Infrastructure Buying Guide
Dedicated server value — Bare metal is a spreadsheet before it is a purchase
Quotes for the same silicon vary by a multiple, which makes this the one tier where arithmetic pays better than research.
The short answer
Reduce every quote to three derived figures — cost per core, per gigabyte of RAM and per terabyte of transfer — and the market sorts itself. Take honestly specified bare metal with a panel and genuine bandwidth already in the price; our Xeon machines are priced as working equipment rather than as a status purchase.
This page shows how to derive those figures, what the bandwidth line actually permits once you convert it, the storage decision that depends entirely on your I/O pattern, and the honest commercial terms at this tier.
By the HostingFast team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
99.9%
Uptime target, monitored
24/7
Engineers on duty
Free
SSL on every plan
NVMe
Drives, every tier
Most writing on this subject is a league table bankrolled by referral fees. This one is a calculator: four columns, one sort, and most of the confusion in this market disappears.
Quotes for functionally equivalent dedicated hardware vary by a multiple across this market. The spread reflects how each supplier sells rather than any difference in components, which makes comparing suppliers unusually well rewarded at this tier.
Derive the four numbers before you compare anything
Monthly price divided by physical cores. Monthly price divided by gigabytes of RAM. Monthly price divided by the included transfer in terabytes. And, separately, what a control panel and an IPv4 address would cost if they were not included.
Those four columns turn an unsortable market into a sortable one. They also expose the standard trick at this tier, which is a low headline price attached to a machine where the panel, the address and half the bandwidth are line items added later.
Run our own specification through it as a worked example: a Xeon E-2274G with 4 cores and 8 threads, 32 GB of RAM, two drives configured as 2×4 TB HDD or 2×960 GB NVMe, and 100 TB of monthly transfer on a 500 Mbps port, with Hestia pre-installed and a dedicated IPv4 included.
If a competing quote wins on all four columns, buy it. That is the honest use of this method.
Convert the bandwidth line before you trust it
A transfer allowance and a port speed are two different constraints, and most buyers only read one of them. A 500 Mbps port run flat out for a month would move roughly 160 TB, so a 100 TB allowance is about sixty per cent of line rate sustained — generous, and a real ceiling if you are serving video.
That conversion is worth doing on every quote, because unmetered on a slow port and metered on a fast one can describe the same monthly volume at very different prices.
The follow-up question is what happens when you exceed it: throttled, billed, or suspended. Those three outcomes are not equivalent, and the answer is rarely on the pricing page.
The storage decision is an I/O pattern, not a preference
Bulk storage, backup targets and media archives suit large spinning drives, where the cost per terabyte is what matters and the access is sequential.
Databases and busy applications need NVMe latency, because their access is small, random and synchronous, and every millisecond of seek time is multiplied by the query count.
Two drives ready for RAID gives you the third option: mirror for resilience or stripe for throughput, decided by which failure you are more worried about. Work out the pattern first — capacity headlines are the least informative number in this decision.
The trap to avoid throughout is hardware carrying an enterprise badge and priced for a procurement department. Identical silicon is available without an account manager bundled into the monthly figure.
Our machine, and the terms stated plainly
The Xeon Dedicated plan is where this page lands: a whole physical machine with full root access, AlmaLinux 9 by default and other distributions on request, remote reboot and rescue mode, hardware replacement covered, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Migration from shared hosting costs nothing and there is no setup fee, so the cost of moving is the planning rather than the invoice.
And the exclusion, printed rather than buried: dedicated servers are built to order and fall outside the money-back window. That is precisely why the arithmetic above matters more here than on any other tier — this is the one purchase you cannot undo with a refund request.
Our interest here, declared up front
We are a host writing about hosting, and at this tier the honest service is a method rather than a recommendation. Run the four columns; if somebody else wins them, they win.
Already hosted somewhere slower? We migrate the whole site free, usually within 24 hours, and it keeps serving visitors the entire time.
