Dedicated Server Hosting Los Angeles: Pros and Cons

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Los Angeles is a popular location to host dedicated servers. Although we here at IOFLOOD.com are partial to Phoenix, we understand that different locations are appropriate for different customers. When deciding upon your server location, it can be a difficult decision process with many things to keep in mind. So here we provide some pros and cons to Dedicated Server Hosting in Los Angeles:

Pros:

• Excellent peering capabilities: all major Asia / Pacific ISPs have a presence in Los Angeles, making interconnection cheap and easy.
• Low latency connections to Asia-Pacific: being the western-most peering point in the US, Los Angeles dedicated servers can provide the best latency to users in the Asia-pacific region.
• Inexpensive bandwidth: Unlike hosting in China, Singapore, Tokyo, or Australia, a dedicated server in Los Angeles (or anywhere in the US, really) can provide you with large amounts of bandwidth at a low price.
• “Brand Appeal”: Customers may not know that Phoenix is nearly as good as Los Angeles because they don’t know where it is on a map! Los Angeles is a globally recognized brand (so to speak), and so this can help you get business.

Cons:

• Expensive. With higher cost of living, property values, taxes, and electricity rates, hosting in Los Angeles will usually be more expensive than locations such as Phoenix, Dallas, etc.
• Higher risk of natural disasters: With earthquakes being a serious threat, off site backups and a disaster recovery plan are essential if you intend to host anywhere in Southern California.
• High latency to Eastern US and Europe: With most of the US population in the east coast, any west coast location (California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, or Arizona) is less than ideal for reaching the majority of the US population. This higher latency will be more important for game hosting and less important for website hosting.

I hope these pros and cons give you a good starting point to make your decision of where to host your server. If you have any questions about this information, or if you’re interested in learning more about IOFLOOD.com dedicated servers, please email our team at sales [at] ioflood.com