Cheap dedicated hosting - what are the options?

Dedicated servers are needed when your web site or sites cannot rely any longer on shared hosting arrangements. Typically webmasters or website owners move to a dedicated server because it provides better performance, better security and reliability, and exclusive use of the server's resources, all of which are 'dedicated' to their site alone. Remember that cheap dedicated hosting will not be 'cheap' in the same way that shared hosting can be cheap - it is relative to what you are getting. In other words, cheap dedicated hosting is much more expensive than cheap shared hosting.

If you have, or expect to get, very high traffic, have a need for greater data security, or need to run complex or in-house or third-party applications then a dedicated hosting service is required. Ecommerce sites, sites running large databases or multimedia, or database driven or dynamic sites also typically run on dedicated servers.

Other reasons for moving to a dedicted server may be the need for multiple IP addresses, automated backups of critical data, or system administrator or root access to the server itself.

If you are looking for a cheap dedicated hosting server, be aware that dedicated hosting comes at a price. If you are used to the cost of typical shared hosting package, the monthly charges for dedicated hosting will come as a shock. At this point, you have to assess the drawbacks and advantages of each type of hosting, and decide if the cost of a dedicated server is worth it to your business. The projected growth in your traffic is a critical consideration here.

You may know that shared hosting services typically oversell their server capacity, and if your site alone begins to take the majority of that server's resources, the hosting service will limit your traffic for the sake of your other customers. This can never happen if you have dedicated hosting, of course. Conversely, your site on a shared hosting service may be adversely affected by some other customer's over-use of the server resources.  Again, this won't happen on a dedicated host.

So you will have to compare the likely benefits of dedicated hosting against the price you will be paying for it. If your traffic and bandwidth usage are growing steadily, it will be worth it.