Hey Guys! I'm trying to help out a friend here with getting a Website Setup. He's planning to have about 100,000 visitors per day to his website downloading/streaming anywhere from 100,000-500,000 5-15MB music files. If my calculations are correct, there could be over a TB of bandwidth being used per day. Assuming a VPS wouldn't do the job here. A lot of the dedicated servers and VPS servers don't appear to have enough bandwidth to match this. He is aiming towards spending a few thousand dollars on servers, so he doesn't have to worry about having a "Web Hosting" company. But then we have to worry about Bandwidth with the ISP provider, as well as internet speeds. We live here in Canada, New brunswick, and are using Aliant as an ISP. I'm assuming the standard ISP like Aliant would not be reliable for this type of site and this much traffic? I know I've heard of Web Hosting companies using bandwidth providers like CogentCo which is more of a high-end bandwidth provider(ISP). Not sure if it's available or not in Canada, but I'll be looking into it. But I was just wondering if you guys have any tips or recommendations, and is what I'm saying about the ISP like Aliant correct in how they wouldn't be able to run this type of a website? We need something setup that will be consistent and not shutoff.
Hi Samie, You definitely don't want to use an ISP. Just far too unreliable, no datacenter in case something happens, power goes out, etc. Chances are they are not going to have the type of bandwidth you are looking at pushing anyway. I wouldn't even consider that. 1TB per day is going to be covered by a 100mbps connection, more or less. So a dedicated server with such a dedicated connection might work. Might be pushing it a little bit. There are also quite a few companies out there who offer high-bandwidth dedicated servers. 100tb.com comes to mind. You can get a cheap server from them for around $200/mo. with 100TB of bandwidth monthly. That would easily cover your friend's requirements. Burst also just introduced 100TB servers, but of course, they are a budget provider. Are these files actually legal, as that is also going to affect where you can get the server? If you are not legally allowed to distribute the files, then Burst or 100TB will not work for you. You're going to have to look for offshore hosting, and finding an offshore host that will actually give you that kind of bandwidth reliably probably isn't going to be an easy task.
Thank you for the details WSWD! Very informative. Yeah, I think the best route would be to signup for dedicated hosting at a site like that 100tb.com. We're looking into that site right now. I don't think we have any decent bandwidth providers in this province that would be suitable. Plus having a building suitable for this would be a bit pricey. I know I've seen some buildings in Boston that you can store servers in and they have multiple lines going to the building and it has generators and it has wind generated power incase it takes a minute for the generators to kickin. So aside from renting out some space in the building and purchasing and storing some services there. That 100tb.com site might be the only option Thanks again!
You're welcome! It sounds like in the second case, you're more or less talking about co-location, where you basically ship the company your server and they give you space for it, an entire rack, an entire room, etc. That's always an option. Unfortunately with the high bandwidth requirements you guys have, it's probably going to be cheaper just to rent the dedicated server. For $200, you can't go wrong. Now whether or not that server is powerful enough to handle the number of visitors you are talking about is another thing all together. You obviously might need to upgrade it or go with a more powerful server. Just wanted to give you a starting point. Glad it helped.
I believe that dedicated server hosting package will suit your needs.. Search for reliable Canadian companies if the most of your audience is in Canada. And, of course, choose time-tested and trusted company.