What Can You Do With a RackNerd Dedicated Server?

A guide for when a VPS stops being enough. If you are still choosing between VPS sizes, start with the 8 GB VPS guide and work back from there.

A dedicated server is a whole physical machine that only you use: every core, every gigabyte of memory, every disk and the whole network port. There are no neighbours sharing the CPU and no hypervisor deciding how much you get. That is the appeal, and it is also the catch, because the machine is yours to set up, secure, monitor and back up. This guide explains what a dedicated server really gives you, who needs one, how to choose between listings, what to run on one, and what to do in the first day so it does not become an expensive mistake.

What is in this guide

• Dedicated server or VPS? and do you really need one?
• What you get and how to choose between listings
• What to run on it: your own virtualisation host, big databases and analytics, a game server host, a build and test farm, storage and backups, media and downloads, AI on the CPU, blockchain nodes, a hosting platform, network and high-bandwidth services
• Your first day with a new server
• Things that catch people out, thinking about cost and moving over from a VPS

Dedicated server or VPS?

A VPS is a slice of a big machine, cut up by software. A dedicated server is the whole machine. That changes five things:

	VPS	Dedicated server
CPU	A few shared cores; heavy use can be limited	All the cores, all the time
Memory	1 to 8 GB at RackNerd's VPS sizes	Often 32 GB to 192 GB or more
Disk	Tens to hundreds of GB, on shared storage	One or more whole drives, often NVMe
Control	Whatever the hypervisor allows	Full hardware control, console access, your own operating system install
Failure	The provider moves your VPS to another host	A broken disk or power supply is your outage until it is replaced
Price	From a few dollars a year	From tens of dollars a month, up to hundreds or thousands

Prices and specifications on dedicated servers change often. The list above is live, so use it, not any figure written in a guide.

Do you really need one?

Signs you do:

• You are paying for several large VPS plans, and one machine with the same total resources would cost less.
• Your workload needs more memory than the biggest VPS offers (a large database, a big analytics store, many virtual machines).
• You need steady, predictable CPU for hours at a time: builds, encoding, game servers, scientific work.
• You need a lot of fast local storage, or a lot of cheap local storage, in one place.
• You need to install your own operating system, or run your own hypervisor with real virtual machines.
• You move a lot of data, and want a fast port with a large or unmetered allowance.

Signs you do not:

• One or two small websites or apps. A VPS is cheaper, easier and safer.
• You want things to keep working with no maintenance. A dedicated server asks for more attention than a VPS.
• Your busy periods are short. A bigger VPS, or several, scaled up and down, may suit you better.
• You have no backup plan. The more important the data, the more a single machine needs one.

What you get

RackNerd's dedicated listings have described a similar package, which is worth checking in the one you pick:

• Full root access and remote management. This usually means IPMI or a KVM-over-IP console and remote power control, so you can see the screen, reboot and reinstall without anyone visiting the datacentre.
• Your choice of operating system. Linux, Windows or FreeBSD, and in some listings a custom ISO and custom partitioning, which matters if you want your own RAID layout or a hypervisor such as Proxmox.
• A real network port. A 1 Gbps port with a monthly allowance, or a faster port with an unmetered allowance, depending on the listing.
• One or more IP addresses. Some listings include one, and some include several.
• Round-the-clock support for the hardware and the network. Your operating system, software and data are your job.
• Deployment time. A new server may be ready within hours or may take a day or more, so do not order on the day you need it.

Not usually included: a graphics card, backups, a firewall in front of the server, DDoS protection (check the listing, because it varies), or a managed control panel.

How to choose between listings

1. CPU: cores, speed and age. Many cores help with virtual machines, builds and databases. A high clock speed helps game servers and anything that runs on one thread. Newer chips do more work per watt and per core, and very old ones can be slow however many cores they have.
2. Memory: how much, what type, and whether it can grow. DDR5 and DDR4 are both fine. Server chips often use ECC memory, which corrects some errors and is worth having for databases and storage. Ask whether you can add RAM later and what it costs.
3. Storage: type, size and how many drives. NVMe is far faster than SATA SSD, which is far faster than a hard disk. Hard disks give much more capacity for the money, which suits backups and media. Two drives let you build a mirror (RAID 1) so one failure does not take your data, and one drive means one failure means everything is gone. Look at endurance as well: a database that writes all day wears an SSD faster.
4. Network: port speed, allowance and location. A "1 Gbps port with 40 TB a month" is very different from "unmetered 10 Gbps". Unmetered still comes with a fair-use policy, so read it if you plan to saturate the link.
5. Location. Pick the one closest to your users, or to the other servers it will talk to. Latency does not improve with a faster machine.
6. Remote management. Make sure the listing includes IPMI or KVM-over-IP. Without it, a bad kernel update means a support ticket.
7. Hardware replacement. Ask how fast failed parts are replaced and whether replacement is free. Your provider replaces the part, but your data is your responsibility.
8. Billing terms. Look at the setup fee, the minimum term, the notice you must give to cancel, and whether discounts apply for life or only the first period.
9. Licences. Windows Server and control panels such as cPanel are extra, and can cost more than a small server.

