Many webmasters who utilize dedicated server hosting use it for media servers or, more exactly, for streaming video servers. It might be helpful for those of you in the market to run the next YouTube.com to be aware of what you’ll need to accomplish this.

Firstly, you may be wondering what the heck streaming servers or streaming video is! A streaming video server is just a dedicated web server setup to stream videos on demand. Your dedicated server needs to be configured to stream media effectively, by offering a compressed file version that can be easily viewed and listened to by your customers, fans, or regular surfers at the same time that it’s being delivered and processed on the server.

Methods of Streaming Media

You can use a true streaming method, which means your video is almost constantly streamed exactly while it’s being downloaded. Think of YouTube.com for this example. In true media streaming, the dedicated server and streaming video software does all the work, which produces a great end result for the user but which can also be very costly for management! Oftentimes, adding streaming media software to an already existing dedicated server is the most affordable option.

The other option is downloading, which we’re all pretty familiar with. This is far cheaper because the entire video file is downloaded and saved as a temporary file on the computer. However, this method is not suitable for a YouTube.com type dedicated server.

There is a plethora of free streaming media software available on the internet for your perusal and use.

Why Stream Media Live?

If you are running any of the following server types on your dedicated server, your visitors will appreciate live streaming of video or audio for their convenience:

* A YouTube.com clone
* An adult website (make sure you choose an adult web host)
* A video-sharing website
* A podcasting server
* Silverlight media server

What kind of dedicated server do I need?

Go with something BIG because you will need it! I would recommend the following features:

* Dual or Quad Core Xeon Processor
* at least 2 x 1024 MB RAM
* at least 2 x 500 GB SATA Hard Drives
* Raid 4 or 5
* at least 3,000GB bandwidth

Please take a look at our dedicated hosting coupons for the best dedicated server deals you can find, which are sure to knock down the primarily steep price for you!

Even if you have hosted on a dedicated server before, you may not know all the dedicated server terminology out there. One of the downsides to technology is one of its best features as well – it is ever-changing. This means that what you knew yesterday won’t be the same as what you’ll need to learn tomorrow. So here are some helpful dedicated server terms you should know when choosing a reliable, affordable dedicated web host.

Access – Microsoft-based applicable that helps you create, edit, and maintain databases. If you’re a web developer running in the Windows environment, this is what you use to manage online MS SQL databases.

Apache – The most common Linux web server in the world. Okay, I’m being melodramatic but it’s incredibly popular and very powerful, secure, and best of all free!

Co-Location – If you want to own your own dedicated server but aren’t confident that you can host your site using your own internet connection or power supply, co-location assures you own the hardware (the server) and the web hosting provider supplies the rack to store the server and the internet connection to keep your website up and online.

IIS – IIS stands for Internet Information Server and is Microsoft’s branded server software. Just like Apache is the most popular web server for Linux, IIS is the #1 choice for Windows Dedicated Hosting.

Load-Balancing – If you are running a website like Myspace, Digg, or Facebook, odds are you already know what load balancing is. If you plan to create a website like this, you need load balancing 100%! Load balancing merely means distributing the traffic and resources evenly across two or more dedicated servers to increase and optimize performance.

Managed Hosting – The best idea for new dedicated hosters, managed hosting assures that your web host will take care of technical support, setup, maintenance, and monitoring of your dedicated server.

RAID – Also known as Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and if you say it that way, it sounds more like what it is. Basically, RAIDing your dedicated server will help you store data across a number of hard drives. If one disk fails, the other will restore the site or database so you don’t lose data.

Telnet – Just like SSH, a command line interface that allows you to communicate across your web server.

Upstream Provider – A large ISP (internet service provider) that provides dedicated web hosts with reliable internet access. However, the word ‘upstream’ actually can mean how fast or reliable the data connection is between two ISPs.

