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Unlimited Hosting

.Bobby said:
Well, as you've just seen how long this thread can get just by explaining to users like you why the term 'unlimited' in HostGator, and bigger companies, exist.

They use the term 'unlimited' in a general field. They obviously don't literally mean 'unlimited' as in, i've got a 1TB HDD, but i'm going to let you use 200TB for your site. Unlimited to them, is Hardware Upgrade. When they notice their User Usage is about to hit the max. their Servers can handle, they upgrade their hardware, buy more bandwidth, and resources altogether. This is a simple logic which I hope you, and others lurking around would be able to accept, and understand.

Like mentioned earlier, the term 'unlimited' is only usable with Bigger Companies, eg. HostGator. Yes, you may call small-time companies that offer 'Unlimited' hosting, 'Scams', but you definitely cannot call Companies like CWahi, HostGator - 'Scams' , as they definitely know what they are doing, and offering to their Users.

I've just spent a good 45minutes reading through the whole TOS of HostGator, and putting together a little summary of what you can, and can't do on HostGator Accounts. This is in .pdf Format. If you want this, PM me for it.


Regards,
Bobby
Click to expand...

We know it exists in their terms but in the physical sense it doesn't. Also note how I put "MOST" companies. For companies such as HostGator, dreamhost its nothing more then a marketing ploy. To reel people into the keep net. I don't need this explained to me thank you.

Hardware upgrades are limited too...

There are always technical constraints. Anyone who believes you can just stick another hard drive on a server is very misinformed. It's not all about HD space their are other constraints. CPU load is limited and so much more.. if someone decided to bring their huge website running several mysql databases and tons of queries they would cause huge spikes which would slow the server down for other users.

At the end of the day its up to customers. Quality or Quantity.
 
"Unlimited/science" vs "Unlimited/marketing"

Lots of stuff here. Lessee...

1. PCHosting gets my vote for coming very near to doing "Devil's Advocate". But he's being intelligent and civil, so he gets my thread opener for at least being interesting.

2. There is no such thing as "unlimited/science" anything. Period.

3. "Unlimited/marketing" is an attempt to linguistically force a synonym that doesn't actually exist. As such I'd like to delete the word from this discussion and replace it in each case with a phrase that actually describes what is being offered, so it can be evaluated sensibly. Let's try a few:

3a. "No Fixed Cap". We get to play a game of stratego(tm) where I upload my site and you watch your resources until I either am unable to expand the site further (flag) vs. provider's service tanking under the load (bomb).

3b. "Can't Do This". There is no such thing as "file storage/marketing". It's like saying something is "Natural". Web sites ARE files. So what is really meant is "no audio-visual media files over X size and/or no software package files over x size". If you decide "everything must be linked" then fine - I'll make a turbo-powersweep program that links all files on the account.

3c. "Not My Fault". AOL invented the version of "Unlimited/marketing" whereupon their access systems couldn't handle the load, and so you didn't get on at all. Or "but I had a DDOS attack and it's not my fault I lost a drive"... sorry. Still not "unlimited/science".

3d "Unlimited for three days". Ever hear of Bernie Madoff? It's called the Pyramid Scam and it's illegal. In server terms you fund the first 10 clients with the next 20's unused space, until in the fifth round the whole thing caves and then it becomes Very Limited.

3e. "Read the TOS" seems to have ocurred in the discussion a lot. What TOS? If it's "unlimited" then you don't need TOS. All Terms are only euphemisms to skate away from actually providing "unlimited/science" service, into your particular variant of "unlimited/marketing".

-------------

So. In light of these and other replacement phrases, what exactly are you promoting?
 
*shrug* Unlimited argument again?

Honestly, there isn't a theoretical limit on what a host can provide. If they have the dollars then they can provide you unlimited. Whether they do or not isn't for us to judge.

Example: I have a personal account I've had with Dreamhost since 2003 or around that I use more than 1TB of disk space and close to 8TB/month bandwidth. Have they ever asked me a question? Complained? Suspended? Nope.

I'm treated like anyone else...never a single complaint.

A host can buy SAN on top of SAN... Really, the only limit is them standing behind their word. Most hosts do.

You just have to watch their words... Check their terms of service. Most providers will offer you unlimited everything as long as you abide by some rules....

Those rules being:
No file servers
No backup storage
No mirroring
etc.

In other words, it is unlimited for as much as you can put there that has to do with your website. You cannot just backup all your home servers to it.. You can't use it for rsyncing FreeBSD repositories, etc.

In other words, don't abuse it and you'll be fine in most cases.
 
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all I am going to say is:
its the small hosting providers offering 'dedicated' resources who are scamming you if someone pays for 50GB and only uses 10, they don't get anything back from the provider so why shouldn't someone else use it?
overselling! 9/10 people never use the resources they are offered, so these hosts charging you 9.99 for 1GB space and 50GBs bandwidth are ripping you off and keeping the extra for themselves.

