Every virtual or dedicated hosting machine has its own Operating System and works independently from the servers of other customers. Updating the OS is often ignored, but doing that could have quite a lot of benefits for your websites. The most significant reason to use the newest version is that patches are frequently released to fix security holes inside the Operating System code, so if you do not install the updates, you risk individuals with destructive intentions to take advantage of these holes and to get access to your content. Operating system updates are also released for improved efficiency of the system overall and for far better compatibility with the hardware on the market, which could immediately influence the performance of your sites. If the performance and the security of your scripts is the reason to update them, you might also know that their latest versions require an updated Operating System in order to operate properly, consequently keeping the Operating system up-to-date is always a good idea.