Some common misconceptions: Just read a couple of threads here and thought to put up a new thread about the summary so that the viewers can familiazrize themselves with a few facts. The word "UNLIMITED": Now, I really do not want to give my justification here. Just think about it from the hosting company's point of view. If you are buying a dedicated server for about $200 which gives you around 4TB bandwidth [which is limited], how are you going to make money? ofcourse, when you are paying $200, people buying plans worth $3 would not make YOU earn anything. So now, you have to target atleast 200 people paying you $3 each to cover up the costs and make some profits. So what you do is, start offering "unlimited" things, because that word attracts a lot of people that are new in the field. Now, there are 200 people [even 50 for that matter], thinking that they got unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, when I as a host have limited resources on that server. Now, if any client manages to to make his website BIG, only that one client is eating up 30% of your resources, so what happens? all the clients go down. Conclusion : There is no such thing as UNLIMITED in the industry. 2. Traffic and used disk space affects the speed and CPU: Another topic that has been discussed a lot of times and I've seen people providing incorrect information to the poster! CPU usage and website speed are mainly concerned with the type of website you have, type of scripts its running and resources that are being used. For example, if you have a simple html website which is getting more then 5000 unique visitors every day, it should be fine. But if you have a website thats running on some heavy script like drupal, magneto shopping cart, then even 200 unique visitors a day will have the potential to bring the servers down. So next time you think about switching to the new host, first think about what are you planning to host with them. Well, hope thats helpful, running short of time right now as gotta setup a couple of servers. WIll write some more here once I get some free time.
Aren't you mixing up the real meaning of "facts" with your own opinion? If you're going to reveal "facts" then at least let them be real. Since this is nothing more than your opinion, then at least have the decency to justify them. Ah, so you're talking about a reseller who is renting a dedicated server from another hosting company as oppossed to a hosting company with their own networks, racks of servers, and who manage the whole set-up themselves. Hardly a fair comparison, and certainly not a worthy example for the "unlimited isn't possible" brigade. Our shared hosting web servers don't cost $200, more like $8000. We don't "get" 4TB of bandwidth (you mean data transfer), we need to purchase every mbps of bandwidth we use. That may be partly true, but when you have 70 people purchase $3 plans then you have covered your initial investment in hardware. Lets forget about time, software, and all the other things that go into it. Is this your business strategy? Are you telling people how to run their business? What about people who sell of $6 per month, or $10 per month? It's not about cost-plus, it's about value. We'll that would be in the case of a reseller of hosting services. Hardly the same thing at all when it comes to hosting companies with their own set-up. I'll give you your dues, and agree that what you are describing is a large part of the hosting provider market. There are surprisingly few hosts who manage it wil themselves, purchase their own servers, run their own networks, and purchase their own bandwidth. But...and it's a big one...your scenario does not cover these hosting companies doing it themselves. Surely you can do better than that? You're contradicting your next section (Traffic and Used Diskspace...). Let's cut to the chase here. No host, unlimited or not, is going to allow a single client to use 30% (or even 20% or 15%) of server resources. Althogh you haven't specified what these resources are, I'll assume (to my detriment) that you mean CPU, RAM, or Disk I/O. This has nothing to do with "unlimited" and why it isn't possible. The fact is (a real one this time) all hosting companies have restrictions on resource usage for their shared hosting customers. As I've said in earlier posts, they are partly there to protect the host, but mostly there to protect other users from someone who want to use more than their fair share (remember, I'm talking about CPU, RAM, Disk I/O, not diskspace or data transfer). I've also said the people shouldn't misunderstand "unlimited" as being the same as "unrestricted". All hosts place restrictions. Some provide details while others are less vague and talk about "fair use". It's the "fair use" hosts I'd be most worried about. If your server crashed because a single user used more than 30% of its resources, I'd be seriously concerned. Good hosts don't overload their servers and closely monitor their set-up, adding resources and facilities as demand requires. They're not "stuck" with a single re-sold server (or even 2 or 3 of them). That's how we work, and our average CPU usage for a web server is around 2-3% with peaks of around 40% for no more than a few seconds (up to 5). If servers start to get busier we see then as being overloaded, and take action to deal with it. Our limiting factor is rackspace and floor space, not disk drives on servers (I'm not discounting income because it is a very important part). Our set-up, which isn't a lot different to many companies with their own set-up, is a completely different kind of set-up too. While those with a single server run web sites, FTP, DNS, MySQL, and email on the same hardware, our systems separate them completely. Web server run web sites...that's all. DNS servers run DNS, MySQL database servers run MySQL databases and nothing else, email servers handle email and nothing else. Not only does this reduce resource usage on any single server, it reduces the impact of a failed server(it happens). Every domain is provided with services from around 14 other servers, while in your scenario everything is run from a single server and if it crashes EVERYTHING is down, and with no backup everything