With all the tools available today, there is no reason NOT to oversell (except laziness, incompetence, stupidity and lack of funds, it can be easily managed and your giving the customer alot more 'if' they ever need it.

Why sign up with a provider for 1GB of space and 50GB of bandwidth for 9.99/month on a ----ty single server setup when you can get put on a larger over seller hosts cluster with 100 times the resource limits and 100 times the power/reliability?


Whos ripping who off?
of course you have to choose wise, but that gos without saying, no matter what 'type' of shared hosting you go for.
Overselling is the majority market and anyone that wanted to make a strong company in a flooded market is stupid not to do it.
If you dont have the funds for 400-1000$/month to setup a decent shared hosting environment, your not a shared host anyway.
You should stick to reselling a larger hosts webhosting that way you know your clients are getting true shared hosting and not this single server overload crap.
 
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^^ I know of a small Australian ISP who has a single server (here in a canberrean datacentre) they sell VPS's from on a 6Mbit metered line. I was like "SIX Mbit? That's laughable! It's not even 10Mbit and they're running what between 20-40 VPS's on it??" You do the maths that's not very fast hosting!"

Apparently the way they see it is this: the cost of a single server on a metered 6Mbit line is small, and the profit from 20-40 VPS accounts is good; and if they need to they can always buy more bandwidth from the datacentre.

Who's ripping who off? Indeed. Very well put .oa. - hosts that don't oversell are wasting their resources. You can always add HDD's, servers and upgrade your bandwidth.
 
PN-Matt said:
We know it exists in their terms but in the physical sense it doesn't. Also note how I put "MOST" companies. For companies such as HostGator, dreamhost its nothing more then a marketing ploy. To reel people into the keep net. I don't need this explained to me thank you.

Hardware upgrades are limited too...

There are always technical constraints. Anyone who believes you can just stick another hard drive on a server is very misinformed. It's not all about HD space their are other constraints. CPU load is limited and so much more.. if someone decided to bring their huge website running several mysql databases and tons of queries they would cause huge spikes which would slow the server down for other users.

At the end of the day its up to customers. Quality or Quantity.
Click to expand...

Why on earth would hostgator need a "marketing ploy"?

There huge and have new customers every day. What you have said is more like a conspiracy theory.
 
TaoPhoenix said:
Lots of stuff here. Lessee...

1. PCHosting gets my vote for coming very near to doing "Devil's Advocate". But he's being intelligent and civil, so he gets my thread opener for at least being interesting.

2. There is no such thing as "unlimited/science" anything. Period.

3. "Unlimited/marketing" is an attempt to linguistically force a synonym that doesn't actually exist. As such I'd like to delete the word from this discussion and replace it in each case with a phrase that actually describes what is being offered, so it can be evaluated sensibly. Let's try a few:

3a. "No Fixed Cap". We get to play a game of stratego(tm) where I upload my site and you watch your resources until I either am unable to expand the site further (flag) vs. provider's service tanking under the load (bomb).

3b. "Can't Do This". There is no such thing as "file storage/marketing". It's like saying something is "Natural". Web sites ARE files. So what is really meant is "no audio-visual media files over X size and/or no software package files over x size". If you decide "everything must be linked" then fine - I'll make a turbo-powersweep program that links all files on the account.

3c. "Not My Fault". AOL invented the version of "Unlimited/marketing" whereupon their access systems couldn't handle the load, and so you didn't get on at all. Or "but I had a DDOS attack and it's not my fault I lost a drive"... sorry. Still not "unlimited/science".

3d "Unlimited for three days". Ever hear of Bernie Madoff? It's called the Pyramid Scam and it's illegal. In server terms you fund the first 10 clients with the next 20's unused space, until in the fifth round the whole thing caves and then it becomes Very Limited.

3e. "Read the TOS" seems to have ocurred in the discussion a lot. What TOS? If it's "unlimited" then you don't need TOS. All Terms are only euphemisms to skate away from actually providing "unlimited/science" service, into your particular variant of "unlimited/marketing".

-------------

So. In light of these and other replacement phrases, what exactly are you promoting?
Click to expand...


I will not even wast my breath with answering your post, but the comment about TOS got to me. Every company needs a TOS to protect them self. As you should know in different country there are different laws. In the UK we are allowed to have more marital hosted on our servers compared to the US.

Hosting company's especially need a TOS to stop any possibility of being closed down when it comes to material being on the server that might be braking the law.

But its not to just protect the company but the customers. For example I once used to have a video streaming site like you tube. I got suspended, NOT because i was using to much disk space or bandwidth on a unlimited plan but because i was hosting videos. I read there TOS word by word there TOS never said any think. I had it out with them said i would take them to court if they try to remove me from there servers. But to my surprise they turned around and said that they was sorry it was a mistake on there part and i continued for 1 year till i closed the site.

That is one example of why a hosting company needs a TOS.

And if you was to run a hosting company with out a TOS i would be concerned with what you might be getting away with.
 
