Semi Dedicated Server (SDS) VS. Virtual Private Server (VPS)

More than often we have customers asking us at Shinjiru what is the difference of Semi Dedicated Server Hosting and Virtual Private Server VPS Hosting since the cost is almost the same. In this article, we will explore and explain the difference of the two web hosting packages. How do we select the correct package for our website be it for Malaysia Web Hosting or for our International Web Hosting. First of all, both hosting packages are considered as the next level upgrade from Shared Hosting packages be it Windows Shared Hosting or Linux Shared Hosting. Customers need to upgrade when they are overloading the resources of a shared hosting server. So how do we choose which is the correct hosting to upgrade ?

Let’s strip this down into bits and pieces to understand the difference between a Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Semi Dedicated Server (SDS). Heck, even the acronyms are similar. Confusing is it? Not really.

Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting

The first difference of VPS is that it offers FULL ROOT access and dedicated resources for your website, similar to a dedicated server but at a lower cost. Full root access allows you total control of the VPS. You can set permissions, upload scripts and install programs. You can also utilized the IPtable to block certain IPs from accessing your site, manage the server security and firewall setup. You can even reboot the VPS. In other words, you can do 101 things with a VPS that you could not do with a shared hosting server or a semi dedicated server. Full Root access means total control.

Secondly, VPS resources are non-burstible. Let’s say you have a 1GB RAM VPS: this means at any one time, the maximum memory resources you can utilized is 1MB. However VPS resources can be added seamlessly You can request for any resources upgrade at any time be it CPU Power, Memory or Hard Drive Space.

Thirdly, customers must have higher knowledge of server management in order to fully maximize your VPS capabilit. By having root access, this means you will be fully responsible in managing, securing and troubleshooting any issues with the VPS.

Semi Dedicated Server (SDS) Hosting

Semi Dedicated Server (SDS) Hosting is actually a shared hosting server in a more exclusive environment. More exclusive means lesser websites per server and higher server specifications. In each SDS, we host only 10 – 20 websites. Lower number of websites mean better resource allocation. On the average at any time, SDS has 40% free resources for any website to burst.

The first difference of SDS is burstible resources. A SDS has minimum 8GB to 16GB Memory. Thus effectively a website can burst all the way to 16GB at any time. By sharing the server core resources SDS can burst while VPS resources are locked.

SDS has lower service level agreement as there could be a coincidence that few websites need to burst at once. In this case, resources will still be overloaded. When this happened, all the websites in the same shared hosting server will be affected.

Lastly SDS provides lesser control. SDS does not have root access to the server limiting your control over the server management but on the bright side this means you dont need to have a high knowledge of server management. For SDS, server management will be done by web hosting company.

Conclusion :

In conclusion, VPS is the solution for customer who need total control of their server at a lower cost. VPS provides the best platform for testing and development phase before moving towards a dedicated server for full production. This ensures economics of scale, smaller (cheaper) hosting package with root access for tests and move onwards to higher cost dedicated server hosting for full deployment. Thus VPS is more suitable for projects, applications and websites whereby the resources requirement are determined, pretty stable and consistent.

SDS is good for websites with sudden traffic surges such as forums, news portals and blogs whose traffic peaks and bursts at random. For this type of website, traffic bursts may due to certain postings that spread like wildfires or viral effects. Everyone would jump into the website just to read and followup with the posting, comments and latest updates.

Choosing the right hosting is one of the important aspect in having a higher uptime for your website. For this you need to truly understand the resources usage of your site and decide from there which is the best for your website. Happy Web Hosting, everyone !

Shinjiru Web Hosting