Linux dedicated hosting and servers - what to look for

If you are in the market for a dedicated Linux hosting package, there are many things to bear in mind when evaluating the many offerings you will find from providers.

First, there is price. Typical plans will start at $100-$200 per month, depending on what you are getting. The CPU and RAM of the machine you are getting are the main factors affecting price, along with the storage capacity (hard disk space). Storage typically starts at 80GB for the cheapest plans. If you don't think you would ever need this much, perhaps you should think about whether you really need a dedicated server - perhaps shared hosting will do the jon for the present?

Another factor to consider is bandwidth 1000GB a month may be enough depending on the type of site you are aiming to have hosted; for music or graphics hosting sites though this would not be enough for even a moderately popular site. If you are not sure how your traffic will grow, start off paying for a low bandwidth allocation, but make sure you know the cost of additional bandwidth, should you need it. Don't pay more than $1 per GB for additional traffic.

You are likely to need Cpanel, Plesk, Fantastico and so on. These applications are taken for granted now by shared hosting customers, but Linux dedicated hosting providers often charge extra, by the month, for them, and for their installation.

Make sure when getting your Linux dedicated server that you can get additional IP addresses at a reasonable cost, and that things like SSH and MySQL are included.

Avoid excessive set-up fees, as you will forfeit these if you find the service is not to your liking and move your sites elsewhere. Linux dedicated hosting providers should have enough confidence in their service not to overcharge here.