- Four derived figures, calculated in ten minutes
- Bandwidth converted, not just quoted
- No setup fee and free migration from shared
- The refund exclusion printed, not buried
Why HostingFast
Standard on every plan
A specification you can divide
Cores, RAM, transfer and included extras stated plainly, so the value arithmetic is possible without a sales call.
Panel and address included
Hestia pre-installed and a dedicated IPv4 in the price, rather than added at the bottom of a quote.
Two drives, your RAID choice
Mirror for resilience or stripe for throughput — decided by which failure you actually fear, not by us.
Xeon Dedicated, in one line
4 cores and 8 threads, 32 GB of RAM and 100 TB of monthly transfer, with hardware replacement covered.
Rescue mode and remote reboot
Because the thing that decides your worst night is what you can do without waiting for a human.
The exclusion stated
Built to order and outside the money-back window — better said here than discovered after payment.
Quick Start
From order to online
- 1
Build the four columns
Price per core, per gigabyte, per terabyte of transfer, and the cost of anything not included. Ten minutes turns this market into a sorted list.
- 2
Convert every bandwidth line
Port speed and monthly allowance are separate ceilings. Do the multiplication and find out which one you would actually hit.
- 3
Classify your I/O
Sequential and bulky, or small and random? That single classification decides HDD or NVMe more reliably than any capacity headline.
- 4
Ask what overage does
Throttled, billed or suspended. Three very different outcomes, rarely printed, and always worth asking before you commit.
Built In
Loaded onto every plan
- Cores, RAM and transfer stated plainly enough to divide by price
- A control panel included rather than quoted separately
- A dedicated IPv4 address in the base price
- Two drives ready for RAID, in HDD or NVMe configurations
- 100 TB of monthly transfer on a 500 Mbps port
- Remote reboot and rescue mode without a support queue
- Hardware replacement covered as part of the service
- No setup fee, and free migration from shared hosting
- 99.9% uptime as the target, monitored around the clock
- The refund exclusion for built-to-order servers stated up front
Frequently Asked
What people ask us most often
How do I compare two dedicated quotes that look nothing alike?
Reduce both to price per core, price per gigabyte of RAM and price per terabyte of included transfer, then add back the cost of anything one includes and the other does not — panel licence, IPv4 address, remote hands. Four columns and a sort. It takes ten minutes and it is the single highest-value activity available at this tier.
What does a 100 TB allowance on a 500 Mbps port really permit?
A 500 Mbps port running flat out for a month moves in the region of 160 TB, so 100 TB is roughly sixty per cent of sustained line rate. For a busy site or an API that is a large ceiling; for video delivery it is a real constraint. Convert every quote this way — unmetered on a slow port and metered on a fast one often describe the same monthly volume.
How do I decide between the HDD and NVMe configurations?
By access pattern rather than capacity. Sequential, bulky reads — archives, backups, media at rest — are what large spinning drives are cheap at. Small, random, synchronous access, which is every database, is what NVMe is for. If you genuinely have both workloads, that is the argument for two machines or for putting the database on the fast pair.
Why is a built-to-order server outside the refund window?
Because the hardware is allocated and configured for you the moment payment lands; there is no pool it returns to. We would rather state that plainly than hide it in a clause, and it is the reason this page spends its length on arithmetic you can do beforehand instead of encouraging you to try it and see.
Keep reading
Hosting With Free Migration
Moving hosts without the transfer becoming the project, and what we actually move.
Scalable Hosting Upgrade Paths
Growth as a setting rather than a relocation, with the upgrade path costed.
Dedicated Server (Glossary)
What a dedicated machine gives you that a shared slice cannot, in plain terms.
Dedicated Servers
Bare metal with a control panel included and pricing stated up front.
VPS Hosting
KVM virtual servers with root access, snapshots on demand and one flat monthly rate.
Changing hosts? Run through our checklist first.
A straightforward sequence for a switch your visitors never feel: which files move first, how to shift email across without losing a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two mistakes behind almost all the downtime we get asked to rescue.
Do the arithmetic, then take the machine.
Cores, RAM and transfer stated plainly, panel and address included, no setup fee and free migration from shared.
View Dedicated Servers plans