100mbps Dedicated Server same download speed as a Shared Host!

Question

I have two specs from two different hosts I am using:

(a) Dedicated server with Full duplex 100Mbits internet connection ($140 per month)

(b) Shared Host on a server that has 100Mbits internet connection ($7 per month)

I have tested my application which downloads from other servers and lets users download from my site in turn. I have tested this again and again and it takes the same time to download files! But the dedicated is much faster in the final download to the clients computer.

Firstly, are there any Linux commands or tools I can use to test bandwidth properly for each server?

Secondly, why the hell do they have the same download speed from other servers??

Please shed some light on this as I feel I've been wasting money for no reason!!

Thanks all

Answer 1

First, you can use iperf to test your network speeds. Second, you're not paying for the speed, you're paying for the power and flexibility of having essentially your own server configured however you want. With a shared host, your site is most likely on a machine with a hundred other sites, each competing for resources.

Also, the bottleneck is probably not on your end or on your host's end, but rather somewhere in between the content you're fetching and your servers.

Answer 2

Perhaps the servers they are downloading from are the bottleneck? You could have a dedicated gigabit pipe but it won't help if you can only get 10mbps from the other servers.

Remember the benefit of a dedicated host is that your performance will not be affected by other processes on the machine. The extra money guarantees you that 100mbit, not that you'll see better performance than a hosted machine at any given time.

Answer 3

The big difference between shared hosting and dedicated hosting is that with dedicated hosting, you're the only account using that box. With shared hosting, there could be (and most likely are) thousands of other web sites hosted on it.

If one of those sites goes wonky and takes the whole box with it, your site goes too. On a dedicated box, the only site that's going to go wonky is yours.

With dedicated, you probably also have full admin rights to the box, which you probably don't have with the shared host.

Answer 4

Well, one possiblity is that the shared site is on a host that has very little load from the other shared sites. If all the shared sites are just sitting there getting very little hits, then your site basically is getting full use of the box, so its no different from a dedicated box.

But if those other sites start getting traffic, your site will be impacted.

Not sure if the shared site is full duplex or not, but that doesn't always make a difference (not an expert there).

Answer 5

if i read correctly, your shared server is just as fast as the dedicated when fetching a file, but much slower when serving it.

I'd say that the box your shared server is in has the "out" bandwidth mostly used by the other client's slices, while the "in" bandwidth is mostly unused, so you get almost full performance.

sounds right, since serving files is a lot more common task than fetching them.