I am creating a php script that requires the server to make several cURL requests per run. I'll be running this script through cron every 3 minutes. Im looking to maximize the amount of cURL requests I can make in a 24 hr period.
What I am wondering is if it would be better from a performance standpoint to get a dedicated server, or several small shared hosting accounts. With the problem being number of external connections and not system resources I'm wondering which is the best approach.
Shared hosting accounts generally have a very low limit, making something like this difficult. I would not recommend this. It would be MUCH more effective to invest in a VPS hosting account (such as one with Linode or Slicehost). They generally don't have a connection limit (or at least not one that I've run into). They're also faster and much more cost-effective than straight-up shared hosting. A dedicated server would be overkill.
Also, since you're using PHP, feel free to take advantage of curl_multi_init, which will allow you to run many cURL requests at once.
Hope this helps!