Is HostICan Overselling!?! Let's debate.

[Scott]

This is going to come up eventually, so I thought I'd go ahead and bring up the question.

I see on several forums people discouraging others from signing up to hosts like HostICan because of the massive amounts of disk space and bandwidth you offer at such a low low monthly rate.

What would HostICan like to say regarding this? How do you handle offering so much disk space and bandwidth at such a low rate? If someone were to actually use all of their disk space and bandwidth, what problems will they see?

Personally, I think disk space and bandwidth are the least concern. What people should worry about before disk space and bandwidth is resource usage. It is very likely that if you have a site using this much, your resource usage would require a dedicated server if it uses any sort of system like WordPress, PHPBB, vBulletin, or other PHP based MySQL content delivery system.

Well, either way, I'd like to see this question answered officially since this topic will come up sooner or later. Probably sooner.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Scott

This is going to come up eventually, so I thought I'd go ahead and bring up the question.

I see on several forums people discouraging others from signing up to hosts like HostICan because of the massive amounts of disk space and bandwidth you offer at such a low low monthly rate.

What would HostICan like to say regarding this? How do you handle offering so much disk space and bandwidth at such a low rate? If someone were to actually use all of their disk space and bandwidth, what problems will they see?

Personally, I think disk space and bandwidth are the least concern. What people should worry about before disk space and bandwidth is resource usage. It is very likely that if you have a site using this much, your resource usage would require a dedicated server if it uses any sort of system like WordPress, PHPBB, vBulletin, or other PHP based MySQL content delivery system.

Well, either way, I'd like to see this question answered officially since this topic will come up sooner or later. Probably sooner.

Let me put a few ideas on the table, Scott.

First thing is that, in a technical sense, your bank is overselling and so is your wireless phone provider, city bus company, electric company, ISP, and so forth and so on.

What really counts here is a company's ability to handle its expected capacity and to plan for the future. One of the reasons Denis and crew are having that maintenance process this weekend is to move the servers into larger quarters, and better prepare for future growth. That's the key.

Unfortunately, some hosts become greedy, and they stuff their servers to the gills and ignore their networks. The end result is that customers suffer, and that's regardless of the amount of storage and/or bandwidth offered.

As you say, resource really counts for a lot more. Again, HostICan is a lot more generous than many hosts in this regard. They often don't pull the plug until someone goes way beyond the normal limits, and we work with a customer to help them get their resource use down. It's not easy, but it's usually possible. If not, they have to upgrade to VPS or dedicated.

I think people need to know that in a shared environment, you are in what is the equivalent of a college dormitory. You can't hog the place all to yourself. You have to respect the fact that there are lots of other people sharing the same environment and they have the right to have their sites run with great performance.

Indeed, when you are using database-intensive stuff, such as WordPress, bulletin board systems, etc., you just have to be careful about adding toys (mods and plug-ins) that will up the resource requirements. Don't use stuff that is more cosmetic than functional, and if you see that your needs in terms of your site and its expected traffic exceed shared, you have to consider moving on up.

[Scott]

Do you have shared hosting customers that are able to successful host their site on your servers that actually use the amount of disk space and bandwidth you offer?

Thanks for answering though. I'm sure it is on many customers' minds after visiting several forums.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Scott

Do you have shared hosting customers that are able to successful host their site on your servers that actually use the amount of disk space and bandwidth you offer?

Thanks for answering though. I'm sure it is on many customers' minds after visiting several forums.

The bandwidth and storage offered are indeed available, so long as you don't exceed server resources. Simple static HTML pages are the best ways to achieve this. However, most people these days prefer blogging software and forum software, which are far more taxing on a server's resources.

[securitywonks]

if we donot use php/mysql extensively other than for small counter or so and try maintaining content carefully using simple html and all, we can use the availed space and data transfer limits then ?

can you let us know, how much resource (cpu) is allowed in shared environment?, when you may suggest upgrade?

thanks for the info,

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by securitywonks

if we donot use php/mysql extensively other than for small counter or so and try maintaining content carefully using simple html and all, we can use the availed space and data transfer limits then ?

can you let us know, how much resource (cpu) is allowed in shared environment?, when you may suggest upgrade?

thanks for the info,

The limits are spelled out in the service agreement in the following link:

HostICan - Support - Pre-Sales, E-Mail, and so many more answers... :: Server resource limits

The document explains precisely what limits, other than storage and bandwidth, come into play.

The Terms of Use, linked from the bottom of the main page, explainst the rest the agreement governing use of HostICan, and you'll certainly want to examine the list of what content is prohibited.

Beyond that, as your site grows, you may want to consider expanding to VPS or dedicated.

[Scott]

Shazam, man you give me great content for my blog. LOL. Thanks for this post.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Scott

Shazam, man you give me great content for my blog. LOL. Thanks for this post.

That's what I do