Web Hosting is a commodity. The main elements of any web hosting plan are disk space and bandwidth. Disk space is the space you have allotted on the web server to store your website. Bandwidth is an amount you have available to transfer web pages from the web server to the browsers of visitors to your site. Web pages and graphics consume bandwidth or capacity on the web. Bandwidth and disk space cost money.
The network lines that carry data around the web (optic fiber, cable, copper wire etc) have a finite capacity. There is a limit to the amount of data that can be transferred at any point in time. Likewise, the hard drive of a web server has a limited amount of space determined by the physical size of the hard drive.
Many hosting companies claim to offer “unlimited” plans (both disk space and bandwidth), but be aware that there are physical limitations to both disk space and bandwidth. Before you buy an “unlimited” plan, know what you’re getting into.
Let’s digg deep and find out more about the plan and its advantages.
Understanding Unlimited Hosting Plan
Usually, Unlimited Web hosting plan refers to a web hosting plan that offers Unlimited Disk Space and Unlimited monthly Disk Transfer or Bandwidth. With more and more web hosting companies offering Unlimited space and bandwidth, the competition has intensified and now many web hosts are offering unlimited domain hosting, unlimited sub-domain, unlimited email, unlimited mysql database, etc as a part of their Unlimited Hosting package.
Literally offering every feature with no restristions. These plans are also very competitively priced. One can sign up for such plan for under $5 per month.
Such plans are very attractive and mean that the webmaster can venture out with no restrictions whatsoever. But these type of plans are surely unsustainable for any hosting company, so What’s the catch in Unlimited Hosting.
Unlimited Hosting and The Catch
If a web hosting company offers “Unlimited Hosting” plan and every one stores infinite data and attract tens of millions of visitors, then the hosting company would need have infinite number of data centers and servers to meet such usuage and demand. But do web hosts that offer unlimited plans really have such capacity? The answer is NO.
It’s technically and financially unsustainable and impossible. So When they offer Unlimited Hosting plan, the host ensures that there is always a way to restrict use. How do they do it? They do it by referring to their plan’s Terms of Service (ToS) and Fair Usage Policy (FUP). That’s the catch!
So the real advantage of “Unlimited hosting plans” is short lived when web hosts enforce fair use policy. What is fair use is dependent on so many factors and only known to the hosting company. So whenever they want to press FUP, they can to restrict almost any feature in the so called Unlimted Hosting.
Ways in which Unlimited Hosting advantages are limited by Web Hosts
As mentioned above, web hosts cite their ToS and Fair Use Policy to limit what it purports to be an Unlimited Hosting plan. Below are two most common means in which a web host may restrict or limit the Unlimited plan features:
CPU Trottling
In shared hosting, one server is used to hosts numerous webistes and in unlimited hosting, if a website is found to be using excessive server space or CPU memory on the server, the web host may limit the website’s disk space usage by trottling the site to, what it thinks is a fair share of the server. So believing that your website can post unlimited data on the server is banished.
Bandwidth Restrictions
Similar to CPU trottling, an abusive website may be restricted to use only a limited bandwidth per month and exceeding such limit would mean that the website would be unavailable to its visitors during the remainder of that month.
Above are just handful of methods to restrict the seemingly unrestricted hosting plan. In the real world, there is nothing called Unlimited web hosting. It’s part of the trick to make people sign up for hosting plan. So when choosing Unlimited Hosting you should be aware of the fact that a restriction on your use can be made by your web hosts. One should also note that web hosts, who follow the industry best practise, do not randomly restrict your use of disk space or bandwidth. So choose carefully and know what you want from an Unlimited Hosting before hand.
So What Is The Best Thing To Do?
The best course of action is to plan ahead. Calculate what type of bandwidth and disk space you will need for your site (you can use the information and tools on the FindMyHosting site to do this) then multiply it by 2 just to allow for expansion. Remember, you can always buy more bandwidth or disk space if you need – often for only a few dollars a month extra. Look for plans that meet those requirements. Another FindMyHosting article “Bandwidth Explained” does a good job explaining the details behind bandwidth.
Only consider an unlimited hosting plan if you know your disk space and bandwidth requirements are very low. If, on the other hand, you have an ecommerce site or a site that you expect to grow in size and bandwidth in future, avoid any plans that offer unlimited bandwidth or disk space.