You can always spend more money. If you’ve got the dough, someone, somewhere out there is perfectly willing to take your cash. All you have to do is ask.

"When you have a virtual server account, it's comparable to living in a duplex or quadruplex. You still share the space but you have more space and more control over your space."

If you’ve been playing around with a virtual hosting account for a while, you’ve probably come to understand the limitations of such an arrangement. There’s not enough storage, not enough transfer, not enough admin control. You want more. You’re sick of sharing your box with a collection of gallery whores and sponsor sluts. You want to move to a better server, a better neighborhood.

Then again, you’re no guru. You don’t want a dedicated server. You’re not quite ready for that kind of commitment. You don’t want a whole server of your own because one, you can’t afford it and two, you don’t have the skills and three, you don’t want to hire an administrator. You just want what you’re ready for, which is a little bit more.

So where are these magic accounts that will enable you with more storage, more transfer and more admin privileges? They’re probably right under your nose. All you have to do is look and ask.

The IT world uses terminology that’s often unclear. You’ve heard of virtual hosting. You know it well because you’ve had your virtual hosting account for a good, long while. You know that with a virtual hosting account you can add few directories and set up a couple of email accounts. You get to read the log files compiled by your host provider. You also get to watch powerlessly when some other schmoe ­sharing your box- brings the whole thing to a crashing halt. If only you could have more storage, more transfer, more administration privileges. You know the kind of account you want but you may not know what’s it’s called.

Actually, this kind of account has a lot of different names. That’s the unclear part mentioned above. Some called it semi-dedicated, others call it virtual dedicated, and still others will refer to such an account as a virtual server account.

If you’ve read a previous article I wrote about virtual hosting vs. dedicated hosting, then you probably remember my apartment complex analogy.

To have virtual hosting is similar to living in a large apartment complex. You share the same box with many other tenants. You also share (apartment-wise) the same plumbing, same cable connection and the same electrical system. If one tenant floods their toilet or shorts a fuse, everybody suffers. Everybody has to wait for the apartment complex to fix the problem.

To have a dedicated hosting account is comparable to owning a house. You have your own space and you don’t have to share it with anyone. You can live in your house in relative peace with out ever having to worry about what the neighbors are doing to their dwelling. However, when you own a house, you own everything including the plumbing and the electrical system. If your pipes break or your wiring fails, you’re the one who has to fix it.

When you have a virtual server account, it’s comparable to living in a duplex or quadruplex. You still share the space but you have more space and more control over your space. When you live in a duplex, you probably even get a little yard of your own as well as your own parking garage. A virtual server account is like that, better than an apartment but not quite as good as a house.

On a virtual server account you can admin your own file directories. You can create and assign multiple domains that resolve to your main domain. You can manage your own logs and analyze your stats your way. You’ll get more storage and more transfer as well as more control over your hosting account.

So, how does one find a virtual server?

Chances are that the hosting provider you use right now offers virtual server accounts. Take a look at the services and pricing page of your provider. You’ll probably see account packages that cost more and offer more services yet they aren’t called “dedicated”. They’re also not called managed accounts. Managed accounts are a whole other service.

It’s a good thing to be ready to spend more money. It means you’re doing something right with your adult site. Just the same, you don’t want to waste your dollars. If you only need a little bit more from your hosting then it would be wasteful and probably troublesome to invest in a dedicated account.

If you’re at a point where you’ve outgrown that little virtual hosting account, then upgrade to an account that fits you better. Get a virtual server account.