With most servers you look at cores, RAM and storage. Reasonable, because that is what the price is attached to. But for a certain kind of project there is a fourth number that decides everything, and it is often in the small print: how much traffic may go out?
The moment you stream video, distribute files or run as a CDN node, that is your bottleneck. Not your processor. That is what our unmetered dedicated servers are for: a fixed 1 Gbit port speed, with no counter on the terabytes.
What does unmetered actually mean?
With a regular server you get a traffic allowance: 20 or 50 TB a month, for example. Go over it and you either pay extra or your port is throttled down to a fraction of its speed.
Unmetered works the other way around. You pay for the port, not for the bytes going through it. You get a 1 Gbit connection and you may use it as much as you like.
To put that in perspective: a 1 Gbit connection used continuously at full capacity moves roughly 10 TB a day. Over a month that comes close to 300 TB. If you had to settle that as a traffic allowance, you would be looking at an entirely different invoice.
Why a fixed price brings peace of mind
The real benefit is not even the volume, it is the predictability:
- No overage charges. Your invoice is the same every month, including the month something goes viral.
- No throttling at the worst possible moment. Exactly when you are busy is when you do not want your port closing down because an allowance ran out.
- You can actually do the maths. A fixed price per server turns your cost per user or per stream into simple arithmetic.
That last point is exactly why these servers are popular with companies reselling something of their own: you know your margin in advance.
What it is particularly good for
- Streaming and video. Live streams, VOD and repeated downloads of the same files are pure outbound traffic. A single 5 Mbit stream looks like nothing, but at two hundred concurrent viewers you are at your gigabit.
- CDN and edge nodes. Running your own distribution network means you want a node in Amsterdam that is allowed to deliver without limits. Predictable cost per node is what makes such a network plannable.
- Downloads and mirrors. Software releases, package repositories, game updates, ISOs: anything where lots of people fetch the same large file.
- Game servers and modpacks. The game server itself uses little bandwidth, but serving modpacks and resource packs to hundreds of players uses plenty.
- Backup and replication targets. A first full backup or a large restore moves enormous amounts of data at once. An allowance disappears fast.
- VPN and proxy services. All of your users' traffic runs through the server, so your usage scales directly with your customer count.
When you do not need it
To be fair: most projects do not need this. A regular website, a webshop or a business application rarely comes close to a standard allowance. If that is you, you are better off, and cheaper off, with a VPS or a regular dedicated server.
Unmetered is meant for when traffic is your biggest cost, not compute. Not sure which category you fall into? Just look at your current monthly usage. If you are structurally above a few dozen terabytes, or growing fast, it starts to get interesting.
Our unmetered servers
Every configuration runs on a 1 Gbit unmetered port and lives in our datacenters in Amsterdam. You can choose from, among others:
- Intel Xeon E3-1230v5 (4 cores / 8 threads) with 64 GB DDR4 and 480 GB up to 2 TB SATA SSD in RAID 1.
- Intel Xeon E5-2680 v2 (10 cores / 20 threads) with 64 GB and 2x 2 TB SATA SSD in RAID 1, if you run more tasks in parallel.
- Ryzen 5 5600X or Ryzen 7 3700X with NVMe storage in RAID 1, for work where single-thread performance and fast I/O matter.
Everything comes in RAID 1 as standard, so a failed disk does not take your server down. Prices start around €180 per month and you can cancel monthly, with no hidden costs. Current configurations and rates are on the product page.
Pay for your port, not for your peaks
If bandwidth is your product, you do not want a meter running on it. An unmetered server turns a variable, unpredictable cost into a fixed monthly amount, and that makes planning a great deal easier.
Not sure whether your situation fits, or want to talk through the right configuration? Ask your question through our Discord or a ticket. We are happy to help!