how many members can a web host hold? Options

[rail01]

if you have a web host like dreamhost or bluehost and have forums with profiles whats the max account/registered members and guest it could hold?

[S-Majere]

It really depends on the server space of the host. Look at Myspace and Facebook!

[rail01]

im sure they have there own servers. im talking about normal host.

[S-Majere]

No difference, really. They'd have their own servers too.

[fixtatik]

if you were to get hosted with DreamHost, potentially unlimited. all the DreamHost packages have a feature that increases 2GB space & 40GB bandwidth every week you're a member.

[rail01]

how many members will 40GB bandwidth hold?

[libertie]

^I don't know an exact number or even an estimate, but I can guess that if it continues to grow at that rate it would be fairly scalable and would hold as many as you need.

[synatribe]

how many members will 40GB bandwidth hold?

do you members to site ore visitors? because bandwidth is number of visitors

[fixtatik]

how many members will 40GB bandwidth hold?

it would depend completely upon how active your users are, and how big the forum (i'm assuming that's what you're doing?) script is.

bandwidth is just describing how much of your content is used during a month. for example, if you have a 3MB song on your site, and 300 visitors listen to that song in one month, you'll have used up 900MB bandwidth.

the same will go for a forum. the amount of space and bandwidth used will depend on how much each user types in each post, how many pages they visit, what pages they visit, and the same for random people who stumble upon your site. on the other hand, you could have 50,000 visitors, but if none of them do anything, you'll hardly use any space or bandwidth.

your database will increase in size for every member who signs up, as well as each time a member writes a post. also, every time a thread gets longer, the more bandwidth it will use, because the file is bigger.

i forgot to mention, remember that the 40GB at DreamHost is by how much it increases every week. you'll start with 500GB space & 5000GB monthly bandwidth.

for the average person, that's way overkill. even extremely popular websites (like adobe.com) are barely using that much every month (traffic alone, excluding downloads).

most of the popular, developed personal blogs scattered around the net are using around 3 or 4 GB bandwidth.

by the time you use up 500GB (+2 / week) space & 5000GB (+40 / week) bandwidth, you'd probably be looking to upgrade to a dedicated server (and if you run ads, you'd easily be making around $10,000 / month).

Reason for edit: Posts merged, you can always edit your post. Tc

[synatribe]

by the time you use up 500GB (+2 / week) space & 5000GB (+40 / week) bandwidth, you'd probably be looking to upgrade to a dedicated server (and if you run ads, you'd easily be making around $10,000 / month).

but these are very rare cases here on createblog:], most of us run 3-4 or even5 GB of space because we're just webdesigners, not tom from myspace:]although you will be making 10,000 a month you still have to pay for the servers which would be like 100 dollars and your not guaranteed to make 10,000 from the get go, many people become bankrupt not playing it smart while trying to start another site like myspace or xanga because with the profits come expenditures, :]

[rail01]

good info. but why would you get more GB every week? what if you dont surpass the number of members or visitors you have?

[synatribe]

only dreamhost gives you more GB every week, thats what makes them different from other hosts, however unless you want to run a site like myspace you dont need extra GB every week. :]

[fixtatik]

...unless you want to run a site like myspace you dont need extra GB every week. :]

haha, myspace is using hundreds of servers, with more power and space than anything DreamHost offers. i remember back when myspace first started, they had something like five servers and were assigning a million users to each machine. that didn't work out well, because one server could have half a million people that never used the site, and another could have every one of the members extremely active. now myspace is using separate servers; some are designated for only pictures, some for profiles, some for chat, some for forums, some for videos.

keep in mind, though, any web host you decide to go with is going to be on a shared server, with many other customers, unless you choose specifically to rent a computer to host only your site. most [decent] dedicated servers are upwards of $150 / month and you usually get a mere 120 or so GB of space. then you'd have to factor in that you'd need a lot of RAM if you're looking to build a very popular forum or social network that uses a MySQL database. databases require a much more powerful computer than sites built with flat files. extra RAM can get costly.

[rail01]

if your paying for more space and the price goes up, what happens if people stop visting and less room is being taken? will the price go back down? BTW how many members and visitors are on abode?

[fixtatik]

if your paying for more space and the price goes up, what happens if people stop visting and less room is being taken? will the price go back down? BTW how many members and visitors are on abode?

prices are usually fixed prices. i've yet to see a host that actually varies their prices by month. the extra space & bandwidth every week is just a feature that DreamHost offers with their plans. basically, from the start, you'll be paying for space you don't need.

adobe.com gets over 18 million visitors a day, which is going to translate to about 60-70GB of traffic per month, again excluding downloads. a lot of hosts these days are offering 5TB and more of monthly bandwidth - 5,120GB available bandwidth every month. adobe uses media temple as their hosting provider, and are on clustered servers, which is a whole different ballpark than a shared server. if they receive a surge in traffic, clustered servers will much better be able to handle it than would a shared server - clusters can burst the memory, using it from other machines in the data center.

