How to choose a Web Host

Author:
Published on: 19-07-2004
Views: 26827


Discuss this article [0 comments]

Hosting Features

Some choices you will have to make for a host

Bandwidth:

This is the amount of data transfer (usually in GigaBytes) that your account may use in a month. This includes web traffic, e-mail and ftp, and the usage depends greatly on the type of site. Every time an image or webpage is served from the server to the internet browser, data is transferred, hence bandwidth.

As a rough guide, 2GB bandwidth should be sufficient for a very small personal site (including any e-mails you get). 5GB should be suitable for a medium site with images and text, but no large downloads. For Large sites, 30GB is the maximum you should choose on a virtual/shared account, otherwise you would no doubt need many more resources to go with the account (a VPS account may be the best interim solution).

All good hosting companies should give send you an e-mail if you are about to outgrow your current bandwidth quota, as your site may go offline if you exceed it. Some hosts may chage you per GB over the quota at an increased rate (if you did not ask to upgrade plans). One important point to remember is do not go for so-called unlimited bandwidth plans, there is quite simply no such thing! They assume you will only use a small amount of space, but as soon as them deem your usage as too much they will penalise you under a "fair usage" policy.

Disk Space:

Disk space determines the amount of data you can store on the server and includes files uploaded to the FTP, e-mails waiting to be delivered and Database sizes. Even for a small site, at least 20MB is recommended, as you may receive a few large files via e-mail which need to be stored on its way to being delivered when you check your mail. The disk space an individual site requires does always depend on how large the site is before you upload it, so it can be easily calculated. Large downloads will obviously require more space.

If you intend to run a forum on your website, you will have to allow plenty of extra space for expansion of the database. It is a good idea to have at least 50MB free for a medium sized forum, and plenty more for a large one. You must keep track of the current free space periodically, as once it is full you may not be able to enter any more forum information into the database.

An important thing to note is to check if the disk space is "oversold". This means that the server may have 100 plans with 1000MB quotas (100GB total), but only a 60GB drive installed. This works on the basis that not all plans will have the full space used. If you have a small, static site, this may not matter too much.

Control Panels:

All hosting packages will come with some sort of control panel, this will enable you to configure your hosting package and settings without having to learn how to use the operating system. These control panels can be accessed via a secure webpage, and then appear in your web browser.

The popular control panels are : Helm, Cpanel, Hsphere, Plesk and Ensim (although there are plenty of others). The most common of these is by far Cpanel, which is Linux only for the time being. Most users would be suited to Cpanel as it can run on the cheaper Linux platform and has quite a few advanced features, yet still user friendly.