So you have a presence on the web that’s growing faster than you anticipated, and you discover that your site is running a bit slow. Now it’s taking up far more bandwidth than the experts told you. What do you do? Start looking around for another provider or perhaps it’s time to consider upgrading to a dedicated hosting plan from you current provider.
Why Upgrade
There are many scenarios why site owners move up to a dedicated server, not the least of which is security. When you are the only one on the server there is really very little chance of anyone breaking into your accounts. In addition to a quicker load speed, reliability and special network resources, you also have the ability to load your own custom software to meet your specific site needs.
Look Ahead
So how do you go about choosing which type of plan to go with? Each company has different levels of servers and each offers programs to match your particular circumstances. Perhaps the easiest way is to determine your current usage and the growth rate at which your site is moving over the next two years. Plan on a two-year usage before upgrading again, unless it’s absolutely required.
Bigger Is Better
Going with something larger than what you need is always the best bet. It is less expensive than adding on a second server, particularly when you begin adding in all of the upgrades needed to meet the same specs as your first.
Cost Consideration
Depending on the amount of bandwidth, memory and hard drive you require, the price for a dedicated hosting plan will start just under $200 per month at one of the larger web host providers. Included in most plans are the basics: cPanel, MySQL, FTP Accounts and POP3 Accounts can be created easily. Most will also come preinstalled with CGI, PHP, Perl, SSI etc. Your only additional cost on these basic plans is the custom software or the size of the server itself.
Linux or Microsoft
The price for either type of operating system is generally the same no matter which dedicated hosting plan you choose. Of course, not all data centers use both Linux and Microsoft. So if you are more comfortable with one rather than the other, that should be included in the equation before you commit to a particular plan. Either way you will get your own dedicated server to host to use exclusively.
Dual Core or Quad Core
Unless you are using your site for an internal non-critical type of performance, you will want to have a dual-core system. Having two CPU’s waiting for requests is far better than one. If one goes a little crazy for example, because that’s what they do, then there is another to pick up the slack seamlessly while the first one is being diagnosed.
But a quad-core is another story. Unless you really have mission-critical data and really need it, then there may not be any reason to go that far. The cost is more and the only difference, besides the redundancy is that there is more bandwidth available. If that is a consideration then start looking at quad-core. If not stay with the dual-core and save the money.