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What Is Web
Hosting
The URL & How It Works
Storage &
Transfer Explained
How to Choose a Hosting Plan
General Considerations
Linux vs Windows Hosting
Starting an
Internet Business
Getting Started: Keyword Research
Choosing Your Domain Name
Purchasing a Domain Name
Who Owns Your Domain Name?
Building Your Web Site
Track Your Website Traffic
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Storage & Transfer Explained
By Vernon Sandel Storage This
is the total amount of memory on your internet hosting service
provider's server that will be allotted to your web site. All
information on the internet, and in your computer as well, is coded and
transmitted as streams of “bits”, 0’s and 1’s. These bits are packaged
in groups of eight bits to form a “byte”, which is like one letter or
digit in our written language. Just as combinations of letters make up
words with various meanings, combinations of these bytes make up all the
instructions for your internet browser to construct the web pages on
your computer screen. The average web page is about 100k
bites. (The k stands for thousand.) If it is much larger than this it
will take too long for people with a phone internet connection to
download, and that will discourage some people from visiting the site.
The amount of memory required for a web site varies greatly with the
type of web site. Music, video, and high resolution pictures are the
types of media that are memory intensive. If you plan to offer these on
your site you will need a hosting plan that has plenty of memory, and it
might be best to talk to a prospective host to get their recommendation
as to a hosting plan. Transfer or Bandwidth Transfer
and Bandwidth are the same concept, only the units differ. The
"Transfer" listed in the table is the number of bytes of information per
month that are allowed to be transmitted to and from your web site in a
given hosting plan. Exceed that limit and your web site will be shut
down until the next month. Transfer is measured in bytes per
month.
Bandwidth is measured in bits per second, although some web hosts
call their transfer limitation bandwidth as well. When used in
this context it is considered to be bytes per month.
When a web page is sent out from an internet hosting service
provider's server to your computer, it is sent as a stream of bits. The
speed of that stream in bits per second (b/s) is the bandwidth of that
transfer. Internet hosting service providers can have different
internet connection bandwidths just like your computer's connection to
your internet provider can. For example, your connection to your
internet provider has a bandwidth which depends on the type of internet
connection you have. The bandwidth of a dial up internet connection has
an upper limit of 56k (where k = 1,000) bits (b) per second, whereas DSL
and cable offer bandwidths of 256kb/s up to 24,000kb/s and possibly
even higher with cable. Just as you have a limited bandwidth in your
connection to your internet provider, your internet hosting service
provider has a bandwidth limitation as well, which will depend on the
number and type of connections they have to the internet. When traffic
to and from the web host is heavy, that maximum bandwidth may be reach
and the flow of information in and out of the host's servers can go no
faster. Any further increase in traffic will slow the transfer of
information for everybody communicating with that host. For this reason
web hosts usually set a limit on the amount of information that each
hosting package can transfer each month. It is also the reason it is
advisable to choose a large national web host rather than a small local
one since the national firm is less likely to run out of bandwidth.
Some web hosts measure bandwidth and some do not. Those sites that do
not measure bandwidth presume that they have sufficient connectivity to
the web that their maximum data transmission rate will not be
oversubscribed. This may or may not be true. Therefore, even though a
host’s bandwidth specification is “not measured” or “unlimited”, adding
too many customers without upgrading the bandwidth of their connectivity
to the web will result in slowed data transmission. |
