The whole machine. Your rules.
No hypervisor tax, no surprise neighbours: a physical server in a UK data centre, connected to our network, with NVMe and bandwidth sized for serious production. You install the OS, orchestrate the stack, and own performance end to end - while we own power, cooling, remote hands, and DDoS-aware edge policy.
What is a dedicated server?
A dedicated server is a whole physical computer reserved for you. There is no hypervisor splitting it into smaller VMs (unless you choose to virtualise it yourself). Every CPU core, RAM module, and NVMe drive belongs to your workloads only - no noisy neighbours on the same chassis.
You - or your systems partner - install the operating system, patch it, and run whatever stack you need: databases, game servers, Kubernetes nodes, or Windows workloads with your own licences. We provide power, cooling, network hand-off, remote hands, and hardware replacement when parts fail.
Not sure you need a full machine? Compare UK shared hosting and UK VPS first.
Why bare metal still wins
Cloud VMs abstract away hardware until latency, noisy neighbours, or licence costs bite. Dedicated metal gives predictable CPU cache behaviour, deterministic disk IOPS on local NVMe, and the freedom to tune the kernel for your database or game tick rate.
Stone Hosting is aimed at teams who can administer a server - or work with a partner who does - and want that server physically in Britain for sovereignty, compliance storytelling, and sub-millisecond savings versus routing overseas.
| Shared | VPS | Dedicated | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Root / kernel | No | Yes | Yes |
| Hardware isolation | Account | VM | Full server |
| Peak IOPS | Shared pool | Partitioned | Local NVMe |
| Best for | cPanel sites | Docker / API | DB / heavy IO |
Operating systems & runtimes
Web, containers & data
| Plan | Monthly | Compute | Memory | NVMe storage | Port | Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EntrySTONE 10Alpha | £149/mo | 8 cores · single socket (current-gen Intel / AMD by availability) | 32 GB ECC | 2 × 960 GB NVMe Gen4 (hardware RAID optional) | 1 Gbps | Business hours · standard queue |
| FlagshipSTONE 25Vanguard | £299/mo | 16 cores · single socket | 64 GB ECC | 2 × 1.92 TB NVMe Gen4 | 2 Gbps | L3 priority · faster response targets |
| MaximumSTONE 35Zenith | £499/mo | 24–32 cores · dual-socket option on quotation | 128 GB ECC | 4 × 1.92 TB NVMe Gen4 (layout by workload) | 10 Gbps | Named engineer lead · escalation path |
All tiers: unmetered bandwidth (fair use) · 99.9% network/power target on infrastructure we control · IPMI / KVM · UK data centre presence
High-traffic WordPress
Agency publishers and WooCommerce at scale: opcode cache, object cache on Redis or Memcached (self-hosted), and MariaDB tuned without fighting shared CPU caps.
E-commerce peaks
Checkout spikes during campaigns: keep PHP-FPM workers, search, and payment callbacks on one metal host with predictable burst headroom.
Primary databases
Postgres with replication, or MySQL InnoDB clusters - local NVMe for WAL/redo throughput and backup windows you control.
Kubernetes / platform nodes
Control planes, ingress-heavy workers, or registry mirrors - metal reduces noisy neighbour jitter for etcd and API servers.
Game & simulation servers
Low-latency UK players for Source-style, Minecraft, or custom UDP services - tick stability beats oversubscribed vCPUs.
Media encoding & asset pipelines
FFmpeg workers, transcoding queues, and large scratch disks - saturate NVMe without a hypervisor throttle.
ERP, CRM & internal apps
Line-of-business .NET or Java monoliths, legacy PHP, or file-heavy document stores - keep data in the UK and off multitenant SaaS if policy demands it.
British ingress, global reach
Your server sits on our blend of UK carriers and peering - serving domestic users with minimal RTT while still exchanging routes internationally. DDoS mitigation and sane abuse handling protect both you and the rest of the fabric.
- Unmetered bandwidth options on published tiers
- 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps port profiles by tier
- Additional IPs and BGP-style arrangements by quotation
Logical view
[ Internet ]
│
▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ UK edge / DDoS │
└────────┬────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────┐
│ Your bare metal │◄── NVMe local RAID (by build)
│ (OS of choice) │
└────────┬────────┘
│
┌────┴────┐
▼ ▼
[ LAN ] [ Out-of-band\
storage IPMI / KVM ]
optional
Security baseline
Physical data-centre access controls, your responsibility for OS hardening, and optional managed firewall rules discussed at order.
Onboarding
IPMI/KVM for OS install, rescue images when things go wrong, and clear handover of rack position and asset identifiers.
Hardware lifecycle
Failed components replaced under our SLA-style commitments; upgrades via new builds or chassis swaps as agreed.
Stack compatibility
You install what you need - metal is agnostic. cPanel is shown for teams who licence it on dedicated hardware; most Stone customers run vanilla Linux or Windows Server under their own agreements.