Also known as: Dedicated server, Bare metal server
A dedicated server is a whole physical server rented for your exclusive use — no other customers share the hardware.1
Overview
Unlike a virtual private server, which carves one machine into many tenants, a dedicated server is yours alone. That means raw, uncontended performance: no neighbors competing for CPU, memory, or disk, and no hypervisor tax on throughput. You (or the provider, under a managed plan) handle the metal — the operating system, patching, and recovery.
In practice a dedicated server is a bare-metal server offered on a rental basis, usually on a monthly lease rather than the hourly billing of bare-metal cloud. Providers rack, power, and network the box; you treat it as your own from the operating system up.
When to choose it
The decision usually comes down to how steady and heavy the workload is:
| Factor | Dedicated server | VPS |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Uncontended, full machine | Shared, can vary |
| Cost | Higher, fixed | Lower, scalable |
| Best for | Sustained heavy load | Light or bursty load |
| Isolation | Complete | Logical (hypervisor) |
Pick a dedicated server when predictable, full-machine performance is worth the higher price compared with a VPS — sustained heavy workloads, strict latency budgets, or licensing that demands a single tenant. For lighter or bursty needs, a VPS or cloud computing is usually the better value.
Where it fits
A dedicated server sits between renting a shared slice and owning a home server outright: exclusive hardware without having to house or maintain the physical box. For GopherTrunk it is a solid home for a busy back end that stores and serves decoded calls, though like any remote server it cannot capture RF — that still needs a radio front end near the antenna.
Sources
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Dedicated hosting service — Wikipedia, on single-tenant dedicated servers. ↩