[Sinemacula]

I'm looking into dedicated hosting on an xserve, and think I have narrowed it down to two or three options. But, I do still have some questions, primarily because different hosting companies seem to use either different terminology, or measurement for the account's bandwidth.

Our sites will be mostly straight html and/or css to start. There will be some mysql and cgi or php going on, and a small amount of multimedia stuff (some testimonial quicktime videos, a few streamed mp3s). Traffic will be light to moderate (in the low 1000s/month at most, I would expect).

So, in general, what is better: unlimited data transfer with 256K bandwidth... or 100GB/month with no bandwidth cap (burstable to 45Mps)? Is 256K enough so that the majority of web pages will be served up quickly to the end user (assume they're on DSL/Cable or T1)?

Thanks,
Sinemac

[fromthecloud]

I think you're looking at a dilemma of quantity vs. speed.

If you have low traffic but would like it to be fast, choose the 100GB/month with no bandwidth cap. 100 GB is quite a bit of transfer, keep that in mind.

If you would like to have a lot of visitors, and don't mind it being a little slower, the choose to have it hosted on the 256k line.

All in all, you need to decide which option is better and what connection your clients will have. A T1 is 1.54 Mbps, Cable can be significantly faster or slower, and DSL is perhaps slightly slower than cable.

Hope this helps.

[Simon Mundy]

From a personal point of view, I'd go for the unlimited data transfer.

If you decide to also serve mail from that server, or you stream, or even if you have frequent FTPing up/down, your usage will balloon with the more users you have on your machine.

I got stung once with what seemed to be a small amount of web traffic, but people were sending me 7-8Mb emails on a regular basis and POW - big bill time.

If your sites are relatively 'tight' and bandwidth friendly and your visitor count stays mid-range, I doubt that a 256K line will adversley affect you.