Feedback: How Much Traffic Before Dedicated Hosting Becomes Necessary?


Almost all of us started with a cheap, shared web host. The shared hosts offer a fantastic service for little money. They offer the novice webmaster a managed environment with niceties like web-based administrative interfaces (cPanel, Plesk, etc) for managing their site(s) and services, script based installation of site software via Fantastico, and ftp and Squirrelmail already set up for you.

For less than $10/month they give you a domain or two, X number of subdomains, and wild promises about disc space and bandwidth. You and I both know that long before you hit +2 terabytes of bandwidth your $7/month host would be shutting your site down for excessive cpu and ram usage.

So the question is, How Much Traffic Before Dedicated Hosting Becomes Necessary? I know a lot of you have already run into or are facing this dilemma. Let’s hear from everyone on their experience with web hosting

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About the Author: Michael was a bass player in a hardcore punk band in the 80's and spent the 90's building and riding custom Harleys. As strange a combination as it may seem, Mike also has some coder and sysadmin in his history as well. At 43 Mike's now a husband and dad, and works as a Corrections Officer in a maximum security lockdown unit by day, and is admin at AV Enthusiast and contributor to Connected Internet when time allows. Mike is also passionate about food and travel.

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  1. Chris Larkin says:

    That is a very good question and one that is debated constantly. The problem is that the answer is different for each and every site. There are many variables that have to be considered. Chief amongst them are: how much traffic do you receive, and what are the users doing on the site? Users viewing static html are going to cause much less load on a server than users accessing database heavy sites or streaming audio and video. What is really comes does to is what quality of service you wish to provide to your users. How well is your site performing? If it is getting bogged down, or if it is getting suspended by your shared provider, it is time to upgrade in order to provide the best possible experience. Also, mlankton, thanks for the recommendation!

    Chris Larkin
    Account Executive
    Singlehop.com
    GTalk, Yahoo, Skype, MSN, AIM: SingleHopChris
    ICQ: 429805688

  2. Yes, I agree. But what do you think about Godaddy? I know they always give a lot of coupon code to waive the total price. Do you use them too?

  3. It is possible to find a quality shared host that doesn’t oversell their servers and that provide a level of service that will accommodate most web sites.

    I shouldn’t do this because I am not on their payroll ;), but I can recommend my new host very highly. I am paying less and getting more with HawkHost than I was the big name shared hosts. The server I’m on has about a third the amount the big names cram on theirs, and my site is always quick and responsive since I made the move. Check them out if you’re in the market for a new shared host.

    Read Michael Lankton’s latest blog post….Interview: Bruce Thigpen of Eminent Technology>>>

  4. Mosey says:

    I can definitely recommend my host, Valcato, too, and I’ve been with them for more than 3 years, and they never cease to amaze me at how good and solid they are in terms of their customer service, technical service (the uptime, speed, stability etc.) and knowhow, and also their business vision.

    They’ve recently moved/upgraded their servers in the view of adding new services such as dedicated hosting, and existing customers have benefited as well with more space etc.  Growing slowly to ensure no mistakes are made.
    None of my sites get the ‘digg’ effect, but as with all major traffic sites, a caching plugin (e.g. for Wordpress) is a good idea.

    Read Mosey’s latest blog post….Beijing Olympics 2008 – Closing Ceremony – Introduction>>>

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