Here are the dedicated servers with the most memory in stock now:

And the places that have a dedicated server in stock right now:

1. Your own virtualisation host

What it is. One dedicated server running Proxmox VE or plain KVM with libvirt, carved into as many virtual machines and containers as you like. It is a VPS provider in miniature, with you as the provider.

Why a dedicated server suits it. A VPS generally cannot run real virtual machines, because nested virtualisation is not offered. A dedicated server can, and 64 GB or 128 GB of RAM supports a lot of machines. It is the neatest way to split work into separate servers (one per project, customer or experiment) and pay for one box.

How to set it up. Install Proxmox VE from an ISO through the remote console or the provider's custom ISO option. Put the system on a mirrored pair if you have two drives. Give each virtual machine only the memory and cores it needs.

Watch out for. Networking is the hard part. Ask your provider how extra IP addresses reach your server: some are routed to your main address and some are tied to a hardware address. With a single address, the usual answer is a private network behind NAT and a reverse proxy. Keep the Proxmox web page off the public internet (use a VPN or firewall rules). Back up the virtual machines to another machine.

2. Big databases and analytics

What it is. A production PostgreSQL or MySQL server with a large cache, a ClickHouse or OpenSearch node holding hundreds of millions of rows, or a Redis server with a big dataset in memory.

Why a dedicated server suits it. Databases are fast when they can keep their working data in memory and read from fast local storage with no neighbour competing for it. 64 GB or more of RAM and NVMe drives are common on dedicated servers and impossible on a VPS.

How to set it up. Put the data on a mirrored NVMe pair, give the database about a quarter to a third of the RAM for its own buffers and leave the rest for the operating system's cache, and keep the ports private. Archive the write-ahead log to another machine so you can restore to any moment, with a tool such as pgBackRest or WAL-G.

Watch out for. A single server is a single point of failure: a replica on a second server in another place is what protects you. Test restoring a backup before you need it. Watch SSD wear on write-heavy databases.

3. A game server host

What it is. One powerful server running many game servers for a community, each in its own container with its own limits, managed from a panel such as Pterodactyl or Pelican (see the 8 GB guide).

Why a dedicated server suits it. Games depend on CPU speed and on a quiet neighbourhood. A server with a high-clock desktop-class chip gives each game server the steady speed that shared VPS cores cannot guarantee. Heavy games (Rust, ARK, Palworld, big Minecraft modpacks) want 16 GB or more each, which only a dedicated server offers.

How to set it up. Install Docker and the panel, add the server as a node, and create game servers with fixed memory and CPU limits. Open only the ports the games use. See VPS plans for game servers for what each game needs.

Watch out for. Choose the location nearest your players. Game servers attract attacks, so find out whether the provider offers DDoS protection before you order, because many listings do not mention it. Check the terms before you rent servers to other people.

4. A build and test farm

What it is. A machine that compiles, tests and packages software for you, with CI runners (GitLab Runner, Jenkins or GitHub Actions self-hosted runners) working in parallel.

Why a dedicated server suits it. Builds use every core you give them, for as long as they run, which is exactly the load a VPS provider tries to limit. A dedicated CPU runs them flat out all day, and plenty of RAM and fast storage keep the caches warm.

How to set it up. Run each job in a container or a virtual machine so that builds cannot affect one another, cap concurrent jobs near the number of cores, and use a build cache. Clean up old images and workspaces on a schedule.

Watch out for. A runner that accepts jobs from outsiders' pull requests can run their code on your machine, so keep such runners isolated in disposable virtual machines and away from private data.

5. Storage and backups

What it is. A file server and backup target: a Nextcloud or Samba server with a large amount of storage, a restic, Borg or Duplicati backup destination for your other servers, or an archive with checksums and snapshots (ZFS).

