Need more bandwidth allowance!

I need a RELIABLE host with MYSQL/PHP cababilities.

[Ariadoss]

Well I’m using a shared hosting plan at the moment. They are great, they have everything I need such as a Fedora RedHat Linux OS, PHP, unlimited MYSQL databases, Apache with mod_rewrite, high bandwidth allowance, large/unlimited disk space, an FTP account, POP3 email, etc. Only problem is there 99.99% advertised uptime is inaccurate if you use their “unlimited” databases (you have to call them up to get a database and can’t create your own). Apparently they have security issues on their network and when another site gets attacked, my site goes down, so it’s more like an 80% uptime. My problem is I don’t know how much bandwidth I will need if I switch hosts because I have no way of measuring it, and my host is to disorganized to even know if I go over my allowed bandwidth to even charge me extra.

My average page generation size is exactly: 28,205 bytes
My average monthly page views are about: 5,000,000

Is there like a bandwidth calculator or something that will tell me how much bandwidth I will need and any recommendations for hosting? Is it even worth switching hosts, since I pay under $200 a year for my current host?

[lZakl]

My average page generation size is exactly: 28,205 bytes
My average monthly page views are about: 5,000,000

Looking at your post, I'd say ... If each page viewed is roughly 28,205 bytes, or 28K, (lets call it 35K to be safe) then multiply that number by the amount of hits you get (if it's not an adult site, advertising, or dot com promoter I'm impressed) which is 5,000,000. This number becomes 175,000,000. Divided by 1,000 this gives you 175,000 megs and divided by 1,000 again gives you 175GB of data transfer. Yahoo! Hosting offers 200GB for about 40 per month. This give you 10GB of storage, but for the price you are paying now, you could have 50GB storage and 1 Terabyte of data transfer right? I mean Yahoo is not the only web host out there, and surely someone who gets 5,000,000 hits a month must know this? I am SURE you could find a host that offers what you need. I mean if Yahoo can give you PHP/MYSQL, then there HAS to be a company that can offer what you need at an affordable price.

Oh... and google is our friend...

[Ariadoss]

Well actually I run a Harry Potter RPG site, I'm not even 18, I can't even legally look at adult sites. The reason I asked for a host recommendation is I wanted to see if anyone knew a reliable site that actually does what they say they do. It is okay though I contacted my host and they said if I purchase a dedicated server my site wont be affected by other sites on the their network being attacked by hackers. Also they said I will be able to set up FTP accounts and Databases myself and be able to transfer my databases for me. I figured since I’m releasing two new sites this month I might as well buy the dedicated server they had a Christmas sale for:

CPU: Intel P3 866 Mhz
Memory: 1024M
Disk: 40GB (is this enough?)
Monthly Fee: $54.99
Transfer: 2000 GB (I figure I can host my friends sites with this?)

I really appreciate you showing me how to compute the bandwidth usage though, that helped a lot cause I’m planning to get about 15 million new visitors a month with my next two sites.

[lZakl]

This is not a bad price if you trust their security. Also another thing to consider is the amount of downtime should the server go down due to natural causes, or otherwise. Some other questions I would ask if I was going with a remote host with a dedicated server:

1) Do they have battery backup?
2) What virus protection are they using? (not really applicable for UNIX)
3) If you went down, how long would a remote boot take? (do they offer 24 hr support?)
4) Will they give you remote dail-in access?
5) Can you install your own software? i.e. 3rd party encryption appplications
6) Firewall. What type is it? You may be on your own server, but is there a central firewall? If so, you still may be at risk due to someone else's sloppy dedicated server configurations.

Also, if I were used to spending $200 a month, I would consider buying my own machine (One comperable to that which they are offering are often sub $500) and have my DSL upgraded to a business line with a dedicated IP. Usually that cost's about $150 a month, and you'd have the server sitting in your bedroom.

[Ariadoss]

Well thanks for the suggested questions I will ask them. Also at home I have a digital broadband connection that connects at speeds ranging from 2.5 Mbps to 4 Mbps (I believe this is faster than Business DSL), how many people a month would I be able to support on a connection like this?

[lZakl]

Your connection speed is sufficient, however, before attemting to set up your own server from home, I'd contact your ISP and see if it is allowed without getting a small-business plan. Also is your IP address static or dynamic... It will need to be static to have a web address pointing to it.

[carguy84]

Ariadoss, your 2.5-5Mbps is your download speed, what you would need to look at is your upload speed since you would be serving the pages, not downloading them. Chances are, at most, you probably have 750Kbs, which for a site with 5,000,000 page views a month, probably isn't going to cut it on a cable modem.

Also, a lot of ISPs block port 80, so you wouldn't be able to run a site on the default port(kind of an important piece).

40Gigs seems like a good amount of space, but I'd imagine your log files are 400-600megs a day, no? GZipping them up every night will get them down to 30megs(ish), so you're looking at 1 gigabyte of traffic logs per month.

Not sure how big your DB is?

Images, photos, mp3s, downloads?

And to add on to lZakl's questions, how about any RAID redundancy available on the server?

I wouldn't run a website with 5million page views/month on a server running a DB and only 1 processor either. But if you're having real problems with your site now, anything it *probably* better. $50/month and 2 terabytes of transfer seems too god to be true, but let me know how it goes, because that is a seriously good deal.

Chip-

[cooldoug]

<snip>

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 4:32 am (utc) on Mar. 4, 2005]
[edit reason] no commercial urls please. [/edit]

[Ariadoss]

well yeah it is working fine actually. my db size is 217 MB on my main site.