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The reasons for buying an unmetered dedicated server are simple:

1) Your website is receiving more traffic than your current hosting can handle. In such case you will notice a higher number of errors in the Google Webmasters Tools. For example, see the following snapshot: it shows some errors which occurred during the crawling of my website.

There were more errors originally, but they disappeared as time went by. However, any errors are a bad thing. It is always necessary to carefully monitor the errors which do appear.

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2) Your website requires more CPU/RAM/HDD than the current hosting can handle. The main differences between dedicated servers and shared hosting are that for shared web hosting, CPU is shared, memory is shared, bandwidth is usually shared too, ports are shared. Unlike shared web hosting or VPS (virtual private server), dedicated servers give you the advantage of effectively owning your own computer for your website(s) only. This means more freedom because it is not necessary to divide system resources between a large number of websites.

The word unmetered means unlimited traffic in general, though the transfer speed may still be limited. These limitations exist due to the current state of technology: firstly, ports cannot transfer unlimited amount of data. Secondly, every switch, optical cable and every other piece of hardware come with their own limitations. Third, even with a 1Gbit transfer speed, the system simply can’t handle an unlimited number of processes simultaneously. Generally, 10 Gbit transfer should be sufficient these days for ordinary websites. If you run video-sharing websites, then you will probably need more servers, a greater traffic allowance and better bandwidth.

When do you need an unmetered dedicated server and when do you need an ordinary dedicated server?

Various companies offer you (for example) 500GB, 1000GB, 2000GB, or 5000GB monthly traffic, or 10Mbit, 50Mbit, 100MBit unmetered bandwidth. In order to make the right decision, it is necessary to consider these questions:

- How many queries does my website operate within a minute?

- What is the average traffic of my website per month?

Imagine a case when you know that your monthly traffic is 100GB. This is 3.287GB/day, or 0.136GB/hour, or 0.002283105GB/minute, or approximately 2394KB/minute. A 10Mb connection means transfer of 1280KB per second. So 100gb monthly transfer is sufficient for the purpose, though there may be situations when more visitors are downloading some large documents at the same time.

In another example, imagine that you require 3000GB per month. This is 71820KB/minute, and 1197KB/second. As you can see, this edges very close to the 10Mb limit. In order to keep the visitors of your website happy, a 50Mb unmetered connection would be a better solution than any metered monthly transfer.

How can I decide which company is good enough for your hosting needs?

If every web hosting company did what they promised, then everyone would be happy. So, in order to make the right decision:

1) You should check how long they have been in business. Older companies usually do a better job than new ones. On the other hand, this doesn’t have to be the primary factor in making the decision;

2) Talk to the company.. Check how fast they reply on your messages, and if possible, exchange more than one email with them.

For example, I have been talking to one Canadian company last week. They answered my emails within 24 hours, but the last email wasn’t answered at all. Thus, I decided to give up the idea of hosting my website with their company. On the other hand, today I spoke to one UK-based company (rackspace.co.uk) and they were able to give me quote after a short while. Unfortunately, their prices are quite higher than I expected. But I’d rather choose the more expensive solution than the cheap solution that lacks effective customer support.

3) Find negative reviews on the company which you consider the potential host for your websites. This is actually crucial. If you found a reliable company, then you should find many positive reviews and no (or at least a small number of) negative reviews. Every company may offer 100% services, but something will always go wrong occasionally. After a couple of hours, everything will be fixed and running again. A normal customer won’t worry if such situations aren’t happening too often, and an inexperienced customer will complain. You shouldn’t see negative reviews such as “They charged my credit card twice”, “They charged hidden fees” or “They charged me for traffic which my website didn’t receive” and such. You’d never know until it happened to you.

Be careful with reviews, as some may be faked or contain affiliate links. The best places to find reviews are forums. Also Google is very helpful, simply try the search query “website.com review” or “website.com reviews”. In addition, you can try “website.com scam”.