Overselling occurs when a webhost offers more storage per account than can actually fit on a single server. In shared web hosting, you host your website alongside 300-500 other websites on the same web server, housing all your content, pictures, files, music, as well as the contents of those 300-500 other websites. So if each person hosting on a shared server gets 2500GB, that’s 75,000GB of storage space necessary per server.

About 90% of the web hosts out there cannot support this. As mentioned previously, Lunarpages is one of the few exceptions, as their technology allows them to join servers and cluster them or move webmasters to new servers if they outgrow the space in shared hosting.

Above all, you should not only compare basic features like storage space but think about the technology backing up your choices. If you are really going to require 2500GB of storage space, you need dedicated server hosting.

Also remember that dedicated servers aren’t as expensive as they used to be and you can easily find dedicated hosting coupons everywhere, so if price is another reason you want to start out shared, give dedicated web hosting a try for a price you can afford.

One of the main things web hosting customers tend to compare from webhost to webhost is the amount of storage space the web hosting provider is offering. In a shared webhosting environment, it seems incredibly important, because most web hosts are similarly priced. For example, if one webhost offers 1500GB storage space and another offers Unlimited for the same price, you would tend to go with the one offering bigger storage allotments.

However, you need to know that webhosting storage space is limited. Unless you are hosting on a dedicated server (or several dedicated server clusters RAIDed together), there really is no such thing as unlimited storage space.

What these webhosts are offering is called overselling and most of the time it’s common practice. There are some web hosts who have been in the business for years and are actually technologically able to provide what they are preaching. For example, Lunarpages Web Hosting sells their Basic Hosting Plan with 1500GB Storage Space. This company has been in business since 1998, and they own thousands of web servers, so they are more than capable of backing up this kind of promise. However, most web hosting providers cannot support the amounts of storage space they offer, and they oversell their space.

There are 7 Standard RAID levels, which make up the basis of the RAID configurations, which you can use to get larger hard drive storage space for your dedicated server hosting plan. These RAID configurations employ the three main concepts of RAID: mirroring, striping, and error correcting. Just make sure the level of RAID you choose is the best one for your needs. Any reliable dedicated hosting provider can assist you in making the proper decision.

RAID 0 offers a completely even split of data across two or more hard drives. Though RAID 0 wasn’t one of the original levels of RAID integration and doesn’t provide any redundancy, it’s more or less used to help boost the servers’ performances across multiple platforms. RAID 0 is interesting because the hard drives do not have to be the exact same size.

RAID 1 works a bit differently, copying exactly one of the data disks and producing a mirrored copy. RAID 1 configuration is best where reliability of the servers in question is a major concern

RAID 2 synchronizes (through the controller) to offer incredible data transfer rates, though this level of RAID is not normally used as it utilizes a hammering code to assist with error correction.

RAID 3 is also an extremely rare RAID configuration on dedicated server hosting. A large downside and partial reason for this is because RAID 3 generally cannot assist in duplicate requests at the same time.

RAID 4 is quite a bit more popular and allows and compensates for what RAID 3 doesn’t – it allows multiple simultaneous requests and can read them as well.

RAID 5 is possibly the most popular RAID configuration, mostly due to the fact that doesn’t require many drives to achieve its greatest results in redundancy and reliability.

RAID 6 is more or less an extension of RAID 5 and allows for the most efficient use of space, though only when utilizing a smaller number of drives.

Although also a bug-killing insecticide, RAID in dedicated server hosting terms stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (also known as Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Drives or Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks/Drives) and is an important aspect of your dedicated server hosting plan.

Especially if you are running a large, data-driven website that requires a larger disk or hard drive storage space than normal, you can use RAID technology to combine multiple hard drives to increase the amount of available storage space for your pictures, videos, music, files, documents, and more. RAID is also said to increase the redundancy and reliability of your server, offering better general performance of your servers and bigger hard drive volume through collection.

There are Standard RAID Levels (from 0 to 6) which can accomplish the RAID in alternative methods, and there are also Nested and Non-Standard Levels. RAID can be software or hardware based and is normally split between three major concepts called mirroring, striping, and error correction.