I plan on transferring a few terabytes each month, and I plan on that coming out to at least 5 TB/month. Would I go for unlimited bandwidth? I've found some of those plans, but are they reliable? Anyone have suggestions?
Nothing illegal like warez. I'm hosting a MySpace resource site and it's very popular, and I don't use imageshack for my hosting so I can drill out a few dozen GBs/day.
Well, right now Dreamhost is expecting me to close out the month with about 600 GBs of usage, but I need a backup because each day, I use more and more GBs.
The low priced hosts that give you "unlimited bandwidth" are generally overselling and will not be reliable. When it comes to "unlimited bandwidth", there is truth to the saying "you get what you pay for". Have you looked at webhostingtalk.com for reliable hosts that might suit your needs?
You're looking for a 95th percentile plan then I think. per gig type plans are typically for the end user hosting account. Next step up is what ISP's generally get wherein you pay for a metered account that just measures your bandwidth useage - i.e. a 10mb connection or a 100mb connection. You can get these types of plans on an end user basis though - I've got a 40mbit plan myself (not likely of use to you since I'm in Canada). The problem I think you'll find with unmetered plans is that they don't actually expect you to do large volumes of traffic. If you light up a terrabyte or two they're going to have a cow - because you'll put them over their 95th percentile plan and start costing them money. (Unless you find some really large ISP, but I'd think that'd be the exception not the rule). Either way, be upfront with them when you sign up that you're going to use that much bandwidth. No surprises is best for everyone.
their is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth, their is unmetered bandwidth in which they do not check and monitor how much bandwidth you use. Unlimited bandwidth plans are mostly fake.
I'm sure there are plans out there that will say they offer that, but you shouldn't expect a quality host for that amount of bandwidth and price range.
Well I make enough money of this website to pay what is needed. Just give me some reliable plans, that's all.
hmmm, I would agree with the rest that there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth and you cannot expect 5 terabytes/mth for $15. That is massive recycling and I seriously doubt that any web host would offer that and still survive. If the bulk of the bandwidth is because of backups, why don't you opt for incremental backup so you only backup changes and not everything all over again each day. Also with that much bandwidth, I am pretty sure you make a very nice penny like at least several hundreds or thousands per month. Why not get one or more dedicated servers with a secondary harddisks solely for the purpose of backups so that you could dedicated all local backups to the secondary harddisk and 4 weekly backups to be made at the end of the week to a secure remote location. That should handle your needs better. Don't believe in unlimited bandwidth, Everything has a price and Bandwidth is not cheap. I am paying about 50cents per gb.
As people have mentioned here there is no such thing as unlimited bandwidth, there is unmetered transfer but those are on dedicated server and can run you a couple hundred to a couple thousand a month depending on many MBs you want you to the server.