Unlimited or Unmetered Transfer Dedicated Servers

Dedicated Servers with Unlimited Transfer

Sometimes referred to "Unlimited Bandwidth" or "Unmetered Bandwidth," GlowHost offers Dedicated Ports with various port speed options on all of our dedicated servers. All of our dedicated servers have a dedicated unmetered port included in the price, or choose a metered port option on a shared port instead which is also included as an option. Read below to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of both unlimited transfer and limited transfer bandwidth options...

Be careful when shopping for offers of "unlimited transfer" on 100 Mbps ports that you often see included in a cheap dedicated server offer. The truth is that the port is almost always shared with other users, so you have "access" to use the 100 Mbps for a limited time period during the day, but certainly not all day long, because it is not your dedicated port. Shared unlimited ports are no better than a metered port, and sometimes they are sold as an upgrade! Just make sure to read the fine print on these types of offers. The difference at GlowHost is we tell you in the beginning, the reality and the myths behind dedicated ports and "unlimited bandwidth," and we list our prices and disclosures right on our web site, not in the fine print.

If you have a transfer hungry web site or need the better overall protection that a dedicated port offers, we have several solutions for your high traffic or mission-critical web sites. You no longer need to worry about exceeding your bandwidth and paying hefty overages fees, "bad neighbors" or getting kicked off by your hosting provider for over-use. With unlimited transfer dedicated server hosting options from GlowHost, simply choose a port speed that accommodates your needs and never watch your bandwidth meter again! Choose from the following port speeds:

What is port speed?

Think of an everyday garden hose, Now think of a big fire hose. Pretend they are both connected to identical faucets. The fire hose is going to push a lot more water through a lot faster than the garden hose will. This is the same concept that can be applied when thinking about port speed (the size of the hose) and data transfer (the water). Faster ports are going to allow more simultaneous traffic through than a slower port speed. If a slower port speed fills capacity, connections will be dropped, so some users may not reach your site if you have filled you port to the maximum amount of data that it can be pushed though it. In all cases, the transfer is not metered from a billing standpoint, but from a data throughput standpoint, the routers will restrict throughput to the selected port speed.

It is important to understand that 99% of our dedicated servers never exceed 10 Mbps or 2000 Gigs per month, so in most cases both the default 10 Mbps unlimited transfer or 100 Mbps limited options are more than enough, and you can always upgrade later.

Unlimited Transfer Dedicated Servers: Port Speed, which is right for me?

One important consideration to keep in mind about a shared port is if your neighbor who is sharing the same (metered or unmetered) port consumes all the available transfer because of a traffic spike or DDoS, then your server can be affected. Unfortunately this happens everywhere, yes, even at GlowHost, however we carefully monitor our shared ports to prevent this before it becomes a problem.

Dedicated ports offer better overall protection compared to a shared port, along with the piece of mind of not having to worry about overages. The disadvantage of some dedicated ports is that a smaller port like 10 Mbps may be completely maxed out and will drop connections when this happens. Dropped connections means your visitors may not see the site in peak hours if you have an extremely busy web site.

What is port speed on regular metered dedicated servers?

If you do not need unmetered transfer, or do not fully understand how it works, then we suggest choosing a server with a metered port. They have at least 100 Mbps shared ports which we carefully monitor. They offer the fastest possible port speed, and 99% of our dedicated server customers never exceed 2000 Gigabytes in a given month. The advantage here is a 100 Mbps port, so you do not have to worry about maxing out a smaller 10 Mbps port. Of course, we offer larger dedicated ports than 10 Mbps if you prefer better protection than a shared port can offer.