Website bandwith?

J_Barnes

J_Barnes

Veteran
I know this question has been asked before, but I'm asking it again anyways.

I've never dealt with hosting, site design, or much of anything relating establishment of a web presense. I'm a film geek, not a computer geek, so it's difficult to figure all this stuff out without guidence.

I'm trying to figure out what's a sufficient monthly bandwith without going into overkill. I don't plan to be hosting large files that will eat that away through size, but I imagine that I might get enough traffic to nibble significantly.

For example, I'm not going to be hosting shorts, but I will probably have some useful documents and pictures posted that might generate traffic.

Any ideas on the monthly bandwith DVXUser utilizes?
 
Re: Website bandwith?

I found a bandwidth calculator and was trying to formulate an estimate based on average size of screen shots, amount and frequency of users who view them but it's a tough call.

More times than not, it’s better to go low, then watch your usage for the month (were you hit with an extra bandwidth usage charge etc) then gauge from there. It’s sort of the cell-phone minute problem, you don’t want to pay for something you don’t use.

My day job performance is based on how very little corporate bandwidth I can use so I’m definitely interested in the subject (Compression/encryption ratios, proxy avoidance, etc. I’m a computer wanna be film geek  ;D).

Most people are very optimistic about what their traffic will be and the reality is that it’s generally a lot lower. Aim for the basic, increase if needed has always been my approach.
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Judging by the content you're going to have on your webpage that will use the most bandwidth. The lowest package plan most web hosting companies offer will be more than sufficient. You can get away with paying a ridiculously low monthly fee as well if you use very little bandwidth if you go with a reseller who's able to tailor your webhosting to you, rather than having a prepackedged plan with more bandwidth than you'll ever use...

I personally offer hosting if you're interested. Only downside to my hosting however is that I seem to only be able to make one control panel user, so you wouldn't have access to the control panel. You'd have full access to the FTP however and any other services needed (php and whatnot) I could easily setup for you quickly.

As far the bandwidth your site uses up. I would say with what you have you wouldn't need anymore than 5 GB per month depending on the amount of hits you get.
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Thanks for the responses guys, that does help a bit.

I might indeed need some hosting soon, but I'm a complete and total newbie, so I'm also looking for a tiny bit of hand holding and experience. I don't even know exactly what a control panel does on a webhost, so I can't honestly say that I need one right now either.

I'll definatly keep you in mind once I get closer to launching my ideas.
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Yeah, that works out well then. Part of what I do is handhold for people who know very little about webhosting. I can set everything up for you, even design the site if you want. My own site still needs to have the backend code added but once it's up you can see some examples of work i've done...
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Linux over windows? not that much... one thing I do know however is that linux is the mainstay for most hosting. It runs using an apache web server as opposed to windows IIS. IIS has some compatibility issues with certain coding as does all microsoft products. If you have the choice, you should really go with linux. It's more bareboned, but that's what you want in a webserver, one that will stay out of the way and let you do your thing...

If you've got a media intensive website it really depends on the number of videos/multimedia you'll be posting, and where you'll be posting links to it from. Posting a link from this forum will net about 2 gigs every 2-3 weeks for a 10 meg video clip. This is based on a previous video I once hosted that was posted here. The bandwidth usage trails off near the end once most of the people have downloaded it.

I can tailor your webhosting to you if you'd like. Just tell me what you'll need to have on the page, how much you'd be willing to spend around, and how much control you'd like to have. I also design so if you need someone to build your site and maintain it as well I can do that also...
 
Re: Website bandwith?

[quote author=Daniel Runyon link=board=Offtopic;num=1094644897;start=0#7 date=09/09/04 at 14:24:08]Whats the real difference to me, a non-uber/power user, in choosing Linux hosting or Win.[/quote]

A Unix based system (Linux, Free bsd, etc) will be more stable and reliable, more defendable against hackers, provide better support for more of the 3rd party tools (CGI/Perl/etc) for dynamic web sites, and more and more and more.

Windows based hosts are getting better and better but still have their problems. (Note, I am not a MS hater. I use Windows every day. I use what works best for the job. For hosting I think Windows isn't this best at this time).

