[Updated: 23 Sept 2019]
Whether you own a small business or large corporation, you will always need a safe and the right place to store all your important and valuable business data in dedicated servers. With the fast growing needs for information and data, the speed of obtaining information has never been this important. Before getting all excited to have your own server with all the power in your hand, it is always best to look back to your goals and evaluate why you need a server in the first place.
Buying a network server is certainly a huge investment. So buff up your server knowledge and choose the one that best suits your needs. Here are a few things to consider before purchasing a server:
#1 Budget
As you may already know, servers are not cheap. They might cost you thousands of Dollars, depending on the specs or model. That’s why budget should be a major consideration. Once you’ve worked out your budget, you can make your decision based on brand, size and warranty details. Do also look at the long run of return on this investment, it might cost your business a big lump sum of money at first, but if your business is able to save a lot of money in the future, this might be worth to consider.
#2 Space
Do you know that servers come in different shapes and sizes?
There are 3 major types of servers:
Rack Servers: Designed to be installed in a rack with multiple bays
Tower Servers: Standalone; it looks like a tower PC
Blade Servers: Typically thinner; able to minimize physical space required (though they have some disadvantages such as limited capacity)
As far as space is concerned, you need to make sure that you have sufficient space left in your rack. Remember 2U and 4U servers require more rack space than a 1U server does. Same thing applies to other types of servers; you need to ensure that you have space left in the blade server chassis.
#3 Storage
Data storage certainly is another major factor when buying a server. Different servers have vary storage capacities. There are however, some major exceptions although most of the servers on the market allow the use of two internal hard drives. Having multiple storage will ensure your data will be safely backed up and also it is required if you need to setup Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), to provide fault tolerance, to improve overall performance, and to increase storage capacity in a system
Still, for data storage, it depends heavily on the size of your business. For large business, you could opt for a server with more storage than what you currently require. For small business, may consider a server with less storage capacity.
Tip: The server storage you purchase should have at least 30% more space than your current needs to support future growth.
#4 Connectivity
When buying a server, it’s easy to miss out on the network connectivity issue because every server on the market includes built-in networking. If your intention is to make the server act as a cluster node or as a virtualization host server, network connectivity should not be overlooked.
In this case, they would require more network adapters than a stand-alone server. Thus it’s important to make sure they have the capacities to accommodate all additional network adapters that are needed.
#5 Management
Technical assistance must be available whenever server issues (such as server crashes) arise. It is strongly recommended to place your trust in the company that offers reliable and 24/7 technical support. Talk to them before choosing your server and make sure they support the server brand you’re choosing.
Last but not least, experience and expertise in server management is also something you should look into when considering a server hosting provider.
On a side note, Exabytes has 18 years of solid experience in server management. Our servers are hosted in Denver Tech Center, USA. Check out the photos of our data center at Handy Networks, Denver, CO. If you would like to get some consultation on getting a server or would like to know how Exabytes can help you on your online business, visit our page and click on our live chat to talk to us.
Hope you find this blog post useful. Comment below if you need to know any more information about servers.
Cheers!