Dedicated server hosting is a good choice for business web sites, and eCommerce sites, that need plenty of web space or expect a large amount of traffic. Keep reading to learn more about dedicated server hosting and to determine if you need dedicated server hosting.

If you have a business, you know that it needs a home on the Internet. In order to get that home, though, you need to get space on the Web. There are plenty of businesses set up that sell real estate in cyberspace. These folks are known as Web hosts. Web hosts own large chunks of computer space that makes up the Internet. These computers are called servers. You need a Web site on one of them if you want people to be able to find your business Web site. The good news is that you can usually get plenty of space to help you run your business Web site online. 

Dedicated server hosting

When you rent space on the Web from a host, you can choose free, shared or dedicated hosting. Free and shared Web hosting mean that you share server space with other Web sites. It is cheap (or free) because the Web host crams as many sites onto a server as possible. With free Web hosting, this can lead to a degree of instability, since so many sites are sharing the same resources. Shared hosting cuts down on this a bit because you are paying for a bit more space, and fewer sites are stuck on the server. But for a growing business that needs an increasing amount of space and bandwidth, shared hosting may not be enough.

Dedicated server hosting provides a solution to the issue of scalability and sharing server resources with other Web sites. With dedicated server hosting, you are guaranteed a certain portion of a server. This might be as little as 1/8 of the server, or as much as the entire server. Some business Web sites with large amounts of traffic and a great deal of features and items for sale have more than one server dedicated to their use.

As you might imagine, dedicated server hosting can be expensive. You are paying for privacy and exclusive access to a certain portion of a server's resources. The Web host has to pay for the server, and by renting it out only to you, or to only a few people, the host makes less than might be made by renting it out to hundreds of people. This is why dedicated server hosting can cost anywhere between $50 a month and more than $200 a month, depending on the features and service you get, and the amount of space dedicated to you.

Do you need dedicated server hosting?

Dedicated server hosting comes with some very real advantages. First of all, you usually get better support and service. You are a bigger customer, so the Web host pays more attention to you. Additionally, you have less down time. Since you are the only one using certain resources, the strain of people accessing thousands of Web sites on the same server is less. Your Web site is more stable, loads faster and presents more convenience for your customers. But do you really need dedicated server hosting?

If your business is large, or growing rapidly, you might need dedicated server hosting. This will help you handle the increased traffic to your Web site better. Additionally, if you plan to take up quite a few resources, through a great many images, some sort of catalog or other features, the stability of a dedicated serer might be desirable.

On the other hand, if you are a small to medium sized business, and you are growing slowly, the need for dedicated server hosting may not be there. Indeed, you might be better off with a nice shared hosting ecommerce package. Although it wouldn't hurt to check to see how easy it would be to upgrade to dedicated hosting if you needed to. Find out from your Web host whether that might be a possibility for the future.

In the end, it is up to you to evaluate the needs of your business and decide whether dedicated server hosting is right for you. Figure out what features you want, and what your priorities are. And, of course, factor in cost and affordability for you at this stage in your business. Then decide if your goals would be better met by dedicated server hosting.

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