Server Hardware

The processor represents the ‘brain’ of your server – the faster the processor, the more calculations per second it can handle. A fast processor is important if your server will be running any especially CPU-intensive applications.

We have carefully selected a range of Quad-Core and Hexa-Core Intel Xeon processors to ensure that your server has the power available to run the applications you need, when you need them. Intel is the largest CPU manufacturer in the world and their Xeon processors have a reputation for high performance, reliability and energy efficiency.

RAM represents the workspace your server has available to work through tasks and to run applications. Generally, the more RAM you have, the more your server will be able to do at once and the faster your server will perform.

We offer two types of RAM: UDIMM and RDIMM. UDIMM modules are most commonly used by customers who are looking for a cost-effective solution for increasing memory size without the need for parity checking. RDIMMs on the other hand, include parity-checking mechanisms to minimise data corruption and they can also be scaled to higher capacities than conventional UDIMMs.

Please note, RDIMM is only available in our Bolt and Flame Servers.

You can choose from our range of carefully selected hard disks to suit your needs. We offer two types of disk – SATA drives and SAS drives. The key difference between the two types is data transfer speed and spin speed. We have selected our range to give you the best choice of capacity, reliability and speed.

If you are looking for basic, but high capacity storage then we recommend choosing one of the SATA drives. SAS drives are more suited to mission-critical application hosting and situations where fast read/write speeds are crucial, such as database hosting.

We recommend implementing a RAID array rather than utilising a single disk in your server in order to better protect your data. There are several different types of RAID so it’s important to choose the best RAID configuration for your setup.

The different types of RAID:

RAID 0

Performance increase due to data being striped across multiple disks

Data is striped across two or more disks to make a single logical drive

Simple way to build a larger disk from an array of smaller disks

No redundancy in the event of a disk failure

RAID 1

Mirror your primary disk for peace of mind

Data is mirrored between two disks, anything written to one disk is exactly mirrored on the other

Redundant – if one disk fails, the other retains a copy of your data

Effective disk space is halved due to mirroring, although more pairs of disks can be added to increase storage capacity

RAID 5

Performance increase due to data being striped across multiple disks, good for disk intensive operations

Data is striped across two or more disks to make a single logical drive

Includes parity checking, so if a single disk fails data can be rebuilt using parity

Parity reduces effective disk space but is less risky than RAID 0

RAID 10

RAID 10 is our recommended configuration

Combination of striped and mirrored data

Performance increase for disk intensive operations due to striping data

Redundant due to mirroring – if one disk fails, a copy of your data will still be present on the other disk

Effective disk space is halved due to mirroring, more pairs of disks can be added to increase storage capacity

We recommend implementing a RAID 10 configuration for your dedicated server because of the performance increase associated with striping data as well as the level of redundancy due to mirroring data across pairs of disks.