Running a smooth Ark: Survival Evolved server demands careful attention to your hosting environment. While CPU and RAM are crucial, the often-overlooked factor of disk read/write speed can significantly bottleneck your server’s performance. If you’re aiming for a lag-free and responsive gaming experience, understanding the importance of Good Dedicated Server Hosting, particularly concerning disk speed, is paramount.
Initially, many server administrators focus on processing power and memory. As highlighted in the Ark server community, allocating sufficient CPU cores is essential – ideally, two cores per server instance. Hyperthreading can optimize core usage, allowing a single physical core to function as two virtual cores. Utilizing command-line parameters like /affinity helps dedicate specific cores to each Ark server instance, ensuring resource allocation is managed effectively. An example command, like the one below for a Ragnarok server utilizing virtual cores 2 and 3, demonstrates this core assignment:
start "HighlandFox Private ARK Server 15" /normal /affinity 0C "N:Ark Server ManagerProfilesServersHighlandFox Private ARK Server 15ShooterGameBinariesWin64ShooterGameServer.exe"For environments running multiple servers, like a five-server setup on a hexacore Xeon X5690 with 24GB RAM, dedicating one physical core per server, with a core reserved for the host system, can be sufficient for moderately populated servers. However, even with ample CPU and RAM, the true performance bottleneck often lies in disk speed.
The speed at which your server can read and write data to disk directly impacts loading times, world updates, and overall responsiveness for players. Traditional Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), even high-performance models like Western Digital Black drives in a RAID 6 configuration, can become a limiting factor. While RAID 6 offers redundancy and improved read speeds, the inherent mechanical nature of HDDs restricts their Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and increases latency compared to modern Solid State Drives (SSDs). For optimal Ark server performance and truly good dedicated server hosting, migrating to SSDs is a highly recommended upgrade. SSDs drastically reduce latency and offer significantly faster read/write speeds, eliminating disk speed as a bottleneck and leading to a much smoother experience for Ark players. Choosing dedicated server hosting that utilizes SSD storage is a key step in ensuring your Ark server operates at its full potential, providing a seamless and enjoyable gaming environment.
