The Pros and Cons of Unmetered Dedicated Servers, Revealed
Whether your business is up and running, or you’re on the cusp of launching. You reviewed the reasons you need a website for your business and found them compelling.
You went out and found a web designer to build the site for you. It’s time to pick a server type for hosting. Now you must pick between things like shared or dedicated, metered or unmetered.
If you’re wondering about the pros and cons of unmetered dedicated servers, keep reading for a quick overview.
Dedicated Servers
Before diving into the pros and cons of unmetered dedicated servers, it can help if you understand dedicated servers. Most businesses use either shared or dedicated servers.
On a shared server, multiple websites live on a single server and share their resources. On a dedicated server, one website essentially gets the entire server to itself. For more on dedicated servers, take a look here.
There are, however, two main types of dedicated servers: metered and unmetered.
What is an Unmetered Dedicated Server?
Metered dedicated servers reserve an entire server for your website, but they put a cap on how much bandwidth your website can use. Once your site traffic hits that threshold, two things can happen.
The host can stop serving your site to visitors, or they’ll charge you overage fees.
With an unmetered dedicated server, the hosting service doesn’t impose that bandwidth cap.
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Benefits of an Unmetered Dedicated Server
The first benefit of unmetered dedicated servers is that your site never goes down for reaching your bandwidth cap. You also don’t rack up overage fees.
Your site will remain fast and responsive even under heavy traffic loads. That proves particularly beneficial for businesses that produce a lot of video content that they stream from their own site.
It’s also helpful for businesses that engage in substantial eCommerce transactions, SaaS, or online gaming. If you run a software company that distributes software digitally or does online updates, unmetered dedicated servers can help smooth downloads.
Disadvantages of Unmetered Dedicated Servers
The primary disadvantage of unmetered dedicated servers is the cost. Unmetered dedicated servers typically come at a substantially higher cost than metered dedicated servers.
Unmetered dedicated servers can also have hidden limits, typically in the port speed. That port speed does put a cap on the total bandwidth you can use in a month. It can also limit the total traffic your site can support at any given moment.
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Unmetered Dedicated Servers and You
Deciding whether or not you need unmetered dedicated servers depend on a few salient points. The first point is your business type. If you’re running a business that has or likely will have high bandwidth demands, unmetered is the way to go.
You must also weigh the decision on past bandwidth usage and trends. If you see more and more overage fees or a steady increase in traffic, that can also mean it’s time for an upgrade.
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Originally published at Trending Us.
