A dedicated server is a physical server reserved for one customer or one company. That customer has the machine. The difference from shared hosting is that other customers do not share the CPU, RAM, or disk.
Shared hosting and a dedicated server
Shared hosting
Shared hosting places many sites on one server. Dozens of websites can sit on the same machine. CPU, RAM, and disk are shared.
Dedicated servers
A dedicated server is reserved for one customer. No other company’s data is stored on that machine. Disk, RAM, and CPU belong to that customer.
It fits sites with high traffic, large media libraries, or a workload that should not sit next to other customers on shared hosting. You use the server for that workload, and you can change the configuration as the work grows. Performance is higher because the hardware is not shared.
Types of dedicated server
Entry dedicated servers
These suit companies whose traffic has outgrown shared hosting. Bandwidth, RAM, CPU, and storage are larger than on a shared plan.
Higher-performance dedicated servers
When an entry dedicated server is not enough, the next step is more CPU, storage, RAM, and bandwidth. That is the plan for very high traffic and for servers that store a large amount of data.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the questions this article is most often asked.
1 What is a dedicated server?
A physical server reserved for one customer. CPU, RAM, and disk are not shared with other hosting accounts.
2 How is it different from shared hosting?
Shared hosting places many sites on one machine. A dedicated server belongs to one customer.
3 Who uses a dedicated server?
Sites with high traffic, large media libraries, or a workload that should not sit next to other customers.