How to know when to upgrade server ?

I am currently running my website on shared hosting and that too very cheap one.
The traffic to my website is increasing.
I want to know that when should i upgrade my server ?

Should i first upgrade to a VPS and then to a dedicated server or should i directly jump to dedicated server ?

Btw how much a shared hosting can handle in terms of pageviews ?

 

It is not possible to calculate a number of pageviews a server can handle. Also on a Shared server, it is difficult to track the amount of resources a single website is using as 99% of the hosts do not set any limit on users for resource usage. Since Shared servers are mostly of high configuration and are capable of handling quite a good amount of traffic, it is always good to upgrade to a Dedicated server instead of a VPS. VPS are of low configuration than Shared servers and they also share a server with other VPS's. One VPS causing issues, impact the performance of other VPS's, so it is feasible to upgrade to a Dedicated server.

 

about 5 years ago I was forced by my earlier (last) host to move on to root server thanks to too high traffic (too much resources on shared hosting used)
I changed to root server and to new much better server farm in Europe.

at that time I had some 5000-6000 uv/d
on root server located in EU (previously in US) the traffic JUMPED instantly some 30% due to less or no censorship for EU sites vs US sites in many countries.

A high end root server with unlimited traffic is some 600-700 us$/yr
that is peanuts if you have a quality site with unique content compared to the infinite amount of creativity and control you have on a root server
provided you have an offline OS identical to your server and thus some extended knowledge of all major configuration to be confronted with such as own mail server, may be even own NS, and server security.

anyone being really motivated to succeed and work hard to produce high end content and high traffic I highly recommend to make that step UP when you reach some 5000 or more uv/day and have a record of steady ORGANIC traffic increase as a result of YOUR own creative productivity over the past few years.

own server is more work
but also much more rewarding in satisfaction!
know what you do by first learning, then move UP and on into success as a web publsher.

 

HOw much a shared account can handle it all depends on your host server configuration, if they use low confi server than of-course your account can handle less too, if they use high configuration server and host limited amount of sites, than your account can handle more too, so it all depends on configuration and how many clients on server

 

You need to upgrade when your sites seem slow or have errors during peak traffic times.

 

If you are on a shared hosting account, you will most likely also get an email from your hosting provider letting you know it's time to upgrade. However, if you're on a dedicated server, you're on your own and will have to watch out for error files getting bigger and bigger in your root folder.

 

Upgrade from one typical setup to another might not that all complicated.

If you are sticking onto standard panels like cpanel and directadmin, then i would suggest go for vps first, if its taking more load then go dedicated afterwards. You can do this swiftly with little downtime or none when you are on standard panel setup. Directadmin will be the cheaper alternative for many. Directadmin is lightweight and serve all the core functions of any web owner needs too.