well u should have access to remote into the server to work on it add websites etc.

Do you have remote access? Have you ever worked on a server?

Do you have the root password?

That's an interesting question. Other than turning up to the data centre I can't think of a way of telling a machine from a VPS.

With a VPS you get root access, so that won't tell you anything. Rebooting won't tell you much either, you can reboot a VPS.

If you don't trust your host, maybe you should find a new one. :)

Ideas:

1) Try to install VPS software... I understand many of those don't install on a VPS environment.

2) Write something to use ALL the memory. See if it can allocate the total amount listed.

3) Really overload the processor. Put things into very intensive loops. Tie up as much memory and disk read time as possible at the same time. See if your ISP decides to boot you for disturbing other users on the dedicated server!

I know nothing about this, but I did a search for - detecting vps - which found a thread on another forum (dated 2005) that gave this advice:

ls -l /proc/xen - Will show if you are on xen
grep -i user /proc/cpuinfo - Will show if you are on usermode linux
ls -l /proc/user_beancounters or /dev/vzfs will show if you are on Virtuozzo
lspci ¦ grep -i vmware - Will show if you are on VMWare
df ¦ grep vn on FreeBSD should show if you are in a jail. However things like ping won't work which is more of a give away

(replace broken pipes with proper ones)

Is there a downside to being on a VPS server? Especially when it comes to SEO?

I recently moved from a dedicated to a VPS as I could not justify the expense of the former. Same amount of RAM on both (256 MB). Scripts that ran on the dedicated are now hanging the VPS and the company is still trying to help me find the problem.

While the server stays down, my pages are 404s, so you can imagine the effect on rankings. I have to reboot a few times a week. I hope VPSs in general are more stable.

The biggest downside to a VPS is that occasionally some other user on the server can crash it or cause other problems despite the isolation of each VPS. In most cases, if your traffic is modest you'll never know the difference.

For high traffic or mission-critical sites, I'd go with dedicated. For others, a VPS should be fine.