Ok, so I'll come out with it at the beginning... Im a noob. Ive set up self hosted blogs, but I want to try something new. My next project is going to be a youtube clone site, and I need a host. Im not really sure how much server space or bandwidth I can realistically expect to use in the first year (I could use some guidance on that too, but my twitter profile drives approx 2000 unique views a month). I have a budget of about $200 a year for hosting, which I understand wont get me much, but it is what it is. Any suggestions of places to start looking at? Thanks in advance, you rock! Now... before mass spammers hit this thread with "my hosting service is so awesome"... well I got nothing witty to say about that, but please dont waste your time.
$200 a year won't get you a reliable service, to be frank. A youtube kind of site tends to be resource hungry and yes you will need lot of space and bandwidth. So all those offering the world for few cents are going to kick you out once you start using resources. There are some hosts providing services for these kind of sites, but a good one is going to be a bit costly. I will suggest you to visit webhostingtalk.com for better guidance. Don't pay yearly, pay monthly, always take backup regularly.
Monthly is a better option as it lets you try the host out and if they end up tanking you can switch fast. My recommendation would be to find a host that specializes in media streaming (FFMPEG etc) that way you know they are up to date on the latest things and are compatible with whatever script you'll be running (like PHPMotion for example). Take a look over at www.webhostingtalk.com and look in their offers section, maybe even use the search command for like FFMPEG hosting since that is what you'll be using. I would say about $5-$7 a month starting out and when you grow you can migrate to a VPS later on and pay like $20 - $30.
1st of all if you want to get a reliable speed for your video (you need a dedicated server with unmetered bandwidth) or get a cdn or use amazon s3 (pay for what u use for). 200/mo wont get you a decent server for a large scale of streaming services.
With $200/year I would suggest you to get started using a VPS instead of a dedicated server. There are quite some VPS providers out there offering affordable services. Good luck.
Thanks for your input yall! I think Im going to have to take that 200 and get a vps @ $30 for six months and work my butt off so i can make enough to pay for the hosting on the seventh month.
I do not agree. I deem that is pretty good price for the web hosting service. I deem that will not be a problem at all to find what you know how much do you need. BTW do you have any particular web hosting provider in mind now?