But do we really need dedicated servers? Even if you can afford the high monthly costs, there are clear disadvantages of dedicated hosting plans.
Not that cheap - First there is the high cost of leasing your own dedicated server. And that is not limited to what you actually pay monthly for your hosting. You will probably have to pay someone to manage and maintain your dedicated host if you go for an unmanaged web host.
Will you use up all the resources? Your average website never exceeds its allocated bandwidth. Going for a dedicated server will probably mean that you will never use most of the server resources you are paying for.
OF course there is the disk space. If you run an average website, you probably need just about a couple of megabytes of disk space for all your html files, your images etc. What will you use the huge disk space available on dedicated hosts for? Even if you absolutely need lots of disk space, a share web host plan is still a good option. If you reach your allocated disk space, you can always upgrade.
The technical skills to run dedicated hosts Another aspect you need to bear in mind is the issue of the skills required to set up, run and maintain a dedicated server. How do you manage downtimes? Unless you have advanced skills in running web servers, you will inevitably make mistakes and crash everything. But this is not all, once the server has crashed, you will need to reboot it. That is if you know how to reboot a web server.
And finally... In conclusion, and truth be said, most medium-sized websites would run perfectly well in a shared environment. Most absolutely don't need a dedicated host to perform optimally. Shared hosting is simple, cost-efficient and allows you to focus on building your website and leave to well-trained professionals the worry of running your server.
Let's leave dedicated hosts big companies who have ready expertise to set them up and run them.
Check out my blog for additional web hosting resources.
