It’s been said that less is more – but not when less refers to reliability, security, flexibility, and other critical server characteristics. Find out why you may not want to share your server with strangers.

As a child, you were probably taught that it’s good to share – share your crayons, share your Halloween candy, share your toys. (You may not have agreed, but you at least learned this attitude of generosity was expected.)

Now that you are an adult, you understand the value of sharing. But sharing is not always a good thing, especially when it comes to Web servers. In fact, sharing can be downright dangerous to your data.

Shared Server

While we’re busting Mother’s myths, let’s also address the “less is more?? cliché. The fact is sometimes less is, well, less. Sure, a shared server can cost less money, but it’s also less in just about every area that counts:

Less Reliable

Do you know who your server neighbors are? Do you have any idea what they’re doing, what applications they’re running or what their bandwidth volumes are? Are you prepared to have your server crash because of what your neighbors do?

Less Secure

Shared servers are kind of like having complete strangers for roommates. Yes, they’re probably trustworthy, but would you leave your wallet on the kitchen table? How about your customers’ credit card numbers?

Less Performance

You know how it is when you try to do two, or more, things at once – it’ll all get done, but at a much slower pace than if you’d just concentrated on one thing at a time. Imagine your home computer is used by you and five of your closest friends – all at the same time: Even the beefiest rig is bound to bog down. Now imagine your server being used by you and 20 strangers: Slowdowns ahead? Count on it.

Less Flexibility

If you had a choice, would you buy a home pre-furnished? Sure, that black and white, striped sofa goes just fine with that Queen Anne chair – but it just doesn’t suit your needs (or your tastes). Now translate that experience to the server world. Would you rent a server populated with applications you didn’t choose? On a shared server, you might have FrontPage extensions you’ll never use, but, when it comes to installing that specialized shopping cart or blogging software, you’re out of luck.

Less Peace of Mind

Let’s say you’ve come up with a way to turn garbage into gasoline – you’d probably feel pretty good about leaving the formula in a lockbox with all the latest security features and to which only you have the key. How would you feel if several other people you’ve never met also had a key? Even if they were trustworthy by the highest standards, could you be certain that they would care for their keys the way you care for yours? Your slice of a shared server’s hard disk may be safe – you chose a strong password and didn’t enable the applications that might allow a security breach. But did everyone else do the same? Once a hacker has access to one account, he or she has access to all of them.

Why settle for less? All apologies to Mom, but, for many websites, more is better. Analyze your site’s needs with the above points in mind – you may decide that sharing is not all it’s cracked up to be. (However, sharing your Halloween candy is still a nice thing to do.

ServerPronto offers affordable and secure dedicated servers and cloud hosting service packages.

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