In this article, I’m going to try and explain different methods for making money from a dedicated server. A dedicated server is a powerful computer specializing in running websites and web services and answering web requests. Most dedicated servers are located in datacenters, which are large facilities housing thousands of servers in stacks, connected to the internet infrastructure at high speeds.
A dedicated server most is commonly equipped with powerful hardware including a lot of memory or RAM, a large stack of storage drives, several cores of CPU for processing, very fast and high-bandwidth internet connection, and sometimes, powerful graphics cards.
People and organizations buy or rent dedicated servers to store their important information, perform massive processing, host high-traffic services such as websites and web applications, or run services that need to be accessible from anywhere through the internet.
Servers are generally stable machines connected to the internet with reliable lines, and supported by backup power sources such as generators and UPS for added reliability.
Server Security
Security is an important factor in servers. Datacenters and organizations strictly control physical access to servers to reduce the chance of the servers or their data being stolen. There is also heat and electricity fluctuation or outage damage that can harm servers. Datacenters usually boast heavy-duty cooling systems and backup power to prevent those. That is why I recommend to buy or rent your server in a good data-center.
There are also cyber attacks aimed at damaging the servers or corrupting their data, stealing critical information stored on them, or harm their activity and the performance of websites and web services running on them. Besides limiting physical access to the servers, there are usually several layers of hardware and software firewalls installed on the path to the servers, or even on the server itself.
Besides Dedicated Servers, what are other types of hosting?
Shared hosting and VPS are two other types of hosting which themselves are created using dedicated servers. We will get into those as we talk about ways you can make money from your dedicated server.
There is also cloud hosting which incorporates anything from dozens to several thousands of servers to create a large unified system, or a cloud, where you don’t have to know and work with the backbone.
What Are the Uses of Dedicated Servers?
You can use A dedicated server for hosting a range of services or functions, including websites, web services, data storage, cloud, shared hosting, VPS or virtual servers, computing and more. I am going to describe some of these uses and where you can make money from them.
Host Your Website
If you want to host a website, whether a content website or e-commerce or the like, and also in case that you want to run a service for doing business, a dedicated server is the obvious choice. Unless you are going to start small, then you will need a cheap dedicated server or even better, a cheap VPS server.
Create a Backup Server
Data and information are very critical assets. There is always the risk of losing your data on your servers or computers, so it’s always recommended to keep at least one backup copy of your data on a safe remote server, preferably a dedicated server. There are many software that can automate the backup process to a remote dedicated server or VPS designated for data storage.
You may be asking, what if something happens to the data on the backup storage? There are ways that can happen, like a hardware failure, but dedicated servers are generally equipped with multiple storage disks or devices that are in RAID formation. This means that on the dedicated server, the data is automatically backed up and copied on more than one storage and if one fails, others can instantly take its place.
Set Up Virtual Servers
Sometimes a whole dedicated server is more than one needs. You can portion a dedicated server into several smaller virtual servers using virtualization technologies. Since each virtual server is separate from others and private, these smaller servers are called Virtual Private Servers or VPS. Each VPS is a virtual machine that acts just like a real server.
There’s also sharing, where one dedicated server is shared by several users or clients, sharing all its resources and hardware at the same time.
Run Web Hosting
You may several websites that don’t have that much traffic to warrant a full dedicated servers. There are many companies on the internet who provide shared hosting for such smaller websites, but if you have several of them it may be best to run your own shared hosting on your dedicated server so you are sure of its circumstances and safety of your data and websites. If the websites are small, dozens or even hundreds can run on the same server since it is unlikely more than a handful will see high visiting traffic at the same time.
Run Game Server
If you are a professional gamer, you already know what an important role a game server plays in online gaming. If there are a large number of gamers who want to play online together, a game server hosted on a dedicated server needed. The power of the dedicated server helps process the gaming data faster and reduce lag while playing. Although, most of the time, smaller game servers on VPS work as well.
Why is a Dedicated Server more expensive than a Virtual Server or VPS?
