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VPS or Dedi? Any disadvantages of dedicated servers
Hello all!
Just like to be aware of disadvantages of going with a dedicated server? Reason is one of my client is looking at upgrading and he has enough budget for a high spec VPS or lower spec Dedicated. Right now I am opting for a dedicated server but just like to be aware of its downsides as well. So can anyone enlighten me on this so got some idea for the road ahead.
Thanks for looking!
Comments
Simple really.
On a dedi, resources it has is truly yours to abuse the hell out of it. Nobody will care unless you start mining.
On a vps, no matter how highend it is, the resource is still shared. If you've got a bad neighbor, it will effect you.
The only disadvantage might be cost.
Only if you buy full price, wait for Black Friday, and you gonna break any VPS.
TerraHost is dropping somethin.
Thanks guys for the input!
So which is better a high spec VPS?
Or a low spec DEDI on the other coast? ...Since location of dedicated servers seems more limited compared to the abundant amount of low cost VPS.
That depends on what you are trying to do as well as random luck.
It's your decision to make. After all, it's your marriage.
You don't want to share your girl with others, do you?
At the higher end, VPS are easier to upgrade or migrate between physical nodes, the host takes care of the hardware more proactively, they have HA disk setups if you want that, etc. Dedis are more DIY, you do your own monitoring and open a ticket if something goes wrong. I prefer dedis since I'm a LET cheapskate with sometimes-heavy computation requirements and no critical services. Places with higher reliability demands and lots of money host on cloud platforms and don't mind paying through the nose. In between it's all about trade-offs.
willie has murdered a kitten with a small wall of text.
A VPS will likely come with some sort of RAID (often RAID 10, sometimes HA storage solution), a low end dedi will likely have a single disk. If you take regular backups and can handle an eventual downtime this is no problem (and drives don't die that often), but RAID 1 is way better if you can afford it.
Some VPS come with dedicated cores, as the storage & RAM are dedicated too, you can have as much resources as you'd have with a cheap dedi but on a node monitored by some folks that are not you, with some kind of RAID. Could be a better option, but some people will always prefer bare metal as it's a good way to be sure that the resources will be there for you when needed. (And it probably is more secure, if you consider than no virtualization solution is perfect: if that matters to you, you might want to take that into account).
Bare metal.
There's no substitute.
May be you should give more details about what you call high spec (cores, ram, disk space, bandwidth...) and lower spec.
It seems to me that companies with "high reliability demands" simply like to pay more for resources they aren't sure they need and they aren't sure they can manage on themselves, externalizing some components of the workflow (and somehow externalizing some duties regarding snapshots and backups). There's a surge in this phenomenon with the overly hyped "hybrid cloud" IBM wants so badly; yet if their needs are constant, predictable and foreseeable they aren't really saving, they're paying more
In the very low end market, a "root server VPS" could be preferable (as far as reliability is concerned) to a dedi, yet it depends on how much the customer is attentive & skilled and on which are her priorities
I'd go with what what @willie, @datanoise, and @mfs said.
In the end there is no "better", it's a tradeoff.
cheap dedi ~ your own hardware, no neighbour problem but typically low end hw (e.g. no Raid) and more difficult and time consuming transfer if something breaks plus more/better everyday care needed.
high-end VPS ~ shared hardware, maybe neighbour problem (but far less with KVM and a good provider) but typ. better hw (SSD, Raid, ...), easier transfer if something breaks, somewhat less care needed.
Another difference, VM's are often available hourly so you can spin them up and down in response to your workload changing.
thank you for your information
I myself prefer vps. It's just easier to manage. Some provider even charging bucks to reinstall the OS on the dedi.
With vm you can easily destroy and rebuild to your heart content. Good when things break up.
On the other hand...you can go with a KVM VPS, which even though it's not comparable to the dedi power (and hassle if it's self managed) you get more "dedi" resources.
And you can get HA disk along... which makes it even better. Keep in mind, nothing waves the need of a solid backup solution.
All depends on provider/solution/etc as mentioned. Some VPS providers will do things like live migrate VMs when patching/changing the host node so no downtime - I've had this when a provider patched all theirs for spectre, yet no downtime at all.
I used a VPS for a year without issues, the first dedicated I bought ran into issues at the very first days, I am still learning so if you are starting go with a VPS, things will be easier.
Dedicate Server you are getting the dedicated resources/HW. Depending on the VPS environment you can get this too with automated backups at a cheaper rate compared to backing a whole bare metal. Again, it is down to what you are to do on the server. Are you looking for performance? Or just in need of a day-to-day basis server?
High End VPS:
Pro:
Cons:
Low End Dedicated
Pro:
Cons:
Long term short: if your clients want dedicated resource, and have skills to manage/backup/resolve things, go for low end dedicated. If not, a VPS will be better choice.