When you purchase a Dedicated Server Hosting plan, you have an entire webserver dedicated for your use. Hence, there is a lot that you can do, including hosting multiple websites and/or applications based on your needs.
The following video explains the basics of hosting on a Dedicated Server:
One of the most common questions asked by prospective Dedicated Server users is how many websites can they host on one? While you can talk to the provider offering hosting services to you, there is no simple number that can answer this question. This is because the total number of sites your Dedicated Server can accommodate will depend on a wide range of factors as explained below.
1. Size of the website
For a website to be available online, all the files and data needs to be stored on the webserver. Based on the design of the site and the business requirements, this can vary. Static HTML sites are usually lighter than dynamic ones. Hence, the size of the website will play an important role in determining the number of sites the Dedicated Server can host.
2. Bandwidth & Data Usage
For a site to perform seamlessly, it needs to transfer data to site visitors. This depends on two features of the web server – bandwidth and data usage.
Every Dedicated Web Hosting plan has allocated bandwidth or rate of transfer of data from the server. This gets divided as the number of data transfer instances increase. Hence, as you increase the number of websites hosted on the server, each site will get lower bandwidth if being accessed simultaneously. Also, the Dedicated Hosting plan has a specific data transfer limit per month. This is the total amount of data that can be transferred from the webserver. Again, with more websites, this limit will be shared between and utilized faster.
3. Email Services
Most websites offer email services to their visitors. Based on the nature of the website, the volume of emails can vary from a few dozen to a few hundred per day. Also, if the emails have attachments, then the size of the mailbox can eat away into the server’s storage capacity impacting the total number of sites that can be hosted on it.
4. Business Growth
Some sectors/businesses grow faster than others. Also, market and economic conditions can change in your favor leading to an exponential growth in business and site visitors. To cater to the increased volume of traffic, the website needs resources like RAM, CPU, bandwidth, etc. The dearth of resources can lead to a drop in the performance of the website and negatively impact the business. Hence, business growth is an important factor to consider while determining the number of sites that can be hosted on the Dedicated Server.
5. Support applications
To run and manage a website efficiently, you need to install various applications like control panels, security tools, etc. All these applications require space and processing power. Eventually, these applications add to the load on the server and must be considered before finalizing the number of sites on it.
The type of server storage – Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD) also makes a difference. While SSD-based Dedicated Servers are more powerful and reliable, it is important to assess the usage of resources carefully.
Summing Up
A Dedicated Server offers complete root access, allowing you to create an environment based on your needs. Therefore, it is essential to conduct proper research and choose the best Dedicated Server Hosting plan for your needs. However, everything that you do on the server requires resources and impacts the performance of the server. Hence, before hosting more websites, ensure that you take stock of the resources on your server and ensure that you have breathing room to accommodate growth. Good Luck!
