site, there are apparently two broad factors to consider: what suits you and what suits your site.
YOU – What suits you would largely depend on the knowledge you have acquired about dedicated servers and the size of your budgets. It goes without saying that unmanaged dedicated servers offer you an extra maintenance service that you have to pay for.
If you already have knowledge of server security and maintenance, there’d be no need to subscribe to unmanaged server services, and if you don’t, server security and maintenance is such a big deal that you may have no choice but to stick with the unmanaged servers.
YOUR SITE- This one has to do with your personalized website needs and how they can be sustained. If you are not tech-savvy, you may not understand the peculiar needs of your site, and this will be to your disadvantage in the long run.
It’s an added reason why you need the services of an experienced web host who will guide you into choosing the best dedicated servers for you and your site.
How Can Spot Good Dedicated Server Hosting?
If you’ve had no prior knowledge of dedicated servers and web hosting, you’d find it difficult to spot the best-dedicated server’s host for you. But not to worry, we’ve got you!
We’ve noticed over the years that many customers get to understand the best web host for their dedicated servers when they keep their ears open for reviews from older clients or when they take it upon themselves to ask questions.
Reviews – You can know a lot about a web host by what their already established clients say about them. A review can serve as an unofficial evaluation of the pros and cons of partnering with a particular web host.
Although not all reviews should be accepted strictly on their own merits, they certainly shouldn’t be discarded without much deliberation. There are certain platforms that have discussions about dedicated servers and web hosting services.
Web hosting Talk site has some of such platforms, you can get reviews on many leading and emerging web hosts. You can also check for online customer reviews of some dedicated servers hosting services.
One tip though – To be safe, it’s wise to prioritize an established web host over a new one. It at least assures you of sustainability and continuity of service
Dedicated Server Terms
When you decide to use dedicated servers, there are some terminologies you may come across every now and then. These terminologies help you to make your choice of dedicated servers based on what is essential to you and your site.
They act as filters and help you and your web host make the best choices for your sites. It’s important that you understand the most frequently used ones:
- Storage: You may decide to choose your pre-configured dedicated servers based on their storage capacity and the type of storage. First, you have to make the decision on the type of Hard drive storage you need and secondly, the RAID disk array.
For the hard drive storage, you’d essentially be making a choice between solid-state drives (SSD) and the disk-based hard drives (HDD). If speed and functionality are a priority to you, then the SSD would be your best bet. If cost is a major consideration, you may want to stick with HDD.
For RAID Disk arrays, RAID 1 and RAID 5 offer the best in terms of backup services and data loss protection, even though you should never take chances by depending on them alone for backup and substituting them for external backup systems.
Every good web host would advise you to avoid RAID 0 arrays- they offer no backup protection.
- Bandwidth: This is one reason why choosing a good web host for your dedicated servers is mundane.
The best web host would ensure that regardless of the amount of bandwidth your dedicated servers have, there is always an avenue for increased bandwidths. Bandwidths are necessary to manage traffic on your site and to ensure fast page loads.
- Operating system: What technology does your web host use? This will determine the type of operating system to choose from. The most preferred dedicated servers are usually Linux-based.
Verify Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers are servers that are dedicated for use by one user as opposed to shared servers that are used by many. With dedicated servers, web resources that ordinarily would be shared among multiple users are dedicated to serving only you. This helps to improve site performance, customer experience, security, privacy, etc.
If you have the misfortune of falling victim to a fraudulent or inexperienced web host, you may be offered a VPS in place and for the price of a dedicated one. This will constantly keep you wondering why your site doesn’t load as fast as it should and why site performance is below expectations.
To avoid falling victim to a fraudulent web host, you should learn to verify dedicated servers and be sure that your dedicated server is actually “dedicated” to serving just you. Here’s how to find out:
- Connect to your Server: You can connect to your dedicated servers by using SSH connection if you’re using a windows machine or through the terminal program if you’re using MAC. You can always verify with your web host if you’re unsure of how to connect with your dedicated servers.
- Use Dmidecode to reveal Dedicated servers information: When you run the dmidecode (# dmidecode | egrep -I’ manufacturer|product’ ) on your server, it displays product name which helps to tell you if you they’re dedicated servers or not.
If you displayed results show “VMware Virtual Platform”, “Virtual Machine”, or other VM variations like QEMU, /dev/mem: Permission denied, Product Name: HVM domU, etc, they’re not dedicated servers and you sure have some scores to settle with your web host.
- Check for Virtualized Disk Devices: Check for virtualized disk devices by running the code: # cat /proc/ide/hd*/model and the results will give you a clue as to whether you’re running on a dedicated server or not.
Uptime Guarantees
100% uptime guarantees by a web host sounds amazing, right? But can your web host guarantee what cannot be guaranteed? We’d explain.
100% uptime in the strict sense of the word cannot be guaranteed by even the most diligent network providers. Many factors are responsible for occasional downtimes and the majority of these factors are unpredictable.
When the network fails, an uptime guarantee cannot compensate for your website that we offline abruptly. So, it’s pretty much pointless to choose a web host based on 100% uptime guarantees as all they can offer you is small amount compensation for the time your site was down.
GTHost advantages
Now that you know you shouldn’t bank on a 100% uptime guarantee to choose your web host, what then should you bank on? The answer is simple – The GTHost advantage.
Partnering with GTHost dedicated servers hosting services is a sure way to getting the best out of dedicated servers.
There’s more – GThost boasts of the most experienced and dedicated customer service in the web hosting industry and is well known for leading in state of the art equipment. Their services are also budget-friendly with no set-up fees, 1-10 Days Trial Period, a flexible monthly payment plan and lots of amazing features you’d find nowhere else.