Dedicated Vs. Shared Servers
Dedicated vs. Shared servers is one of the first things you need to consider when you decide that you want to purchase web hosting. You need to ask yourself how many websites you want to host, and what you want to get out of your web hosting. If you are a “home” user who wants to host one small simple website then I would recommend going with a shared server. A shared server is one dedicated server that is shared by numerous people who have very limited access to the server (through some sort of control panel software like Plesk or CPanel). Shared servers are usuall extremly slow, because they are overloaded with too many websites but are okay for home users.
A dedicated server is where you get an entire server all to yourself. You can log into the server through SSH (if it is Linux) or through remote desktop connection (RDC) if it is a windows server. I will speak mainly for Windows/RDC combo because that is what I use. With RDC you are able to log into the server as if it was right in front of you, and virtually use the server using your own keyboard and monitor as if it were hooked up to the web server. Dedicated servers give you full control over every aspect of your web hosting and they are extremely fast. But they are also expensive.
If you are looking for something in between, I would recommend a third option that is often not mentioned- a virtual dedicated server. Some web hosts have software that allows them to take one dedicated server, which is overkill for most users, and break it down into a few mini-servers. This allows a few users to use one dedicated server. Virtualization software isused to make it seem as though each user has the entire server to themselves though. The advantages of this are that it is less expensive than buying your own dedicated server, but still gives you tonnes of speed and control.
In my next post I will talk about choosing an operating system and explain why I chose Windows Server 2003 instead of Linux.
November 9th, 2007 - Posted in Web Hosting | |
