Web hosting plans with 100GB of disk space and 1000GB of bandwidth. Do you really need it? |
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During my 7 years of running a web hosting business, I have occasionally lost customers who state the following reason for why they were leaving my company: “xyzWebHost offers more disk space and data transfer for the same price as your plans“.
That always makes me curious so I end up checking the customers account to see how much disk space/bandwidth their site is using. Almost always, the user’s site is pushing, at max, 10% of the total allotted resources partitioned to the account.
So the big question!
How come so many people are fooled into thinking that just because a company offers higher numbers[in disk space and bandwidth], that they are getting a better deal or more value?
I’m going to let everyone in on some secrets that many web hosts will cringe to know that I am letting out.
- Most sites use little disk space and bandwidth – I would say 99% of my customers never reach even half the amount of disk space and bandwidth that is a lotted to them.
- No host will let you use 100Gb of disk space and 1000GB of transfer – No shared web hosting provider [charging $5-$15/m] will let you reach your limit. As soon as you use a fraction of your plan, they will suspend you stating the famous ‘CPU limit exceeded‘ line. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, try it. See what happens.
In fact, most of the top web hosting providers around oversell their services so much that it is physically impossible to allow their customer’s to reach the limit. They know that 99% of sites use less than 1GB disk/10Gb of transfer. Do you think they really care about keeping you as a customer if you are using the whole 100GB space/1000GB transfer? You are 1 percentage point to them. They get rid of you, and shove 50+ more customers onto the server bringing in 50x the amount of revenue.
What I recommend you do is consider what really matters:
- Forget about disk space and bandwidth - Most plans today are well equipped to handle your website. Your site will most likely use no more than 1GB disk and 10GB transfer.
- Consider service above all else – Consider the service level before anything else. Make sure your provider is a reputable company. Here is how you can find a good web hosting service.
- Consider price secondly - The price of the web hosting plan is usually a good indicator of the type of service you will receive. If you pay $3.00/m for a 100GB plan, the chances are you are getting a junk service. If you are paying $15/m for a couple GB of space and an average amount of transfer, it will more likely be a higher level web hosting service.
What I really want you to have learned from this article is this: Higher numbers does not mean better value. In reality, the higher the numbers of disk space/bandwidth and the lower the price, the worse off you will be. It is also a good idea for you to get a good estimate of how much resources your site is currently using. I think you will be shocked as to how much space/transfer you thought you were using vs. how much your website is actually using.
Oct 27th, 2008 at 10:44 am
oh i didn’t know that, i have a friend who runs a hosting service, ill try to get in touch with him and force him to confess his secrets.. lol
Nov 1st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Amen. I wish one day people would realize that *nobody* makes money giving away 750GB of space for 5.95/month. Even with cheap 750GB drives being ~$100 nowadays, it’s still not going to happen. Yes, for every customer that signs up that stick a new 750GB drive in their server just for them.. uh huh. Sure.
Between the games played to keep people within these great “limits” (ie: No archive files, no multimedia files, etc), and the questionable pricing schemes (”Well, 5.95/month is when you prepay for 48 months… if you want to pay month to month, that will be 19.95 a month, with a $49 activation fee!”), it amazes me people ever fall for it. ~sigh~
Nov 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
people or companys who need so much webspace should buy or rent a dedicated server. nothing else makes sense
Nov 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Nov 7th, 2008 at 8:09 am
u r absolutely right! these r just business tricks. i hav read about it perhaps here in some previous post or somewhere else before.
service & reliability r the main issues to choose a hosting. check the server uptime & customer support promptness before going for a host.
Nov 9th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I don’t think we really need it… most small business customer only have a few html page ,maybe 5~10, 100MB disk quota is enough for those customers.
Nov 10th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Yes it’s true I have a blog that already been online for about 3 years and only eat 11% of total diskspace provided (which is 10 Giga) although it has almost 1000 postings with many of accessories, from that i never interested to have thousands of giga space. Because why should we purchase hundreds or thousands of Giga if we only use 5% or 10% in 3 years? Just wasting money I think.
Nov 20th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Thanks for the post. I agree with this. I think one of the best thing that make a web hosting or any other services online, is the response time it can dedicate to it’s costumer.
Nobody wanted to be left talking to himself for hours or days wondering what his provider is doing and why aren’t they answering question. In online businesses, everyone should be responsive enough, this is the only way to gain trust, the only way to provide solution and the only way to get rid of troubles.
Nov 24th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The term you’re looking for is overselling. Pretty much any and all web hosting companies do it nowadays and it causes more outages, and reduced performance.
If you site actually uses more than 100GB of bandwidth, then you should at least have a VPS, because at that point you should be making enough money off your site to cover these costs.
