Why You Should Get Your Own VDS

What do you think a VDS server is a good application for? Do your needs and budget fit in for a VDS server? Read on to find out more.

Recently, we covered VPS servers in great depth and why they could be a potential fit for your website. You can read more over here. There’s another, more powerful type of server for the people out there that just cannot seem to be able to make do with a VPS. When the needs of your website increase, so do the needs of your server on which that website is hosted. We introduce to you, the VDS server!

Before we get ahead, we should tell you what a VDS is. A VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server) is a type of remote dedicated server, unlike a VPS which is simply a virtual machine running on top of a physical server. This allows your website to handle much more traffic than it would if it was on a VPS server. VDS servers are an amalgamation of complete server hardware along with an OS (Operating System). It falls under the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) cloud computing technology category. 

The large server rooms that you commonly see in movies and other media are stacks of VDS servers kept together in a server room. Usually, these servers are located in the premium tier of a web hosting company and are priced as such. They offer unlimited bandwidth so there is no limit on the amount of traffic that your hosted websites or applications can receive. They also offer superior processing power compared to VPS servers or other servers that commonly use consumer-grade processors. VDS servers, on the other hand, mostly run on workstation or built-for-server processors that are optimized for being used on web servers.

Often, a server package from a hosting company will allocate you an HDD drive or on rare occasions; a M.2 SSD drive. VDS servers on the other hand usually have high-quality M.2 SSD drives and sometimes even NVMe SSD drives in a RAID configuration (read more about the differences between server storage types here). A RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) system is a method of fail proofing storage systems. It typically consists of a stack of several SSD drives put together to protect in case of hardware failure. It is divided into several levels i.e. 0, 1, 5 and 10 with higher numbers indicating better performance and security.

So the question to ask here is, “Who exactly are VDS servers meant to be for?” and there are several very good answers to that question. However, there are a few key factors that are common in all the applications of VDS servers. All these factors relate to the hardware specifications, site performance and website security a VDS server hosting plan is able to offer. 

Starting off, medium to large scale businesses especially e-commerce stores can greatly benefit from a VDS server. This is because they regularly receive a large amount of interactive traffic on their websites that views their catalogues or collections, updates themselves regarding the brand and in e-commerce situations; makes purchases on the website as well. This large influx of traffic requires adequate resources to be handled efficiently. Moreover, these resources help to ensure rapid loading speed and response times on a website (read more here about how to increase your website’s loading speed). 

Secondly, smaller corporations and enterprises would be better served by using at least a VDS for in-house operations. The primary factor in a VDS that sets it apart from lower-performance servers when implemented for use in an enterprise or corporation is security. These organizations often deal with large amounts of sensitive or encrypted data that cannot be compromised at any cost. Therefore, their needs automatically make the VDS a safe and affordable choice to store, process and allow access to that data. 

Staying within the scope of corporations, software companies can greatly benefit from VDS servers as well. Due to the flexibility of their nature and the complete control offered to a user, VDS servers allow for very good large-scale software testing and even for more demanding purposes in smaller enterprises. The fact that they are real, physical machines that can be controlled remotely and allow for true freedom makes them very suitable for software operations. An added bonus is the fact that hosting plans for VDS servers come pre-built with server maintenance so you can focus on building your product instead of having to deal with BIOS and OS issues.

Another good use case for VDS servers could be educational institutes and organizations. Often these organizations work with small to medium amounts of traffic. However, these organizations also have security and stability requirements similar to businesses and corporations. For example, a portal for students and teachers alike at a university would have a normal amount of almost fixed traffic. However, the data that would be stored on this portal along with the regulation of the portal would require stringent security requirements to be met. The fully controlled nature of VDS servers along with their purpose-built hardware like high-quality processing units and RAID storage systems naturally lends itself to such an application.

Did you find this article useful in making an informed purchase for your next hosting plan? Keep reading our blog for more stuff like this!