Bare Metal
A whole machine. Not a share of one.
A cloud server gives you reserved resources on shared hardware. Bare metal gives you the hardware. No hypervisor between your operating system and the processor, no other tenant on the board, and disks attached to the machine rather than reached across a network.
- Dedicated
- the physical server is yours
- No hypervisor
- your OS talks to the metal
- Local NVMe
- disks on the board, not over the wire
- Dhaka
- same data centre, same BDIX routing
What it is
On a virtual server a hypervisor divides one physical machine between several customers. Your share is reserved and nobody can take it — but the hypervisor itself costs a few percent, and the disks and network card are shared hardware being scheduled between tenants. For most workloads that is invisible and not worth paying to avoid.
For some it is not. A database doing heavy random reads, software licensed per physical core, a virtualisation host of your own, or anything where the number you benchmark today has to be the number you get in six months — those want the machine itself.
What it does for you
Six things Bare Metal changes about how your infrastructure behaves.
Every cycle is yours
No hypervisor overhead and no other tenant on the board. What the processor can do, your software gets.
Performance you can predict
The figure you benchmark on the first day is the figure you get on the three hundredth. Nothing else is scheduled against you.
Licences that count real cores
Per-socket and per-core licensing — SQL Server, Oracle, some ERP software — is priced against physical hardware. On bare metal there is no argument about what you are running on.
Disks on the board
NVMe attached to the machine rather than reached over the network. For an IO-heavy database that difference is the whole reason to be here.
Hardware you specify
Processor generation, how much memory, how many disks and in what arrangement. Tell us the workload and we will size it with you.
The same panel and the same invoice
It sits in the same account as your cloud servers, domains and email, and it is billed on the same VAT invoice.
- When bare metal is the right answer
- A database whose working set no longer fits in memory and is hammering the disk; software licensed per physical core; a hypervisor of your own; or a compliance requirement that says single-tenant hardware in as many words.
- When it is not
- Almost everything else. A busy website, an application server, a queue worker — all of these run better on a cloud server you can resize in a minute than on a physical machine you cannot. Bare metal buys predictability, and it pays for that by being slower to change.
What it costs
Bare metal is quoted per machine, because the machine is built to what you need rather than picked from a list. Tell us the workload and we will come back with a specification and a monthly figure.
We would rather quote you than publish a number we have not checked. Everything on the pricing page is a figure the order form actually charges — this will join it the day the same is true here.
Questions
How is this different from a cloud server?
A cloud server is a reserved share of a physical machine, created in minutes and resizable in minutes. Bare metal is the physical machine, provisioned by hand and fixed until somebody changes the hardware. You are trading flexibility for the last few percent of performance and for exclusivity.
How long does it take to get one?
Longer than a cloud server. A machine has to be allocated, built and racked, so plan in days rather than seconds. We will tell you the real date when we quote.
Do I still get root?
You get more than root — it is your machine. Install any operating system, any hypervisor, any stack.
Can I start on a cloud server and move later?
Yes, and for most people that is the right order. Start on a cloud server, find out what you actually need, and move once the numbers say the hardware is the limit.
Something not answered here? Ask us — it is a short answer or it is a phone call, and either is fine.
The rest of the cloud range
These are built to be used together — a server inside a private network, behind a firewall, with its data on a volume and its history in backups.
Cloud Server (VM)
Scalable Linux and Windows instances
See sizes and pricesLoad Balancers
One address in front of many servers
Learn moreVPC (Virtual Private Cloud)
A private network only your servers can see
Learn moreCloud Firewall
Control incoming and outgoing network traffic
Learn moreBlock Storage
High-performance storage you mount to a server
Learn moreObject Storage
Scalable, S3-compatible storage
Learn moreSnapshot
On-demand disk images of a server
Learn moreBackup
Automated data protection and recovery
Learn moreNot sure whether you need this?
Tell us what you are running and what is going wrong with it. We will say which of these actually helps — including when the answer is none of them.