Is Shared Hosting the Right Choice for your Website?

If you share your server with other sites, you can get discount on the web hosting fees, or you can get the option of having multiple sites on the same system. But, sharing a server has its benefits and disadvantages too.

The very first thing you should consider is the availability. If you have a shared server, there are more chances of it getting re-booted in comparison to stand alone ones. There can be many reasons behind it. The software of another site can create a problem or any change that requires re-booting can lead to the problem. Most of the Unix based systems will create less problems than the Windows operated. So, be prepared for an unscheduled and unplanned outage while sharing the server.

Next issue is the load on the server. This is quite obvious that a single loaded truck can bear the weight, but if the truck is half-loaded and you put on more weight, there will be a problem.

Most websites are static, where a reader comes on the page, spends some time and then loads another page. The server gets the time to satisfy the search request of the other site without affecting yours. CPU, disks, memory, network and many other components have the capacity of handling multiple users for a certain time period only.

But, capacity limitations are present in all the servers. CPU is the component that processes the instructions of the software, has certain limit. Same is the case with larger servers also. If they receive more request, they will get busier. A certain time will come where your software request will take time to get processed.

The memory of the server is also a shared resource. As one process uses some part of it, system will assign some left out part to other website. Sharing it might become the reason for delay. If the number of requests is higher, the delays will be longer. Visitors might have to wait for a page to open completely on the browser or for a file to download.

You also share network components with multiple users in this process. It means an increase in requests will lead to a delay in processing. The only way to find out if the server or the network is capable enough to bear this additional load is to test and measure it. You can know how much of what component is being used in all the systems.

Most of the systems compile the test information in a statistical report form. After reviewing the data, you will get an idea of the capacity being used by the server and how much is still left for usage. This will also help you in knowing the amount of sharing, you can do with the other party, consequences or the level of impact.

You can ask your web host to get this information for you. This is really going to help you in taking a cost-efficient decision after considering the facts.

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