Also, it depends on the hosting applications that you plan to use. Some high end packages such as MS Sql Server database will require a Windows based host. The ASP scripting language is Windows based. But, the comparable PHP language runs on both.

suppose you want to put some trailers, maybe several shorts and plenty of text content, what would one expect to need bandwidth wise
Click to expand...

Textual content will be a drop in the bucket compared to binary content (images, videos, etc). Typically, fresh content generates the most hits and badnwidth. As THiNSPiRiT mentioned, when popularity trails off so do the hits and downloads and your bandwidth requirements drop. If you generate enough popularity and get a constant stream of fresh hits, then downloads and bandwidth use will remain high. Otherwise, they may dwindle down to nothing for a specific piece of content.

Spreading out the release of content based on the download and bandwidth demands can help. I have had to do this to keep my monthly limit under a specific level. But, if it makes money then why bother? :)

So, when thinking about a hosting service, look into the details on how they charge for bandwidth. Is there a cap? How do they calculate bandwidth? Is it a total useage? Averaged per day? Do they toss out a spike day? What's the cost if you do go over your limit?

Oh, and you can find some bandwidth calulators using google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=how+to+calculate+bandwidth+usage&btnG=Search

Hope this helps.

Btw - I would like to plug www.pair.com which is the service I use. They have done a great job hossting my sites for many years. Their prices are reasonable and they have a very fair bandwidth policy.
 
Re: Website bandwith?

If you want simple and easy to use check out yahoo webhosting. For $11.95 a month you get like 2GB of space an enormous amount of features, plus you can use a simple easy to use "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) website program like Microsoft Frontpage. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use frontpage. You can easily add windows media player files for posting demo or video clips. You can get books anywhere tha walk you through it.

This is very simple and not complicated. Yahoo has the most simple plan and about the best deal. Last year I spent about month researching webhosting. I spent a couple of weeks this year looking around and Yahoo seems the simplest and easiest way of doing a website.

Boda
 
Re: Website bandwith?

I've never used pair... but I can tell you right now that they don't seem nearly as good as the company i'm using... especially the tech support, which, for the company I use, is amazing... they have live tech support chat for people until 2 am or something... it's awesome...

Daniel: I would be able to host your site for you... how much bandwidth per month are you looking at? 10 gb?

I don't want to discuss business over the forum, if you want drop me an email at thinspirit(at)gmail(dot)com I can give you a quote on a hosting plan. I guarantee it'll give you more than pair at a lower monthly rate and no setup fee. You'll also have full FTP access. You'll also have the flexibility of not necessarily worrying about bandwidth caps... if you go over a little, i'm not gonna hassle you over it and will be able to adjust your bandwidth and price according to your usage... more of a friend lending you space rather than a company with strict rules and policies...


In response to the whole MS server debate over Unix... sure you need an MS server to use MS sql server databases, Unix offers MySQL databases, which in my opinion, run faster and with less errors than the MS ones. Just a little harder to work with...

MS also has the advantages of working with Frontpage better... this doesn't really matter if you're good with web design though, because you'll use Dreamweaver with it's FTP client anyway to update your sites :P

ps, sorry I had to spell out my email address differently... it prevents those spam bots from locking onto it...
 
Re: Website bandwith?

For a thread that started out very slow, there are some really quality answers here.

Thanks for the advice guys, I'm just about ready to jump in.
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Dan there willl be no difference unfortunatley... Server software counts gigs or megs moved and tallies them... a 10 gig file accesed 1000 times is 10,000 gig.. Most regular hosts will not allow you that much bandwidth use in their basic plan...

Of course one of the links posted in this thread looks like a really good deal. I have a reseller account and need to put up a website so I can sell space.. i basically use it for all my different projects.. I have more stufff than i can effectivey handle it seems. ;D I had to shop awhile in order to find the right price for alot of bandwidth...
 
Re: Website bandwith?

Powweb does seem very good indeed for the price... i'd say equally comparable to my current webhosting company... not in bandwidth, but in space... i get 1500 megs more with my plan, it's a dollar less a month... and get the ability to host 5 domains...

Really, the trick is to find what you need and get a plan that gives you that, it's the only way you'll be happy with what you get...
 
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