[rail01]

18 mil..wow lol, i dont even want to know what myspace or youtube are holding. thanks for the info.

[fixtatik]

myspace is about 150,000,000 / day & youtube is close to 300 million.

*the more you know* :D

[rail01]

do you think bluehost or hostingzoom is as good as media temple for hosting? anyone...

[synatribe]

bluehost is actually very good, I hear a lot of recommendations for blue host because dreamhost and some other host own bluehost, Im not sure about hosting zoom, havent heard many things about them

[fixtatik]

do you think bluehost or hostingzoom is as good as media temple for hosting? anyone...

i'd say hostingzoom is better than bluehost, but not as good as (mt). hostingzoom claims clustered servers, but they're just mirrored for email & databases. basically, if you sign up with hostingzoom your account is assigned two servers: one for email, one for your website. both are mirrors of each other, so if one goes down, the other picks up the slack.

bluehost merely mentions "quality equipment" which has nothing to do with how servers are going to handle high loads. even their site is poorly designed. it might be personal opinion, but i believe if a site can't design properly or hire someone to do it for them, then they don't take pride in their work.

(mt) on the other hand, is a true grid cluster. you're originally placed on one server. because all the servers (except for VPS) at (mt) are in a grid, if you get a sudden surge in traffic, your computer will "borrow" resources from another computer. the same goes if your server crashes. they have hundreds of servers all mirrored together, so downtime is basically nonexistent.

once i get my site developed enough, i'll probably go with media temple. $220 / year, but it's totally worth it. i've never seen a host with better quality than (mt). i was with them for a year, but i couldn't afford the bill anymore.

[synatribe]

i'd say hostingzoom is better than bluehost, but not as good as (mt). hostingzoom claims clustered servers, but they're just mirrored for email & databases. basically, if you sign up with hostingzoom your account is assigned two servers: one for email, one for your website. both are mirrors of each other, so if one goes down, the other picks up the slack.

bluehost merely mentions "quality equipment" which has nothing to do with how servers are going to handle high loads. even their site is poorly designed. it might be personal opinion, but i believe if a site can design properly or hire someone to do it for them, then they don't take pride in their work.

(mt) on the other hand, is a true grid cluster. you're originally placed on one server. because all the servers (except for VPS) at (mt) are in a grid, if you get a sudden surge in traffic, your computer will "borrow" resources from another computer. the same goes if your server crashes. they have hundreds of servers all mirrored together, so downtime is basically nonexistent.

once i get my site developed enough, i'll probably go with media temple. $220 / year, but it's totally worth it. i've never seen a host with better quality than (mt). i was with them for a year, but i couldn't afford the bill anymore.

i dont know what Im talking about, just go with hosting zoom:]

[rail01]

it would depend completely upon how active your users are, and how big the forum (i'm assuming that's what you're doing?) script is.

bandwidth is just describing how much of your content is used during a month. for example, if you have a 3MB song on your site, and 300 visitors listen to that song in one month, you'll have used up 900MB bandwidth.

the same will go for a forum. the amount of space and bandwidth used will depend on how much each user types in each post, how many pages they visit, what pages they visit, and the same for random people who stumble upon your site. on the other hand, you could have 50,000 visitors, but if none of them do anything, you'll hardly use any space or bandwidth.

your database will increase in size for every member who signs up, as well as each time a member writes a post. also, every time a thread gets longer, the more bandwidth it will use, because the file is bigger.

i forgot to mention, remember that the 40GB at DreamHost is by how much it increases every week. you'll start with 500GB space & 5000GB monthly bandwidth.

for the average person, that's way overkill. even extremely popular websites (like adobe.com) are barely using that much every month (traffic alone, excluding downloads).

most of the popular, developed personal blogs scattered around the net are using around 3 or 4 GB bandwidth.

by the time you use up 500GB (+2 / week) space & 5000GB (+40 / week) bandwidth, you'd probably be looking to upgrade to a dedicated server (and if you run ads, you'd easily be making around $10,000 / month).

so if adobe.com gets over 18 million visitors a day, which is going to translate to about 60-70GB, how many vistors is 5000GB bandwidth?

BTW "(if you run ads, you'd easily be making around $10,000 / month)" dont sites run ads regardless? isnt part of that money going back to pay the space?

[heyo-captain-jac...]

5000gb bandwidth is around 5 billion.

Only free hosts run ads.

If thats what you're looking for, then just pay for it. Its not all that expensive and its really worth it.

[rail01]

5000gb bandwidth is around 5 billion.

Only free hosts run ads.

If thats what you're looking for, then just pay for it. Its not all that expensive and its really worth it.

so if youtube has 300 million, how did they make millions?

[heyo-captain-jac...]

Youtube gets 300 million per day.

My estimate of 5 billion is per month.