Before we start to provide answers to this question, it’s important to know that every byte that can be found on the internet, is physically hosted somewhere.

There’s a machine somewhere in the world that has that particular piece of information on it, and it’s sharing it with everyone else.

Sure, you can reach all types of data from almost every corner of the planet, but you got to know that how and where this certain data is located and hosted, will play a big part in the quality of its distribution.

A lot of people who live in countries that are part of The United Kingdom, more often than not find better and cheaper hosting deals outside of their borders.

Although they don’t initially want to, they come to an understanding that it’s better for their business to host their websites in such countries as Netherlands and Sweden.

Why? – Because, as businessmen, they’re always looking to get the most for their money’s worth, so it’s quite natural why these entrepreneurs are considering the option of hosting their websites abroad.

Netherlands has the best internet connection in Europe. Maybe not the fastest, but it has over 50 ISP’s. Amazing, Right?

The Dutch own a great, highly accessible and extremely stable network, and it’s peering with the whole world is pure gold.

Why should I overpay for something in my backyard, when I can get a lot better offer for it just next door? – A lot of UK entrepreneurs who invest in their websites are faced with this question.

When it comes to server location, a lot of different factor come into play.

In order to help you better understand just how big a part this plays in your websites success, we have decided to answer some of the more common questions people tend to asked when choosing a location for their server.

Should I Stay In The “Neighborhood”?

It depends. Generally yes, but there are exceptions.

When it comes to SEO, it’s recommendable that you keep your servers close.

Google ranks on loads of different factors. The geo-IP location of your server is one of them, but it’s certainly not the most important one.

We have a lot of Swedish and Dutch clients, because they have locally oriented businesses.

It’s quite logical for them to choose us to host their websites.

Just How Close Should I Stay?

For practical purposes, I wouldn’t worry about what city your site is hosted in, but I’d recommend keeping it in the same country. If you, for an example, like some of our clients, sell primarily to Swedish people, then it would be quite smart for you to host your website on a server that’s located in Sweden.

If you primarily sell to Canadians, then you should host your business on Canadian servers. You can find acceptable hosting solutions in both countries.

Are you screwing yourself if you host a Canadian site on Swedish servers? No. But that being said, you might improve your SERPs slightly if you host it in your “homeland”.

So, What are The Exceptions?

If you’re hosting videos and audio files on your server, or if you’re part of a gaming industry, then you should focus on different factors.

You should focus on the quality of your network, above everything else.

For example, if you’re from Europe and you’re interested in playing Counter Strike or some sort of a different game online, you’ll have a lot better ping if you use Dutch or Swedish servers, instead of US ones.

Like I wrote above, Netherlands has the best internet in EU, and in these situations you could really benefit from it.

Geographical location of your server matters only in a straightforward sense. It has effect only on the number of hoops that it takes for some piece of data to move around. The fewer hoops it uses, the faster your information will move around.

If you’re uploading videos and distributing video, and playing real time games, speed and stability is something that you should be looking for in a network.

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I hope that we have answered some of your questions about server location in this blog post. If we missed something, feel free to ask a question or add something in the comments section below.

Also, before we part ways for now, I would like to add that when you shop for servers, you should also focus that you don’t rent ones that are situated in locations that are prone to natural disasters. You don’t want your server to go down because of an earthquake, floods or bad weather.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post.
Please remember to share it with your friends and colleagues and follow us on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.
Have a great day!
Goran @ AltusHost B.V.

When configuring a server, people find themselves in a situation where they have to shop for hardware.

Shopping for hardware is no different from shopping for food or clothes – you’re faced with way too many choices that start to confuse you and make you later on doubt your decisions.

You start to think: “Could I have gotten more for less? Should I have searched longer for a better deal? What if I made a mistake?”

Our research has shown that when it comes to looking for hardware for their servers, most people are torn between hot and cold swap chassis.

Why? Because, even if undoubtably better, hot swap chassis tend to cost a lot more money. Like four or five times more than regular ones.

This is where the problematic question comes to mind: “If I invest, will I eventually get my money’s worth?”

