When Is It Time to Upgrade from a Virtual Private Server to Bare Metal Dedicated Hosting?

You’ve made it! Your website is successful and receives exorbitant traffic numbers every day. You’re breaking visitor volume records and your resources seem smaller every day. If this is you, you’re ready for an upgrade. But, when is it time to upgrade from a VPS (Virtual Private Server) to a BMD (Bare Metal Dedicated Server)? How do you know? In this blog we’ll tell you what to look for. 

Before we can decide when it’s time for you to upgrade, let’s first define these services.

What is a VPS?

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a server where resources are all allocated virtually. You share physical resources with other users on the server, but unlike shared hosting, your site gets dedicated resources in its virtual allocation.

For example, if the server has 16GB of RAM, your VPS might get 2GB of the 16GB of RAM. That 2GB is yours and no one else’s.

Resources are divided using a hypervisor to create virtual machines for each user on the server. This might sound confusing, but it’s most important to know that each account on the VPS is completely cut off from other accounts.

A VPS is like owning an apartment in a fourplex. You own your part of the building, but the other three apartments are owned by others. All of the resources in your apartment are yours, but you share the same building. 

What is a Bare Metal Dedicated Server?

A bare metal dedicated server is a server where you have the entire physical server dedicated to your website. In a VPS, you only get part of a server, but with a dedicated server, you get the whole thing! 

Using the housing analogy, a dedicated server is like owning your own house. No one else owns parts of it. It’s solely yours to do with as you please.

Now, Bare Metal Dedicated servers differ from traditional dedicated servers in a few ways. First, provisioning occurs within minutes of ordering. Gone are the days of waiting 24 hours for your dedicated server to get up and running. Also, higher-quality servers are used with top-of-the-line components.

Now that we know the basics of our VPS and Bare Metal Dedicated servers, we can discuss the main question of the article.

When Is It Time to Upgrade from a Virtual Private Server to Bare Metal Dedicated Hosting?

This is a frequently asked question and one that deserves answering. Typically, you want to upgrade from a VPS to a dedicated server when you’ve reached 70% of your total resource usage for RAM, disk space, CPU, and bandwidth combined. Why 70%? Because it’s better to be early than to be late. If you wait until your resources hit 100% total usage, you risk your server crashing or getting temporarily suspended until you upgrade. NOTE: We email you several notices warning you of resource uses once you get past 50% usage. We won’t suspend your account without warning and suggesting an upgrade.

There are, of course, other reasons you may want to upgrade to a bare metal dedicated server such as:

• Wanting to use an application or operating system that won’t support virtualization. 
• Expecting a surge in traffic during a certain time of the year. For example, some businesses need the extra power of a Bare Metal Dedicated Server during Black Friday.
• Not wanting to share a server with anyone else.

Suffice it to say, if you notice you’re not getting the same performance and you’re starting to see 70% resource usage on your account, it’s time to get an upgrade. Contact our sales team today if you’re not sure if you need to upgrade or not.

Related Resources:

• What Is a Bare Metal Dedicated Server? (And When Is It Right for You?)
• Bare Metal Dedicated Specs and Why They’re Important
• 13 Questions to Consider When Choosing a Bare Metal Dedicated Server
• A Guide to A2 Bare Metal Dedicated Hosting