Dedicated Servers: A Summary

What is dedicated hosting?
This is a server which is owned by the hosting company which they will
rent out to you for a monthly fee along with an allotment of bandwidth
which you can use with it. This means that you get a whole server to
yourself to use for what you desire, this is needed for scripts which
use a lot of server resources (for example large message boards, for
one of which I pay for a dedicated server). As a customer, you would
have full control over the server and could change the configuration as
required, a facility not available when you have to share a server with
others. With a dedicated server, the web hosting company is responsible
for the hardware as they own it, not the customer.

What are the advantages of it?
You can do anything you like on it that you like (although most hosts
have acceptable use policies which state that illegal content is not
allowed, and in some cases they prohibit connecting to IRC). This means
that you can login to the server, set up programs as you desire, then
run them without having to worry about the effects on server resources
for other people. You can run games servers (for games such as
Half-Life, etc), IRC servers or bots, or just run a web server which
uses a lot of resources (and with a special setup which isn't found in
shared hosting).

What are the disadvantages?
The main disadvantage is the cost, which will put many people off
getting one. The cheapest seem to come at about $50/month, and the most
expensive cost thousands of dollars each month. The price can be
reflective of the quality (such as the cost of running - or your host
renting a space in - the datacentre, the hardware in the server, the
technical support provided by your host and so on), alternatively it
can just be an over inflated price for what is a poor quality product.
It's important to compare the prices and packages offered from several
companies before coming to a decision, also you should ask your friends
if they have any opinions on the matter, and research information about
the hosting companies and datacentres - are the constantly offline due
to DDOS attacks? do they have a poor record of customer service?

Another disadvantage is the added responsibility involved in keeping
the software on your server secure, for example you may have to update
builds of apache, control panel software, etc as security holes are
found.

Is it for me?
That depends, if you want to a game server then you'll need one - but
it may be easier for you to buy one from a dedicated games server
comapny, they know their stuff and would probably be able to install
and configure the servers for you. However they would place
restrictions on what you could do with the server and maybe the setup.
If you want to run a small IRC server, bot or bouncer then you would
probably be easiest paying a smaller fee to hire one of those from an
IRC or shell provider company, also you don't have to worry about
restrictive datacentre AUPs which prohibit IRC use.
If you are starting a small web forum or site then you probably won't
need one initially, wait until it grows and you can determine if you
need the server to ensure further growth is ok.
Otherwise you could possibly look into getting one, you could even
email hosting providers asking what package they think your site would
require (although take their replies with a pinch of salt, they could
try to sell you stuff you don't actually need).
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