Factors to Keep in Mind When Buying a Dedicated Server

When you get thousands of visitors daily, or if you plan to host a mission-critical website/application, choosing a dedicated server is a suitable option.

You also know what the dedicated server is and its benefits. But do you know what you should consider while choosing a dedicated server?

You will pay almost a couple hundred dollars a month to rent a dedicated server. So, it is time to choose a dedicated server wisely. Know the market, latest technologies, best hosting provider, and so on.

Don’t get overwhelmed with the list of options available in the market. Following our guide on choosing a dedicated server will make your journey easy.

How to Choose the Best Server to Buy – Golden Tips

A frequently asked question is, how do you choose a dedicated server hosting for your precious business among plenty of available options? Well, it is straightforward. You need to follow the basic guideline and have the best one for your website. Let’s check them out.

1) Performance Requirements

While choosing a dedicated server, you must know what you expect from the server you buy. Every website/application may have different performance requirements. Some might be looking for more processing power, some might be looking for more RAM, and some might be looking for higher storage.

You should also consider the daily visitors you are getting on your website. Based on factors such as the number of users you expect, you might need to be more specific about your dedicated server.

The easiest way to determine such factors is to look at your current server. Check the current CPU and RAM usage during peak business hours and note down the figures. Based on these statistics, any hosting provider can assist you in choosing a dedicated server.

Apart from these hardware resources, you should also check the current disk usage, email service usage, database usage, and bandwidth usage and make sure that your new dedicated server has these many resources available. If you are unsure, you can contact our team of experts.

2) Uptime Guarantee

Imagine what happens if your website hosted on a dedicated server is down for an entire day or 2. You will lose lots of business.

When you purchase a dedicated server, you should check the hosting provider’s uptime guarantee. Most hosting providers offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. In addition, you should check their customer reviews on trusted review sites.

You can also confirm their server maintenance window and when and how long they do regular server maintenance for installing security and other system updates. If your server remains offline for longer, you will lose business.

3) Pricing vs Budget

A dedicated server’s cost is generally higher than standard shared and vps hosting. You will indeed have better performance, but you should also consider the cost of the server while making your monthly budget.

Once you know the exact resource requirement for a dedicated server, you should compare the pricing from various hosting providers. You should also consider setup and software licensing fees (if any) while planning a budget for a dedicated server.

It would help to carefully evaluate the hosting packages before settling for one that works for you. In addition, ensure that your server package covers technical support. Otherwise, it will increase the overall cost of the server. At KemuHost, we provide unlimited support with any Dedicated Server plan.

4) Data Center

The data center and server location play an important role when choosing a dedicated server.

A poor facility that is constantly down will not make you look good for your users. A reliable data center has redundant power, redundant network, low latency connections, optimal power system with backup, unbreakable security, fire detection & prevention system, etc. If your hosting provider claims they are the best, but if there are frequent power issues with the data center, the server you purchased will be useless.

Server location is another crucial factor. For example, if your targeted audience is from the USA, you should go with the provider with their servers physically located in the USA data center.

5) Technology Advancements

How would you feel if you paid for a Ferrari 250 and you got a Chevrolet Spark delivered to you? Likewise, you will have poor performance if you pay a couple of hundred dollars and get a server with old hardware and outdated/old technologies.

You should check the server’s hardware model, chassis, release date, etc. The same applies to software. The server should have the latest OS and software versions.

Your provider should also have a wide variety of new hardware choices to suit your needs. Further, ensure they have hardware capabilities to manage all your future growth objectives. The type of RAM and the RAID system might appear technical, but they’re critical considerations.

6) Network and Bandwidth

The easiest way to determine the network quality is to get the hosting provider’s test IP address and run the ping test from your system. The lower the MS result, the faster the performance. Also, the network packets should not time out during the test.

Apart from the network, bandwidth is also an essential factor when choosing a dedicated server. The hosting providers offer different bandwidth options, such as; Metered bandwidth, unmetered bandwidth, and unlimited bandwidth.

Metered bandwidth means you will have a fixed amount of data transfer allowed within a month, with a fixed speed. With unmetered bandwidth, you will get unlimited data transfer, but it will be at a fixed speed.

Unlimited bandwidth – a scam most of the time. Even if the package has unlimited bandwidth, there will be some rules in terms and conditions, and if you do not comply with them or use more than mentioned bandwidth, you will be charged heavily. Therefore, I would strongly recommend going with the Unmetered Bandwidth option.

7) Security Features

One of the essential aspects of a dedicated server – Security. In the end, you are paying higher for performance and security. An ideal dedicated server should have a firewall, anti-virus application, DDoS protection, etc. You can also take other steps to enhance server security.

There has been growing concern over the number of data privacy breaches at the corporate level over the last two decades. The impact of data breaches is so immense that almost 60% of hacked businesses close shop within six months after such incidences. Your data is most vulnerable when dedicated servers experience instances of downtime. So, your server must have a proper firewall, intrusion management, malware, and virus prevention measures.

8) Control Panel Options

The control panels make your life easy. When you have a control panel with your server, you will not have to manually manage your website, files, database, and emails. Instead, you can do everything from the easy-to-use GUI offered by the control panel.

Most hosting providers offer Plesk panel with Windows server and cPanel or Plesk with Linux server. You should double-check the availability of the control panel before placing the final order. At KemuHost, we offer both control panels with all servers.

9) Backup Services

The backup is one of the most critical and must-have features. For example, What if the disk in your server fails to boot? What if your developer erroneously removes the critical file or the entire database? What if your most important emails are removed? In all such scenarios, if your server is not backed up, you will have no option to recover the stuff.

When choosing a dedicated server, one must double-check the backup option available with the plan. If the server comes with a daily backup, that’s great. With such a backup, you can restore any particular file/folder/db from the available restore point.

Also, the backup server should be separate from your dedicated server (production server).

10) Technical Support

If you are non-tech-savvy, you should ensure that the server package also comes with technical support.

When you use a dedicated server for the first time, you may need technical assistance installing OS and migrating your website files, database, and emails from your current hosting account to a new dedicated server. At this time, if your hosting provider does not offer technical support, you will waste lots of time and money to fix things up.

By the way, At KemuHost, we do provide 24*7 technical support with all plans. Also, we do offer free migration without any terms and conditions.

Choosing a Dedicated Server – The Conclusion

Choosing a dedicated server that meets all your website/application needs is vital. You may find it tricky, but it is not actually. Just define what you want to achieve and compare it with the list of available options. If you still face any trouble while choosing the best-dedicated server for your business, contact our expert team, and they will assist you.