The short answer is: “Yes!”

Source: altushost.com

Let’s break it down.

Sure, if you’re building a home computer, this could seem a bit much to you, but, if you’re planning to buy something for your business – than you should, without any doubt in mind, go for hot swap chassis!

For those who are not familiar with “hot swapping”, this term explains an action where a person is able to replace existing hardware components (hard disks) without actually shutting down the entire system on which they’re running on.

For example, you can replace a hard disk (if it has a hot swap chassis) without making your computer stop working. Amazing, right?

Hot swap capability is a must have feature in almost every business oriented electronic system.

To help you have a better understanding what I’m talking about, I have constructed a list of 3 main reasons why we suggest hot-swappable chassis to all of our clients:

Source: altushost.com

Less Downtime

“Downtime” basically means “nightmare” in every online business owner’s dictionary.

Let’s say it’s 11am, you’re in the middle of your work day, and one of the drives on your company’s server suddenly dies. It happens. Hardware is still not immortal.

What do you? Do you shutdown the server and replace the drive, which will leave all your employees standing around with nothing to do? Do you wait until the work day is over and then change it, hopping to God that your other drive doesn’t die on you as well? What happens if that other disk doesn’t die, but starts spinning down? What’s your move then? Where do you go from there?

Next to paying for a new hard drive, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to pay your vendors to change it for you.

If the drive dies due to unplugging and plugging operations then the manufacturer needs to replace it and these actions inherently increase the probability of failure.

At this point, basically all your worst nightmares are become reality. Every minute, you’re losing more and more money!

All of these risks are something that we, who own an online business, have to live with each and every day.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a simpler way to fix this problem? Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way on how you could replace your dead hardware, without being condemned to some pretty long and expensive down time?

Well, there is. Go out and buy hot swap chassis.

Source: altushost.com

Great Backup Solution

Most businesses rely heavily on their data, and they’ll do almost anything to protect it. This is where “hot-swappable” drives come in handy.

For example, a business may have a dedicated HDD for customers in the Eastern Europe area, which is loaded with all the priceless data about their company.

How do they protect it by using “hot swappable” disks? Easily. They duplicate all their data on a backup HDD and keep it ready and available for future usage, in case if the original/active one fails.

When the original HDD dies (and it most certainly will, at some point), the copy containing identical information will be ready to get “hot swapped” and there’ll be no negligible down-time on their computer system. When they insert that copy, they should immediately start to make another one and keep it ready and available when a similar problem arrives.

It’s an endless bulletproof loop that promises grade A data protection.

Guaranteed Return of Investment

Sure, hot swap chassis tend to cost more at first than cold swap chassis, but now when you know what kind of problems the later will cause, would you agree with me in saying that they’re not that expensive?

Think about. Revisit all the scenarios I’ve presented you with in this article. Put them to paper and do the math. Sit down and really look at all the facts. Next to sales, clicks and your staff’s time, cold swap cases can cost you your entire work database. Most serious business cannot afford to lose that.

Think ahead, save yourself from falling victim to bad choices and keep your professional data as safe as possible!

This is way most of our clients have hot swap chassis on their dedicated servers.

Source: altushost.com

Thanks for reading this post! I truly appreciate your time and effort.

Before you go, remember to share this article with your friends and colleagues. Who knows, maybe some of them could really benefit from this content.

Everyone knows that assumption is the mother of all screw ups. This saying has proven its worth over and over again.

Thinking that you know something without actually taking the time to fully educate yourself about that specific subject, can lead you into some pretty unflattering situations.

How many of you have found yourself in scenarios where you have paid for something that you actually have no use for?

How many of you have fallen victim to some of your bad choices only because you weren’t interested enough in fully educating yourself on finding the best possible option for your money’s worth?

We all live in a time where we’re constantly being bombarded by various types of data, and millions and millions of “buy this”, “learn this”, “check this out” blog posts, statuses, tweets and articles about everything and anything.

From time to time, it tends to get hard to find some peace of mind in this endless sea of proposals and options, but it’s important that we manage to keep our cool, and only act when we are actually confident about our actions.

