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Dedicated server consumers must determine exactly what type of hardware they would like to serve their
content from. There are several variables to consider, including processor type, speed and quantity,
disk drive quantity and type and a few other equally important attributes.
The first choice in deciding what kind of dedicated server to use is the hardware platform. Currently, most
leased servers are based on Intel x86-based hardware. Variants of this include the Pentium, Xeon, Celeron,
Sempron and Athlon processors. If you're not a fan of the Intel-style hardware, there are many alternatives, but
the market is dominated by the x86 family, so you will have more choice if you stick with them.
The next choice is processor and processor speed. This can get complicated, as CPU manufacturers are constantly
introducing new products. The other thing to keep in mind is that a 2.4 GHz Celeron processor will not be equal
in performance to a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4. Processor speed is good for judging a CPU with others of its class, and that's
about it. Newer servers will offer multiple CPUs, and some CPUs will have dual cores or hyperthreading, which may
increase performance for some applications.
Once you've picked your processor and platform, you'll have to equip your system with memory. Systems without
enough RAM will run slowly, and swap to disk. This will cause your server to crawl. It's possible to run a server with
very low memory, but it will limit the capacity of the machine to run bigger and more resource-hungry databases, dynamic
applications and web servers. Many web server applications use memory in proportion to the number of users accessing the
server at a given time. If you expect a lot of traffic, a lot of database use, or have a lot of dynamic or CGI content,
your memory needs will climb.
Your dedicated server would be useless without hard drives for storage of sites, server logs and all of the programs and databases
used to serve web content. Because of this, you should try to outfit your dedicated server with the best hard drives possible.
Hard drives will fail over time, and it's best to be prepared for this. If you get a server with RAID drives,
then a drive failure won't stop your server in its tracks.
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