A dedicated server describes a form of web hosting where consumers have exclusive use of an entire server. It’s a server that has dedicated its full resources to serve a single tenant. They are the go-to choice of web hosting, especially for hosting websites with lots of visitors. Large organizations can perform complex tasks without hitches when they use dedicated hosting services. It also offers them access to a series of organizational tools that they find useful.
Although dedicated hosting is more expensive than shared hosting, many businesses find the cost to be proportional to the advantages it offers. First, dedicated servers offer you better privacy and server control than other solutions.
With dedicated hosting, your websites’ top performance is guaranteed, and you don’t have to worry about losing your sensitive data due to its high-level backup system. It’s easy to wonder how such a powerful server works to deliver all the unique features that it serves. If you’d like to know, this article is just for you!
Types of Dedicated Servers
There are many ways you can categorize dedicated servers. But we’re keen on server performance, so we’d be classifying dedicated servers according to varying operations and specifications. They include:
1. Cheap Dedicated Servers (CDS)
Cheap dedicated servers, as the name implies, offer the most affordable dedicated hosting solution available. However, it doesn’t provide as much functionality as other dedicated server types. It’s just a little better than shared hosting and was, in fact, built to solve specific performance issues with shared hosting services. Typically, a cheap dedicated server costs around $49 every month. It usually offers basic features like four cores @ 2.3 GHz, 4GB RAM, 5TB bandwidth, and 500GB storage.
2. Standard Dedicated Servers (SDS)
The standard dedicated servers perform slightly better than the cheap dedicated servers. They’re a bit more expensive too, costing $89 to $ 109 every month. Small and medium-sized businesses that want to upgrade from shared hosting to a much better solution usually go for standard dedicated servers.
The specs for this category of servers include 15 TB Transfer (1 Gbps Uplink), CentOS 7.x 64 Bit Operating Systems, 64 GB ECC DDR4 RAM, and some more.
3. Enterprise Dedicated Servers (EDS)
Enterprise dedicated servers are usually the start points for large global enterprises. However, small and medium-sized businesses can decide to use them if they want some top-notch functionality. Enterprise dedicated servers are IT departments standard.
They offer maximum reliability and performance with great flexibility and customization features. The specifications for an average EDS include Up to 1 TB RAM, 15 IP Addresses, Up to 50 TB Hard drives, Remote KVM, 24C / 48T, Up to 25 TB Data Transfer, or Dedicated Internet, and lots more. Enterprise dedicated server rates range from $399 to $899 monthly. It gets more expensive the more you customize its features.
4. High-Performance Dedicated Servers (HDS)
High-performance servers are the greatest levels of dedicated servers, and they are perfect for large data analysts and scientific computation. If you need to do the most complex tasks on a large scale, you should get an HDS. It’s no wonder that these servers are mostly used for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
They’re the go-to servers for government agencies and parastatals. An average huge, custom-built high-performance can cost as high as $100,000 per month.
How a Dedicated Server Works
Now it’s time to walk you through the dedicated servers’ operation. But to understand how they work, it’s easier to break down the dedicated server components and analyze their functions one after the other.
Even though dedicated servers don’t look like traditional computers, they’re computers that you can use at home —just like the regular desktop. Dedicated servers have memory, processors, network hardware, storage, and other components. The dedicated server hardware is reliable, secure, and powerful, especially when compared with other hardware.
One of the most important components of a dedicated server is its processor. Also called the CPU (Central Processing Unit), the processor serves as the brain of the dedicated server. Dedicated server processors are reported to be the most powerful CPU available. They affect the server’s overall performance and influence the server’s speed and scalability. As the brain of the server, the processor interprets instructions and processes them while interacting with other programs and applications to produce the desired output. The more powerful your dedicated server’s CPU is, the faster it is for you to complete tasks on your website.
Another essential component of a dedicated server is its RAM (Read Access Memory). When we talk about a server’s memory, we are referring to the RAM and not the hard drive. The server’s RAM is its short-term memory. It serves as temporary storage and allows the server to read and write the data that the processor accesses. The ECC (Error Correcting Code) RAM is a standard RAM type for enterprise-grade servers. It makes dedicated servers more powerful and reliable than other servers. It also contains hardware that impedes data corruption and helps servers work round the clock without hitches.
All the components of a dedicated server perform their functions reliably and work together to ensure that they perform optimally. Dedicated servers are stacked up in data center racks with adequate cooling to balance their temperature. That’s because they produce lots of heat as they run.
Can I set up a Dedicated Server for my Website all by myself?
Of course, you can set up a dedicated server yourself if you wish. You only need to be patient enough to learn the steps and apply them. To set up your dedicated server for your website, you’d the following:
- An email server
- An operating system
- DDoS Protection
- DBMS (Database Management System)
- An SSH shell
- Backup software
- Server monitoring software
- An FTP shell
- Statistics Program.
- DNS software
There are many tutorials online on how to set up your dedicated server. But while this can be a cool thing to do, you shouldn’t consider setting up your server for the first time all by yourself if you’re pressed for time.
If you’re using a credible and reliable dedicated server hosting like GTHost, they will help you set up your server within 15 minutes. This makes it easy for you to commence work on your server almost immediately. It saves you a lot of time and energy. That’s not the only thing your hosting service will help you with.
For example, GTHost offers 24/7 customer support service that assists you with any questions or problems you may encounter at any time of the day. As the leading brand in dedicated hosting, we offer the best quality standard server equipment to improve your website performance.
Your server’s physical location significantly influences its performance and network quality. It would help if you went for a hosting service that puts sites it is a server close to you. At GThost, we have our data centers at strategic locations in the US and Canada. So, even if you need to change your business location, we’ve got you.
With 100% uptime, great flexibility and customization, and cost-effectiveness, you’ve got all you need to achieve your business goals when you host your web with us. Contact us to get started on some free trials immediately.