Choosing a 10Gbps Dedicated Server (Bandwidth Guide)

A "10Gbps dedicated server" is usually just a description of its port speed and gives little insight into the actual amount of data that can be transferred through it, whether or not there's any additional bandwidth involved, and even whether it's necessary at all. Let's find out all of these things.

What does "10Gbps" actually mean for a dedicated server's network port?

It's a full-duplex, point-to-point Ethernet connection with a speed rating of 10 gigabits per second, not a shared medium like older Ethernet standards. It's the cap on your possible network speed, but not necessarily the speed itself.

Our own Bare Metal servers include an unmetered 10Gbps option built to this exact standard.

According to this article on 10 Gigabit Ethernet, "it is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10 gigabits per second," and contrary to previous generations of Ethernet, "10GbE defines only full-duplex point-to-point links which are generally connected by network switches" – which is the upper limit for the rest of this guide.

How much data can a 10Gbps port actually move?

In theory, at 100% utilization, the port can transfer 1.25 GB per second or approximately 3,240 TB in a month of 30 days, but this is never achieved in practice.

These are theoretical maximums assuming the port is fully utilized at all times – which is never true when you are actually transferring data.

What kinds of workloads actually need 10Gbps instead of 1Gbps?

High-volume transfers, intensive delivery of content, backups and replication, and anything that serves as a network backbone connecting other systems. Low-to-medium traffic websites never approach even 1Gbps port capacity.

According to the same Wikipedia entry, 10GbE has been used precisely for this purpose all along – it's noted that "Apple made built-in 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard in their iMac Pro" as early as 2017, and by 2023 "Wi-Fi 7 routers began appearing with 10GbE WAN ports as standard," which shows how much the technology evolved from purely backbone application to general infrastructure.

Is a "10Gbps port" the same as 10Gbps of guaranteed bandwidth?

Not really. Your port speed is the physical limitation of the network interface you have, whereas your bandwidth is calculated by your provider in different ways, depending on the contract. Be sure to understand how the billing works.

As noted in the dedicated hosting entry on Wikipedia, "line speed is billed on the 95th percentile" on many providers' plans, and separately that "unmetered bandwidth services usually incur an additional charge" – both of which are irrelevant to the port speed of the interface itself.

Does 10Gbps cost much more than a 1Gbps port these days?

Not anymore. As the technology is getting cheaper, it has gotten closer to being a standard option for datacenters.

According to the 10 Gigabit Ethernet entry, "as of 2012, although the price per gigabit of bandwidth for 10GbE was about one-third compared to Gigabit Ethernet, the price per port of 10GbE still hindered more widespread adoption" – but by 2022, "the price per port of 10GBASE‑T had dropped to $50–$100 depending on scale," which is a fraction of the cost it was ten years ago.

Our Bare Metal servers and VPS plans may serve as good examples for answering the questions asked above.