Ok, what factor's should I be looking for to find the BEST solution for a rented, dedicated server? I am looking for a good server company that can give me a solid, affordable dedicated server solution. Is there a site I can go to that rates the different server companies?

I mean, when I'm checking out a company, do I open a command prompt and type: ping company.com and check their round trip times? Does that tell me efficiently how well my clients sites will be served and at what speeds?

Any help would be great, thanks in advance!

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• Location of their datacenter
• Number and quality of carriers and/or network performance in relation to your target market
• Support availability, i.e. 24/7 onsite techs
• Hardware replacement time
• Network, power uptime, includes do they have UPS and generators
• Do they own their equipment and datacenter or resell, may not be important to you
• Do they provided managed or unmanaged servers and does that then fit your requirement, including is the level of management to your needs.
• Recommendations from friends and colleagues
• Amount of bandwidth provided and is it measured as the total of in + out, 50/50 split for in and out or 95 percentile. Does that then fit with your requirements
• Fairly obviously, can they supply the specification you require

I'm sure there's lots more things that could be listed.

However that is from what I consider when looking for the BEST, you may decide the BEST is the host with the lowest per month cost or you may require a server with dual power supplies fed from separate power grids.

In other words there is no best choice for everyone.
www.webhostingtalk.com is worth a read, however people mainly post about issues they have, therefore you need to read carefully to see if the issue is really an issue or lack of understanding by the client etc.
You can also try downloading their test files from various locations as they give an indication of the speed you can expect. Performance of dynamic sites is partly governed by the server specs and not just the raw network performance.

Depending on what you are doing ping will have limited value, simple HTML web sites are less affected by high ping than say a game server. However I have seen heavy AJAX sites loading lots of JavaScript struggle at high ping.

The choice of server will therefore be affected by your intended use of the server.
Assuming you need a managed server, you do have the option to lease unmanaged servers and then engage a 3rd party company to look after it for you. However make sure the server spec you choose is one they will manage.

If your data is important then even if the host provides backup space for you source your own space elsewhere as if for any reason your host cuts you off, goes out of business or you are unable to access your server you will still have access to your data.

Don't be scared to ask providers questions, it's best to know up front exactly what you are getting it saves all kinds of issues for all involved.

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TOLRA Micro Systems Limited US & UK Web Hosting with Continuous Data Protection
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Wow - an impressive list to consider.
My only point would be that you could spend a mass of time accumulating this information. My experience has been to 'suck it and see' and if all goes well, then transfer over your other sites.

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Website Marketing & Search Engine Optimization - Websites are not about winning design awards, they are about winning business.