As I said earlier, you can create VPS by portioning a dedicated server into smaller virtual servers, using various virtualization technologies and software. For that reason, a VPS is generally much smaller than a dedicated server, with less memory, storage and processing cores allocated to each VPS. It makes the creation of VPS much cheaper than a whole dedicated server which is an actual very powerful computer.
How to Get a Dedicated Server
There are many famous companies on the internet that offer dedicated servers for rent in high-level data centers, or an slot in the racks of a data center that you can order your own server to be put there.
Most data centers accept a few payment methods including PayPal or credit cards, while server hosting companies accept most online payment methods; some even accept paying with digital money. On the other hand, data centers rarely work with individuals, so you will have to go through a hosting company to get your dedicated server.
Also, many data centers usually do not provide monthly services and just accept long payment periods at a high price. Of course, if you buy a dedicated server from a suitable server hosting company, you can get all the benefits of buying from a data center.
Hivelocity.net
Hivelocity is a data center in the unites states located in Tampa city and providing dedicated servers from some states of the USA including Chicago, New York, and etc.
Hetzner.com
Hetzner is located in Germany and owns one of the largest and most complete data centers in Europe.
OVH.com
VH is the largest data center in Europe and offers dedicated servers from many European countries.
How to Make Money with a Dedicated Server
There several methods to make money from a dedicated server. I’ll explain some.
Setting Up Shared Hosting Services
You can set up a shared hosting on your dedicated server(s) and start selling monthly or annual subscriptions to users. It’s not a very technical job and is usually done using well-known control panels such as cPanel. On a powerful physical dedicated server with 128 GB of RAM, approximately 150 to 200 sites can be hosted. However, keep in mind that the more clients you put on a single server the lower it brings the quality of service for everyone, and your clients might start leaving.
Creating VPN Server
It may very well be the best method for making money from a server. VPN is a tool that has transformed a lot in its function and uses since is invention. VPN or Virtual Private Network is basically a method to create a virtual network on top of a real one, usually the internet itself. It used to be a tool mostly for organizations and companies who wanted their own internal network but had offices in different and far locations.
However, nowadays it is mostly used to change your location on the internet. You can use a VPN to make websites that you visit and applications that you use, think that you are visiting from a location different from where you actually are. This is intended to bypass geo-restriction policies or reach content, features or benefits only available to a certain area or country. For example, many people want to visit Netflix or Youtube as if they are from the US.
You can create your own VPN service using your dedicated server(s) and start selling subscriptions. It doesn’t need much storage space since you are not going to store any information, you just pass it through. People connect to your VPN server and it will seems as if from they’re from the country your dedicated server is located in.
Cheapest Way to Create VPN Servers and Make Money
Since you don’t need much storage, you can also do this with custom VPS plans with little storage space to save money. For example, RouterHosting.com offer different kinds of very cheap VPS servers that you can customize with little storage and set up a website or VPN service on, a game server, remote desktop, or anything else that runs on a server.
RouterHosting make it easy to buy hosting services, since they accept paying with PayPal, credit cards (Buy VPS with credit cards), Bitcoin, Perfect Money, and more. Another benefit of getting VPS from them is that they handle most of the maintenance work for you. It will take much less time and technical know-how to do this plan.
Creating Virtual Private Servers
This is also another great way to make money from a dedicated server. You can do it by buying or renting a dedicated server and using a virtualization software to create several VPS servers. However, this may take some experience and technical knowledge and is harder than most other methods.
Mining With a Dedicated Server
Due to the strong hardware of the dedicated server, it can be used to mine all kinds of cryptocurrencies. However, before doing so, you should research whether it is economical or not considering the cost of a dedicated server. For example, mining bitcoin with a server is out of question.
Summary
There are many ways you can earn money from your dedicated server and many things you can do with it or run on it. The catch is, before doing any of these things you will need to gain some experience and technical knowledge to be able to handle the work. Some less than others, some more. Make sure that whatever you choose, you will do proper research before starting.
