05-13-09 | Blog Post
What’s the difference between a managed dedicated server and a leased server? The short answer: A lot. It’s like the difference between leasing a ship and taking a cruise. The difference isn’t just between a raw component and a complete service, it also impacts the total cost of total cost of ownership (TCO).
The e-Tips article gives 7 tips for how you can cut costs by leveraging a dedicated server solution over leasing a server. The 7 tips discuss set up costs, physical security, quality of the Internet connection, Internet security, back up costs, power and monitoring.
A good way to net out the difference between a leased server and a dedicated server is shown in the following table:
| Summary | Leasing Server | Online Tech Dedicated Server |
| Cost of Server | $ 2,000 | $ 0 |
| 1 year Operating Expenses | $ 12,100 (does not include engineer time) |
$ 6,000 |
| Support Engineer (patches, maintenance etc.) | $ 3,600 (3 hours / month $100/hr) |
$ 0 |
| Total 1 year expense | $ 17,700 | $ 6,000 (average $500/month for mid-level fully managed server) |
| Total 3 year expense | $ 36,900 | $ 18,000 |
Summary
Dedicated servers come at a premium over a raw leased server, but when you add up all the costs involved, the total cost of ownership can be a lot less with a dedicated server.