is potentially lost. If one of our FTP servers goes down, people can't use FTP (problem, but not critical), but their sites are still up, email still works, DB servers continue to operate. If a MySQL DB servers goes down (a more important problem) our backup and high level of resources means we can recover to another server and have it all working within minutes (sometimes), or within a couple of hours at most, but at least email was still working and parts of their web site too. If we need more diskspace, we add another SAN. If we find a web server is starting to struggle to cope, we move it to more powerful hardware or with more free resource, with a downtime measured in minutes (with a few days warning) at a time to cause least inconvenience. If a web site is using excessive resources we move them to a less busy server, a more powerful server, or help them migrate to something more suitable. That's the difference between your example of a "host" reselling space on a rented and that of hosts who purchase and operate their own set-up. When all the evidence points to the contrary, as well as your own hosting plans, that isn't true. By your logic, the offer of anything unlimited that uses up diskspace or server resources is not possible, but there you go offering unlimited email accounts. Email accounts take up space by the nature of being created (even when they aren't being used) and use up resources when being used. No matter how small, your own example doesn't make it possible for you to offer "unlimited" amounts because ultimately they will hit a barrier (disk space, resource usage, license limits). Unlimited offers of diskspace and data tranfer exists, and for many companies it's a genuine offer. It is possible to offer and it is possible to provide. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big supporter of unlimited disk space and transfer offers, although I might seem to be an apologist for them. We don't offer unlimited diskspace or transfer, but that doesn't mean I can't see how it is possible to offer it. That's a good point, and one that most people miss. Hosting is still purchased by looking at features (space, transfer, etc) and decisions made on that. These things don't matter much to hosts these days as it's all about resource use. The amount of resources being used (CPU, RAM, Disk I/O) are the real limits for modern hosts, and it's these factors that determine performance, reliability, and income, more than any other. May not "down" but certainly enough to seriously affect performance, but your point is valid. Unless people understand this completely, they aren't going to make the right decision. However, this has to be tempered by the fact that these factors are unlikely to be known by the purchaser in advance. People can know their web site size and how many page views/visitors are expected, but that doesn't tell anyone anything (except diskspace and transfer requirements). It's what the site DOES on the server that counts and you can't know that until the site goes live. Even sites that test well on development environments aren't immune. Too often we've seen sites that perform well with small visitor numbers which then don't work or randomly fail when visitor numbers increase. Nothing to do with the host, and everything to do with poor coding, coding that doesn't scale well, and systems that haven't been stress-tested (how many developers really do that?). But also remember that all hosts are not the same. Apart from the earlier example I gave, a lot also comes down to hardware. A host running a "Xeon Server with 16GB of RAM" for shared hosting may sound good, but not compared to a host offering "Dual HEX Core Westmere, RAID1 OS, RAID10 (6 drives) operating web sites, 64GB of DDR3 RAM, redundant hardware raid controllers with 1GB of cache and battery backup, with 15K SAS drives, and that server only operates web sites, runs in a load-balanced cluster - we could even throw in a redundant SAN". One host is doing it cheaply, the other host is investing seriously in performance and reliability. One host spends $400 a month on their hardware, the other host invests 6-figures (or 7 or 8-figures) annually in their hosting infrastructure. Both charge similar amounts for their hosting plans. Who would you prefer to work with? It's a good waring, but as with most of these things, tomorrow you'll see someone else saying "I only have 200 uniques a day (forget about total visitor numbers or page views!) and my host suspended me for using too many resources. They are a scammer. How can they get away with that? AVOID AVOID AVOID"
Didnt spend time reading your reply @ ROn. Just looks to me as you're a typing machine that makes no sense. SO thanks but no thanks.
Yep, the reply of someone who hasn't got an answer. Pretend you don't care, but then your pride gets the better of you and you have to say something which kinda suggests that you do care. Want to be seen as an expert who offers advice, but then can't defend it when people pick holes in your logic suggesting you aren't quite the expert you want to be. Pah! I'm no expert either, but I have a valid opinion when people type unwarranted nonsense and prejudices posing as knowledge leaders in the field. You wanted to warn other about protecting their rights when all you did was show your prejudices and lack of understanding about what goes on. No one say you need to agree with me and I don't care whether you do or not, but for goodness sake, be a man and defend your position. Sure, I type a lot, but I type fast and think fast too, so it doesn't usually take me that long. I bet I answered your posts quicker than you typed them. Oh, and if you didn't read it, how do you know I made no sense (why do people give themselves away so easily?). I made a lot more sense than you. It's always better to think before you reply. P.S. If you want to show you don't care, don't bother replying. Give up. Go on, there's no point.
This is exactly the problem with offering "unlimited" plans. It gives people unrealistic expectations when it comes to their shared hosting plan. Too many people think they are going to be the next YouTube or Facebook with one of these $5 a month "unlimited" hosting plans.