| How much storage space and bandwidth will you | | | | 5 images. Using this as a guideline, you can determine |
| need for your website? This is a question that you | | | | how much space you'll need to host your site. |
| will need to answer before deciding on your web site | | | | You can calculate your bandwidth requirements in a |
| hosting. | | | | similar way. Make sure you understand the difference |
| You'll need to look at the content that you'll be | | | | between bandwidth and data transfer, however. |
| hosting on your site. Is it just plain text? Images? | | | | In non-technical terms, bandwidth is the diameter of |
| Audio and video files? | | | | a water pipe and data transfer is the amount of |
| Plain text takes the least amount of space. Images | | | | water that flows through it. If you're likely to have a |
| take considerably more and audio and video files will | | | | lot of data being transferred, you should look for high |
| need the most space. This applies to both the | | | | bandwidth plans. |
| storage and the bandwidth. | | | | If you choose a plan with high data transfer but low |
| Many web hosts offer what seems like a huge | | | | bandwidth, your site can slow to a crawl when it |
| amount of storage space, assuming that you'll never | | | | gets too many visitors. The amount of information |
| use it. If everyone hosting websites on their server | | | | you're allowed to transfer is high enough, but the |
| were to use the maximum space allowed, the | | | | pipe it's flowing through doesn't allow enough to get |
| servers would likely not be able to handle it. | | | | through at once to keep up with all the requests. |
| You'll see a range of storage and bandwidth being | | | | The best way to manage your bandwidth and space |
| offered. One host might be offering 1 gigabyte of | | | | is to keep your site as simple as possible. Don't use |
| storage while another could offer 500 megabytes at | | | | large images - optimize them for viewing on the web |
| the same price. The quality of service is a key factor | | | | which will decrease their size considerably. |
| in choosing a web host, so don't just look for the | | | | If you're not sure how to determine your needs, the |
| one with the biggest offer. | | | | better web hosting companies will be able to help |
| The rule of thumb in the hosting industry is that 2MB | | | | you figure out which of their plans will best suit your |
| of storage is enough to host 10 web pages and 4 or | | | | website. |