HostMySite.ca :: Hosting and Domain Resource

Almost Unlimited Hosting

This is not a term that the marketing gurus will use, but they might as well. This article could just as well be titled, Disk Space Isn't Everything.

So your $4.95-per-month hosting account comes with 500 email addresses, "unlimited" aliases or forwarding accounts, 100 GB of disk space, and 1000 GB of bandwidth per month. Wow! That's pretty much exceeds the storage and transmission capacity of the entire Internet not that long ago. And who are you going to give 495 of those 500 addresses to?

Would you be surprised to find out that the average business website hosted by NinerNet takes up -- maybe -- about 10 MB of disk space, on average? Oh, let's let loose and double that to 20 MB. What the hell are you going to do with the other 99 980 MB of disk space?! And if you did use up all 100 GB of disk space, let's do some simple arithmetic: 1000÷100=10. This means that, if your site is worth browsing in its entirety, all of your visitors, between them, will be able to download your site only ten times in a month before you hit your bandwidth limit, after which your host will shut down your site for the rest of the month or they will charge you for the overage. This simple arithmetic is a perfect illustration of overselling.

Don't get confused by comparing the disk space made available to you in your hosting plan with the size of the hard disk in your computer. Just because you have a 320 GB hard drive in the computer on your desk, doesn't mean that your website needs that kind of storage space. Remember, your hard drive must hold a huge number (and growing) of files for your operating system and installed programs, plus all of that music you ripped from your CD collection; your website needs to hold only a handful of text files and images. (We're not even going to get into sites that sing and dance unnecessarily using Flash, animated GIFs, music and video. That's a whole other rant.) Yes, the 20 MB included in Hosting Plan A of Hosting Company B may seem paltry when making comparisons to hosts with questionable business ethics appearing to offer hosting plans with grossly-inflated resources, but think about what you actually need rather than allowing the marketing gurus to make you greedy, believing that "size is everything".

Remember though that, often, companies only offer what the market demands. Some of us consumers are to blame for the lies that we allow ourselves to be fed by demanding -- often literally, but certainly through our buying habits -- that companies lie to us. Don't do yourself and your fellow consumers a disservice. Don't allow yourself to be led around by the nose and fooled into oversubscribing your monthly bandwidth quota because you thought you were getting something for nothing.

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