The Question Of Unlimited Disk Storage And Bandwidth

If you go online in search for a hosting deal today, you will probably see a lot of deals stating that they offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth. Before you get too excited about these deals, you have got to be aware that this is actually a marketing method called overselling. It is a very common thing in today’s web hosting industry. Companies are fighting head to head in order to win the hearts of customers.

Let us understand what overselling actually means. Overselling is a term that describes something that someone is selling something which he or she can’t possibly sell. As an example, a train company that has a train that can fit 300 passengers but the train company is selling 350 seats. Now, that is a clear way to understand what overselling is. The company dares to do this because they know that there are bound to have some ticket buyers that will not turn up to take the train. Therefore, they will have enough seats for everyone that comes.

Honestly, this is not cheating but merely a marketing method. If it is done in the right way, it can bring a lot of profits. However, if it is used in the wrong way, it will ruin the company. So, it really depends on how ethical a company is when operating their business.

In web hosting, this strategy is being used in a big way. It is very common to see companies offering unlimited hosting deals because there is virtually thousands of company out there competing with one another. Smaller companies have to use this method in order to compare with bigger providers. Adding to the fact that customers would like to get as much disk space and bandwidth as possible but pay as less money as possible.

To understand how overselling works in the web hosting industry, here is a scenario that can make you understand. Say that there is a company called company X that has 20000GB of bandwidth and 2000GB of disk space. If they come up with packages that provide the user with 2000GB of bandwidth and 200GB of storage space, they can only accommodate 10 customers. This is the fact theoretically and mathematically. However, statistics have shown that 90 % of their customers will only use up 10% of the resources that they are provided. Therefore, company X can accept more customers. When they do this, they are overselling.

This will surely get you to think about the truth about unlimited bandwidth. Is it really true that unlimited bandwidth is possible? NO, it is not. No matter how big a server is, there is still a size to it. This is the same with the amount of data that can be transferred. If any user exceeds the amount of bandwidth that they were allocated, their account will be suspended. If a customer used up either the CPU usage, RAM usage or the database connection, they will hit their bandwidth limit.

So, don’t get all surprised if you run into this problem with your website. Hosting providers state this clearly in their terms of service document. The sentence in the TOS usually reads like this, “If a user is monopolizing a server resource, XYZ Hosting Company has the right to immediately suspend the account for resource abuse. No refund will be offered.”

So, beware of this trick that web hosting companies are using to lure you into their deals.

Some final words before we end this…

Web hosting, without doubt, is a must-learn topic for every modern business owner nowadays. As you were reading this article, you probably need some web hosting guides.

If so, check out TopWebHostReview.net (TWHR) web host reviews for more unbiased information on web hosting.

Article by Justin Knights, freelance writer.

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