How do you know when your site is not for shared server? This is not the same question like those "what is the difference between shared and dedicated...". I want to save myself the trouble of changing the server later. I want to know how to estimate whether the site is dedicated material even before I publish it. What are your opinions?

A good question - but not one that has an easy answer. You see it all revolves around server load. You can host almost anything on a shared server until it begins to use more server resources than that deemed 'fair use', so it does not slow the server down at the detriment of others sharing it.

 

So any sites that you expect will generate high CPU usage via high traffic loads, interactive games, large ecommerce sites, volume email requirements etc should be candidates for a dedicated server, where your high usage will not adversely affect other hosting clients.

 

However, having said this, most sites are fine with shared hosting these days due to so many hosts offering very generous load limits. It it then does become necessary in the future many hosts will transfer your account to a Dedicated server for you, if it ever becomes necessary to upgrade.

 

We hope this helps.

Edited February 13, 201115 yr by indexhtml

As well as server load, memory I/O (to temporary storage) and also DB performance are all factors.

I ran sites where memory has become an issue , on another site the DB was an issue and paying for some load balancing to the db server (within the shared enviroment) was enough. I've seen sites die at higher load because the I/O was too poor for the cache and session data that was being stored on disk and a contention with apache processes for memory for filesystem cache.

 

I was asked to provide technical details on a new datacentre for a website I develop and I asked how many users do I need to support ? Without knowing the users I could not even start doing performance testing.

Also need to know things about difference between peak and average figures, maximum acceptable page load times on various (important areas of your site).

 

I think you should be prepared for the trouble of changing servers, because what if your site gets so popular that your chosen dedicated server is not fast enough, can you scale up to a faster server or out to a faster server, will you need a dedicated server, would you be better using a cloud solution ? - many options that you need to think about.

 

The only way to know is when it happens, keep a close check on server performance and user stats so you can start making estimates very early on, talk to any potential future hosts, see which you think are going to be most accomodating for a site that gains in popularity. Make sure you are prepared for the next step up in hardware architecture (web-code, server config, server management, backups etc).

 

One of the reasons I am a fan of VPS (Virtual Private Server) is their upgradability as needed.

 

Cheers, Nick

The traffic over your website will decide to upgrade to a new hosting plan.