Why a dedicated server suits it. Local disks give you far more space per dollar than a VPS, and some listings offer hard-disk servers with multiple large drives. Putting your backups on a different machine in a different place from what they protect is the most important rule of backups.

How to set it up. With two or more drives, use a mirror or ZFS. For example, a ZFS mirror with compression:

sudo zpool create -o ashift=12 tank mirror \
  /dev/disk/by-id/DRIVE1 /dev/disk/by-id/DRIVE2
sudo zfs set compression=lz4 tank

Back up other servers to it with restic over SSH:

restic -r sftp:backup@backuphost:/tank/backups init
restic -r sftp:backup@backuphost:/tank/backups backup /srv/data

Watch out for. RAID and mirrors protect against a dead drive, not against deleting a file, ransomware or a datacentre problem. Keep at least one more copy somewhere else. Set up SMART monitoring so a failing drive warns you (see the first-day list).

6. Media and downloads

What it is. A Jellyfin or Plex server for the media you own, a mirror or download site for your software, or an origin server for large files that other people download.

Why a dedicated server suits it. A fast port with a high allowance, a lot of storage, and plenty of cores to convert video when a device cannot play a file directly. Remember that a dedicated server normally has no graphics card, so conversion happens on the CPU: a many-core server copes with several streams, but it is far from a fast graphics chip.

How to set it up. Run the media server in a container with your library mounted read-only, and put it behind a reverse proxy with a login. Store files in formats that most devices play directly, so the server rarely has to convert.

Watch out for. Only serve media you own or have the right to share. Check the provider's acceptable use policy for torrents, mirrors and heavy streaming before you build a service around them.

7. AI on the CPU, with a lot of RAM

What it is. Running open language models on your own machine with Ollama or llama.cpp. A VPS tops out at small models, but a server with 64 to 192 GB of RAM can load far bigger ones.

Why a dedicated server suits it. The main limit for running a model on the CPU is memory: a model quantised to 4 bits takes roughly half a gigabyte for each billion parameters, so a 70 billion parameter model needs around 40 GB, which fits on a 64 GB or larger server. Fast memory and many cores speed it up.

How to set it up. Install Ollama, pull a model that fits (ollama pull llama3.1:70b, for example), and put Open WebUI in front, with a login. Keep the port private.

Watch out for. Be realistic about speed. Without a graphics card, big models answer slowly, at a word or two a second or less. It is good for private, patient work, such as processing documents overnight, and not for a fast chat. Dedicated GPU servers are a different product and cost much more.

8. Blockchain and other full nodes

What it is. Running your own full node for a network such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, so that you verify the data yourself instead of trusting someone else's server. Some people run nodes to support their own apps, wallets or services.

Why a dedicated server suits it. These nodes need large, fast storage that keeps growing (a Bitcoin node holds several hundred gigabytes, and an Ethereum node can need a couple of terabytes or more, depending on the software), plenty of RAM and a steady connection. NVMe space is what is hard to find on a VPS.

How to set it up. Follow the client's own documentation, choose a plan with enough fast storage and some headroom, and keep the node's remote-call ports private.

Watch out for. Check the storage requirements for the current version before you order, because they change. A node also uses a lot of bandwidth when it syncs. Do not store wallet keys on a server you do not fully control.

9. A hosting platform

What it is. A server that hosts many websites or applications for yourself or for clients, with a control panel such as CloudPanel, HestiaCP, DirectAdmin or cPanel, or with your own containers and automation.

Why a dedicated server suits it. Hundreds of small sites fit on one machine with plenty of cores and memory, with the speed of local NVMe storage. It replaces several VPS plans with one platform that you can resell or manage as a whole. If you are weighing it against reselling, read shared hosting versus reseller hosting.

How to set it up. Install a clean operating system, then the panel by its own documentation, with a separate PHP-FPM pool per site. Put the websites' data on a mirrored pair, and run nightly backups to a different server.

Watch out for. A hosting server takes on responsibility for every site on it, including their security and uptime, so use isolation between accounts and keep everything updated. Panels such as cPanel carry a licence fee. Do not run mail on the same server unless you are prepared to manage it properly.

10. Network and high-bandwidth services

What it is. Services whose main resource is the network: your own VPN or proxy for a team, a package or file mirror, a streaming origin or video relay, a monitoring probe, or a large public download. Some listings have fast, unmetered ports of 10 Gbps or more, and others include many IP addresses.

Why a dedicated server suits it. A shared VPS cannot sustain heavy network use for long. A dedicated server with a good port can, and some listings with many IP addresses suit services that need a separate address for each site or customer.