Sure, it’s not always easy to find trustworthy data that will help you make great choices, but you need to have some patience and continue to look until you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Like the famous late Ancient Greek philosopher once said: “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

No matter for what they’re shopping for, all good shoppers always take the time to fully educate themselves on what they’re actually looking for.

Most of us don’t have an endless pile of money just lying around in our living room, so we cannot afford to foolishly experiment with it and actually waste it on something that we really don’t need.

Same goes for web hosting. Most of our potential customers, when they first come to us, don’t really know what they’re looking for. Most of them don’t see a difference between our packages, nor do they understand what kind of service will best suit their business.

Guided by everything written above, we have decided to once again put pen to paper and explain to anyone interested why do we think that our dedicated servers are great for all sorts of different businesses.

So, What Exactly is A Dedicated Hosting Service?

A dedicated hosting service, or a dedicated server, is a type of Internet hosting in which the client leases an entire server for himself. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as organizations have full control over the server(s), including choice of operating system, hardware, etc.

Why Should I Go With A Dedicated Server?

In most cases, dedicated servers are the fastest and most powerful choices available. A dedicated server allows you to have complete control over the box. You can set it up to be as secure as you want, even to the point where the ISP admins are disallowed root access.

You cannot get more “private” than that.

The main benefits when it comes to dedicated servers is that they’re totally and completely under your control. You, as a person who is paying for this (or these servers), has all the power in the world to do with it whatever you please. You can reboot it when you need to, and you can fully customize it in terms of software on which you want it to run. This is a huge benefit for a wide number of reasons.

Why Is It Important To Have Full Control Over Your Server?

Because, when it comes to your business, you cannot afford to be down on behalf of someone else’s site on your shared server. It doesn’t matter why, being down is costing you money.

There’s not a single serious businessman on this planet who is willing to accept that someone else’s mistakes are eating away his credit card.

Which Is The Best Dedicated Server For Web Hosting?

That’s like asking: “What is the best beer in the world?” – It’s just too broad of a question to ask. It depends on all sorts of different factors and elements.

It depends on what kind of website are you planning to host. An EShop? A company blog? An info portal? An online magazine?

The question “What is the best dedicated server for web hosting” infers that you are going to be acting as a web host, and that your business is web-hosting for clients.

It really depends on your budget and your needs.

We at AltusHost offers a very broad line of dedicated servers from basic to sophisticated with the latest technologies. All of our Dedicated Servers are categorized on our website to suit any business needs.

Our dedicated servers are managed so you do not have to worry about being stuck with this exhausting task or fixing any problems.

What We Mean By Managed Dedicated Servers?

Is that we will take care of the setup of your dedicated web hosting account, troubleshooting with your dedicated server, and everything in between.

The managed dedicated hosting service we offer is valuable, because we will worry about your dedicated servers while you focus on growing your business.

Why Should You Go With European Based Dedicated Servers?

Because they’re the best. EU server have amazing peering on a global scale. If you have customers in Europe, there’s no better option out there for you.

We’re using only Top Grade Hardware for our Servers and Network, in order to provide Top Grade services to our clients. We are confident in the Quality of our Network Infrastructure, so we offer a 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee with all our services.

Your personal information, as well as data hosted on our network, are highly protected by law of The Netherlands, plus our Professional Technical Support is always available and ready to help you with any aspect of your services at anytime!

Unlike most other hosting companies, we have our own Hardware and Network infrastructure, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Stockholm, Sweden. We do not rent or resell from a larger provider and use our own Infrastructure.The benefit of this is that we are in full control of all we use to deliver our hosting services.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. We hope that this blog post helped you understand why you, as a serious business owner, should invest in getting a dedicated server for your company.

If you liked what we wrote here, remember to share this post with your friends! Who knows, maybe they’ll find this content useful as well.

Also, if  you haven’t done that already, be so kind to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Once again, thank you for your time, see you soon again!

Kind regards,

Goran,

Marketing Manager @ AltusHost B.V.