Unlimited Web hosting..?

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The Claims

Some hosting providers are now offering “unlimited space” and “unlimited bandwidth” in an effort to attract customers. They want you to say “Wow!. That is an incredible deal!”

Only after you sign up, and pay your $$ (almost always in advance!!) do you find out the actual or constraining limits.

1. They place limits on the size of the memory available for your php scripts and some of your scripts don’t work.
2. They limit the types and sizes of the files you can upload.
3. They limit the numbers of the files in your hosting account.
4. Excessive data transfer at one time will get your web site suspended.
5. Excessive CPU time use will get your site suspended.
6. You get the idea… read their fine print.

Let’s do “The Math”

A disk has finite space available on it. It is not “un-limited” space. Seagate or Maxtor have yet to invent a disk that has unlimited disk space. So, how can a provider then claim “unlimited space” for your web site when it also has 500-1000 sites on the same disk?

It’s called over selling. They are banking on the fact that you won’t use up much space, and they reinforce that by limiting file sizes, types of files, number of files..you get the picture. That leaves extra space available that they can sell again to the other guys on the same server.

A disk can cost several hundreds of dollars. A server can run $1200 for a decent low end model. A hosting provider advertises unlimited space for $5.95 per month. Do you actually think that they will allow you to consume their entire expensive server for $5.95 per month??? That doesn’t even cover their cost of electricity in the data center.

Alright. So, how do they make money? That’s Easy. They cram the server with hundreds and hundreds of web sites, all with “unlimited space” and hope for the best. “Unlimited hosting” attracts the server abusers and script kiddies who try to take advantage and will in turn slow the server down handling all the stuff, and that ultimately affects your web site.

Now, you end up with a slow loading web site, or a non functional one. You call or email for support to try and get it fixed, but you get ignored because they are trying to help the other several hundred people on the same server.

Your site could be offline for hours or even days or never come back online. Not exactly what you paid for, is it?

Bandwidth

A web hosting provider needs bandwidth for his/her servers at the data center. Bandwidth can be best describe as a pipe that information flows through. The bigger the pipe, the more information or data that can be shoved into it. The problem is that bandwidth is expensive. I can see that you already know where this is heading. Will a provider let you plug up his bandwidth “pipe” for $5.95 a month? I think not.

Conclusions

Determine how much disk space your web site will “actually” use and how much data transfer you might “actually” need and find a suitable hosting plan. Avoid the unlimited places if you want a constant online presence. They may be fine at first, but each one of them will eventually have down time unlike we have here, for about the same pricing.

A lot of the web sites that we host have moved here from the “unlimited” hosts. Their sites are always up and as quick as bunnies compared to their old hosts. Read our testimonials.

…and we used to have an “unlimited reseller account” with a provider in NYC. We filled up the server disk with our web sites, and got kicked off the server. I guess we used to much of the “unlimited” space available.