There are many types of web hosting that you can choose from these days so why choose a dedicated web host solution. Having your own server means that you are the only one that is allowed to host websites on that server. You get all of the computers processing power and storage space. Plus you get to run your own programs or services on that machine.
Not having to share a server with a dozen or maybe hundreds of other webmasters means that there is much less of a chance for things to go wrong. If you thing of a hundred people trying to do something on a computer as opposed to one person you can imagine what I mean. It only takes on person to install a script incorrectly or get a sudden traffic surge and not only their site goes down but every other site on that server.
With shared hosting you are very limited to what you can do. With your own dedicated server you get SSH or shell access which means you can control everything that goes on with that server.
A dedicated server is a specialist machine that is designed to do one job and one job only and that is to serve your website up to visitors. It has been optimized so that all of its functions are geared towards web hosting.
There are of course more than just one type of dedicated server. Most hosting companies offer several different hosting packages for servers. Your first decision is whether you want to use a Windows based dedicated server or one that is running Linux. This choice will depend on several factors some of which include the type of site you are running. If you have a PHP and MySQL database that needs hosting then your going to need a Linux server. If you have windows based back ends or have certain integration requirement for Microsoft software then you will need a Windows based server.
The next set of considerations are that of the specifications of your server. Do you need a server that is going to be as fast and as powerful as possible or can you get by with a lower cost server that is less powerful. You should consider the storage and bandwidth requirements. The larger the site and the more information you are going to need to store then the bigger the disk space you are going to need. There is no point in under planning and running out of storage space six months down the line.