How to set it up. Tune the network settings for the load (larger socket buffers and connection limits), put a firewall in front, and monitor the throughput. See how to set up a VPN on a VPS for the basics, which apply here too.

Watch out for. "Unmetered" still has a fair-use policy, and the provider's acceptable use policy decides what you may run: read both before you build a business on them. A busy public service attracts abuse, so set up logging and a way to react quickly.

Your first day with a new server

1. Check what you actually got. Compare the hardware with the listing:

   lscpu | head -20
   free -h
   lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MODEL,ROTA
   sudo nvme list                 # needs the nvme-cli package
   sudo smartctl -a /dev/nvme0n1  # needs the smartmontools package

2. Run a quick benchmark so you know the baseline, and can notice when something changes:

   sysbench cpu --threads=$(nproc) run
   sudo fio --name=randread --filename=/root/fio.test --size=2G --rw=randread \
     --bs=4k --iodepth=32 --runtime=30 --time_based --direct=1
   rm /root/fio.test

3. Sort out the storage layout. If you have two drives, decide now between a mirror (RAID 1, or a ZFS mirror) and using them separately. It is much easier before there is any data on them. If the operating system came on a single drive, plan a reinstall with the layout you want, using the remote console.
4. Secure it. Secure the server and set up SSH keys, turn on the firewall, and install updates. A public address with a default setup is found and attacked within minutes.
5. Lock down the remote management. Change the IPMI password if you have been given one, and never leave the management page open to the whole internet. Use the provider's recommended access method, or a VPN.
6. Set up drive health alerts so you hear about a failing disk before it fails:

   sudo apt install smartmontools
   echo 'DEVICESCAN -a -m [email protected]' | sudo tee -a /etc/smartd.conf
   sudo systemctl enable --now smartd

7. Set up backups on another machine in another place, and test a restore before you put anything important on the server. Restic, Borg and rsync to a second server all work.
8. Add monitoring and alerts for disk space, memory, temperature, CPU and uptime, and run the uptime check from a different provider.
9. Test the remote console and the reinstall process while nothing depends on the server, so you know how to recover when something does.
10. Write down the setup, or keep it in a script, so you can rebuild it quickly.

Many people also like to ask about a test period or a test IP address before ordering. Some listings offer a test IP so you can check the network from your own location. If you see one, use it.

Things that catch people out

• One disk means no safety. A single-drive server has no protection against a failed drive. Pick two drives and mirror them, or accept that your backups are all you have.
• RAID is not a backup. It protects against a drive dying, and not against a deleted file, a bad upgrade, ransomware or a fire.
• Ordering the biggest machine "just in case". You pay every month for what you do not use. A VPS can grow in steps, and a dedicated server's big step is a migration.
• Forgetting the extras. Windows licences, control panel licences, extra IP addresses and extra bandwidth can be a large share of the real cost.
• Assuming it is managed. The provider looks after the hardware and the network. Everything above that is yours.
• No plan for a hardware failure. Know how you would restore and where to, and how long it would take.
• Unmetered does not mean unlimited. Read the fair-use terms if you plan to use the port heavily.
• Long terms. Discounts for longer commitments are good if you are sure. Check the cancellation terms before you pay.

Thinking about cost

A simple way to decide is to compare what you would pay for the same capacity in other forms. If you need 64 GB of RAM and several fast cores, you would need several of the largest VPS plans, and each one is a separate machine to manage. Count the real monthly total of the dedicated server (including any licences and extra IPs), then compare it with the list of 8 GB VPS plans multiplied by how many you would need, and with how much effort each would be. The full list of what is in stock is on the dedicated servers page, and the sales calendar shows when deals on servers tend to appear.

Moving over from a VPS

1. Order the server early and give yourself time. Deployment is not instant.
2. Check the hardware and run the first-day list before you move anything.
3. Install the same software as on the VPS, from a script or a configuration you keep in Git, so the new server is built and not copied.
4. Copy the data with rsync (rsync -aHAX --info=progress2 user@old:/srv/data/ /srv/data/), then run it again just before the switch to catch changes.
5. Lower the DNS time-to-live a day ahead, switch the records when you are ready, and keep the VPS running for a few days as a fallback.
6. Watch the logs and monitoring for a week before you cancel the VPS.

Not sure you need a whole machine yet? Compare with the cheapest big VPS plans, which are often enough:

You can also see the cheapest plans of every kind, and for ideas on what to run once you have the server, read self-hosted apps and what they need.