Factors That Influence Physical and Virtual Server Prices

Virtual servers and physical servers are two kinds of computing devices. They both have various benefits. However, their prices depend on several factors, which might affect your buying decision. We will discuss these factors that affcet server prices so you can decide which one to use for your business. Below are some of the factors that affect the price of these servers.

Four Factors that Affect the Price of Virtual Servers

A virtual server is a software-based server that runs on a physical server. In other words, using a virtual server does not require all the hardware and software to run your website or application. It runs on an existing machine.

Below are four factors that can impact the price of a virtual server.

Operating System

The operating system (OS) is the foundation of your virtual server. The OS will determine how easy it is to install and manage your virtual machine, as well as its performance.

For instance, Linux is the most popular open-source operating system for virtual machines. It is cheaper than Windows and has more options (such as extra security tools). It’s also easier to maintain because it needs fewer updates than Windows servers.

Virtualization

Virtualization is the process of taking an existing physical device and creating a virtual version of it. This allows you to run multiple operating systems on one physical server, which can help reduce costs by consolidating your applications onto fewer machines.

Virtualization can be done at the operating system level or the application level. Performing an operating system virtualization is more expensive than application-level virtualization. This is because you will need a hypervisor (or “host”) that acts like an operating system for each guest OS. You can click on https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/ to read more about OS virtualization.

Support

The company provides support but you can also outsource yours if you have an unmanaged service plan. 

If you’re paying for managed services, however, there’s no guarantee that support will be included in your monthly bill (though some providers do offer it).

Managed vs Unmanaged

In a managed VPS you don’t have to worry about hardware and software updates, which is a huge plus. You don’t have to worry about security either. The cloud provider manages the server. So, you can rest easy knowing that it’ll always keep running properly. 

Also, because you’re paying by the hour and not the day, there’s no need for backups or load balancing. Finally, monitoring services aren’t included in your monthly fee (though they may be available at a separate charge).

However, unmanaged VPS is the cheaper option that allows you to take control of your VPS. The VPS provider only sets up the initial installations and then lets you handle the entire management, from security to regular updates.

Four Factors that Affect the Price of Physical Servers

A physical server is hardware that houses a CPU, IO controllers, motherboard, and memory. It can run only a single OS per time, which makes it a more secure option. These four factors below contribute to the prices of physical servers.  

CPU

The CPU is the brain of your computer, and it’s necessary to get one with as many cores as possible. The more you have, the better your machine will perform overall.

However, other factors affect how fast your system can run:

• Clock speeds: These are measured in GHz (gigahertz), but they don’t tell you anything about how fast each core runs at its peak performance—just how much work it does per second in total. 
• IPC: This stands for Instructions Per Cycle; basically, how long each instruction takes before being executed by another thread within our multi-threaded environment.
• Overall Throughput: This number represents how much data gets processed overall by all our processes running simultaneously through a single server instance.

All these determine the power of the processor. And the higher the processor power, the higher the cost of the server.  

Memory

RAM determines how fast your computer can run. If you have enough RAM, you won’t have any problems with performance or stability. You can read this article to learn more about RAM. 

RAM prices vary depending on what kind of processor your server uses. It also depends on how much storage capacity is available. For example, if your server has more storage capacity than usual but less CPU power than average, its price might be lower.

Hard drive

The speed of the hard drive affects the performance of a physical server. The more hard drive space, the more data you can store on it. The faster your hard drive runs, the less time it will take for you to access files and applications. 

When choosing physical servers for your business, ensure they have at least one terabyte (1 TB) of storage space. This way, users don’t have to wait long when loading their computers with data or software updates. Also, remember that larger storage capacity means higher costs because more hardware power is involved in storing data on flash memory drives.

Network ports

The more ports you have, the higher your network traffic will be. For instance, a server with different types of ports will consume more power and heat, leading to increased electricity bills.

Conclusion

Virtual servers are a great way to save money on your hosting needs, especially if you have a tight budget. They allow you to scale up or down as needed and are easy to manage. The only downside is that they don’t provide some of the features that a dedicated physical server would offer.