The technical requirements of your website and your ability to manage a server at peak efficiency will have a lot to do with whether you decide on managed or unmanaged hosting. Managed hosting provides the reassurance of highly trained professionals looking after your server. If you or your staff can manage most of the maintenance responsibilities, an unmanaged server might be sufficient.

Shared Versus Dedicated Hosting

Shared hosting involves inserting many websites on one server with all the sites sharing the server's disk space, bandwidth and other resources. Dedicated hosting means that you're renting an entire server for your sole use, rather than limited space with an unknown number of others on the server.

Large and complex websites that receive substantial traffic will probably experience limited growth and difficulty servicing the customer base with shared hosting. If that's your situation, it may be time to move on to dedicated hosting.

Unmanaged Hosting

Unmanaged hosting doesn't really leave you wholly your own. Most hosting companies offer a basic level of support with their dedicated hosting packages. This support includes, for instance, hardware maintenance for such things as hard drive failure. Technical support may be available should you need assistance with configuration or software installation. You'll likely have to pay for this level of extra support. Hiring a technician on an hourly basis periodically might be more cost efficient than signing on committing to managed hosting.

Before deciding on an unmanaged hosting, it's a good idea to find out how much control you can have over the server hardware. Should your server become hopelessly locked, you should be able to perform a re-boot or to expect someone to do it for you with minimum delay.

Dedicated Hosting

Because the cost of operating the server isn't divided among many accounts, dedicated web hosting is a lot pricier than shared hosting. These faster processors and larger hard drives are very expensive. The widely varied cost of the many dedicated hosting package choices depends to a great extent on the physical setup of the server computer.

One factor that influences the package cost is whether the server is managed or not. Maintaining a server in top form can be time consuming and labor intensive. Managed hosting services offer the support and expertise to properly maintain your server, and the complete routine maintenance, such as software upgrades.

A managed service might be a practical substitute to hiring staff to take care of your servers. Managed hosting, however, can be a lot more expensive than unmanaged hosting. Whether the added expense is warranted depends on how complex your website is and whether you already have the staff it takes to manage the ongoing needs of a server.

Another advantage, if you can afford it, is that dedicated hosting gives you the freedom to use the server's resources however you choose.

In the end the true value of a dedicated hosting service depends on the reliability and integrity of the hosting company. If your website has developed to the level of dedicated hosting, you're going to need a reliable provider that will maintain your site with as little downtime as possible.