Dec 5th, 2008 at 7:58 am
this doesn’t make any sense, why would they do that? those who need a lot of webspace they can rent a dedicated server…
Dec 5th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
To tell you the truth if you take the time develop a cool website or blog you should also get quality hosting from reputable and large companies. They are the ones most unlikely to to give you headaches by overselling bandwidth and cpu limits. I have really bad experiences with small but cheap hosting companies. They don’t tell you upfront what the limits are and you just wake up with the website down. This happend to me when a client specifically want some host for a custom script I developed. It was a pretty good and large application. He didn’t believe me when I told him that offers like the one he found are not suitable. Of course the account was suspended the minute he had more then 10 users online at the same time.
Also when looking for a host you should also see if they have the right upgrading options for you: like a vps, dedicate, …. You are not going to have a small website forever (hopefully)
Dec 13th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I really hate all the ‘big hosts’ out there, I mean take HostGator. They are literally telling their customers they are overselling, and telling them it is right and normal!
Dec 15th, 2008 at 7:51 am
HI,
Exactly Most of the sites don’t requires a huge space, Such site holders should expect a quality service rather than a huge space.
http://www.marblehost.com
Dec 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am
To tell you the truth if you take the time develop a cool website or blog you should also get quality hosting from reputable and large companies. They are the ones most unlikely to to give you headaches by overselling bandwidth and cpu limits. I have really bad experiences with small but cheap hosting companies. They don’t tell you upfront what the limits are and you just wake up with the website down. This happend to me when a client specifically want some host for a custom script I developed. It was a pretty good and large application. He didn’t beleave me when I told him that offers like the one he found are not suitable. Of course the account was suspended the minute he had more then 10 users online at the same time.
Also when looking for a host you should also see if they have the right upgrading options for you: like a vps, dedicate, …. You are not going to have a small website forever (hopefully)
Jan 2nd, 2009 at 12:12 am
I’ll inform my web host company about this informative information. Maybe they can have some clue on how to improve themselve.
Jan 8th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I agree with your statement. The service level is being consider as a gauge in getting a top hosting you need rather than a bunch of unlimited features offers.
Jan 9th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
How can they get away with advetising the large space and bandwidth but shutting you off if you try to use it? Seems like a web hosting marking ploy to me.
Jan 11th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Personally, I think more is better. If the host can’t fulfill the needs of their clients, it’s on them.
Jan 12th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Unfortunately the promise of large capacity, high bandwidth plans the oversellers are pitching to the consumer is here to stay. The best way to combat deception is a powerful message of truth. Articles like this are a start. The deceptive companies are counting on an uninformed and naive public to keep the mindset “bigger is better”.
Keep up the good work.
Jan 15th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Excellent post! Honestly. You hit the nail on the head.
When I was trying to find my first web host, I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for. I still remember the first time I saw something like 10GB/1000GB, I gasped thinking what a great deal. Then I REALLY started looking into hosting and researching it, that’s when I realized what a load of trash that claim was. I’ve read so many accounts of webmasters frustrated because of CPU limits.
The basic moral of the story is that you should be looking into other features and service rather than something as silly as bandwidth. Again, wonderful post.
Feb 9th, 2009 at 8:14 am
this doesn’t make any sense, why would they do that? those who need a lot of webspace they can rent a dedicated server :S
Mar 13th, 2009 at 9:14 am
That is a good questin! Customers are always pretend to be unsatisfied. When you say you can offer ***GB space to him, and he must reply like this: this space can not stand for my price, because xxx company offer bigger disk space for me and at the same price.
See, that is the skill they want you to reduce the price. But do keep on at your price if you think you can offer them more than the price.
I personally do not believe bigger disk makes senses.That depands what website you are going to build. If my planing website do not needs so much big disk space, why should i ask so much? It will waste my money.
Next time you meet such “greed” customer, and you can tell him that your price desert your products. That is it.
Jun 28th, 2009 at 8:33 am
thank you ..
Personally, I think more is better. If the host can’t fulfill the needs of their clients, it’s on them.
Jul 25th, 2009 at 8:47 am
I exceeded the limit of a host. But had just 50 MB there. It’s very funny the 500 TB (joking) hostings plans are mostly american. And we Europeans think of them that they have to make everything gigantic, also for hostings.
A Britisch or a German provider will give you an amount between 50 and 1000 MB AND will limit the amount of sql databases.
I don’t care so much as long as the hosting is fast and that becomes quickly a problem, indeed.
thank you for posting
Aug 17th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
That is interesting. I don’t know if I could even attempt to fill up my web provider’s given amount of space. It would take a lot. Sometimes its important though. I run an online store and need Magento so that takes a lot of space. I use a company called http://www.beanstalksolarhosting.com
Aug 26th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I have really bad experiences with small but cheap hosting companies. They don’t tell you upfront what the limits are and you just wake up with the website down.
Sep 4th, 2009 at 10:52 am
“No host will let you use 100Gb of disk space and 1000GB of transfer”, problem is that no one believes you until it happens to them.