There is no such thing as unlimited transfer, here's why:

max bandwidth * 3600 * 24 *31 /8 = max transfer / month in megabytes

so a 10 Mbps line will require approx (rounded up) 3.2 Terabyte per month of transfer

meaning that a line cannot transfer more than 3.2 terabytes of data per month leading to a conclusion that it isn't unlimited and that it is limited by the bandwidth you are given by the host.

Now you could argue that a host could had lines but eventually your server will run out of expansion space and you won't be able to add more networking cards and therefore hit a LIMIT.
 
Ok lets change from from unlimited hosting to the fact that if you sit down and truly think about the following sites and ask your self why and how can they provide the services that they provide with out running out of space and bandwidth and closing down.


  • myspace
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • person.com
These are only some of the sites out there that require an unbelievable amount of space to run. But how?

How do they add what they need to keep there sites going, They don't go that is it we are out of space time to close down. It's called upgrading. When I first started to study IT I told this "When you buy a any thing that is IT related the next day it becomes out of date. There is always some think new in the IT industry the next day that makes it out of date." I was told this by my tutor. And it is true, and although you can't upgrade every day, you can upgrade at any point to make your system/server to suit the needs of the owner.
 
bariteau said:
There is no such thing as unlimited transfer, here's why:

max bandwidth * 3600 * 24 *31 /8 = max transfer / month in megabytes

so a 10 Mbps line will require approx (rounded up) 3.2 Terabyte per month of transfer

meaning that a line cannot transfer more than 3.2 terabytes of data per month leading to a conclusion that it isn't unlimited and that it is limited by the bandwidth you are given by the host.

Now you could argue that a host could had lines but eventually your server will run out of expansion space and you won't be able to add more networking cards and therefore hit a LIMIT.
Click to expand...

Then you buy a new server and connect it to work with your other server, this is called upgrading network. MS Server 2008 makes it so easy to add a new server to the network to make your network expand. So where as the 1 server may have a limit on what you can do with it the network has not. You can keep on added more and more severs to work coincide with the other servers on the network its really not that hard. Hostgator started off with 1 server then it became 2, 3 ,4 and so on until they had a server room. Any host with money can do this. Not just hosts but any company that may run a site like myspace. It's how it is done.
 
TaoPhoenix: 2. There is no such thing as "unlimited/science" anything. Period.

Well the internet is not infinite, just like the ocean isn't infinite - but people still take their fishing-ships out to do an "unlimited" amount of fishing.

TaoPhoenix:
3. "Unlimited/marketing" is an attempt to linguistically force a synonym that doesn't actually exist. As such I'd like to delete the word from this discussion and replace it in each case with a phrase that actually describes what is being offered, so it can be evaluated sensibly. Let's try a few:

3a. "No Fixed Cap". We get to play a game of stratego(tm) where I upload my site and you watch your resources until I either am unable to expand the site further (flag) vs. provider's service tanking under the load (bomb).

3b. "Can't Do This". There is no such thing as "file storage/marketing". It's like saying something is "Natural". Web sites ARE files. So what is really meant is "no audio-visual media files over X size and/or no software package files over x size". If you decide "everything must be linked" then fine - I'll make a turbo-powersweep program that links all files on the account.

This catches my eye, as your paraphrase is a clear strawman argument:
"If you decide "everything must be linked" then fine - I'll make a turbo-powersweep program that links all files on the account."

The host usually places restrictions as such: 1. all files must be used by your website; 2. you may not use over a specific ammount of system resources (RAM, processor speed) on SHARED HOSTING. Both are obvious, yet your strawman argument is not.

TaoPhoenix:
3c. "Not My Fault". AOL invented the version of "Unlimited/marketing" whereupon their access systems couldn't handle the load, and so you didn't get on at all. Or "but I had a DDOS attack and it's not my fault I lost a drive"... sorry. Still not "unlimited/science".

I don't really understand what you mean by this.

TaoPhoenix:
3d "Unlimited for three days". Ever hear of Bernie Madoff? It's called the Pyramid Scam and it's illegal. In server terms you fund the first 10 clients with the next 20's unused space, until in the fifth round the whole thing caves and then it becomes Very Limited.

Another badly constructed strawman argument. In fact it's a terrible argument even to begin with. A pyramid scheme refers to a business model that is not exponentially sustainable because it relies on money from "joining members" to pay to "higher level members". An Unlimited/Unlimited host doesn't give any money whatsoever (none, zip, nada) to their members, they TAKE members. They don't split them into "levels" nor do they class them as being clients under each-other. It's not network marketing or anything resembling it, so it certainly isn't MLM or a Pyramid Scheme.

Fact of the matter is that you've got it completely backwards: you fund the NEXT twenty clients with the money you earned from the FIRST twenty.

TaoPhoenix:
3e. "Read the TOS" seems to have ocurred in the discussion a lot. What TOS? If it's "unlimited" then you don't need TOS. All Terms are only euphemisms to skate away from actually providing "unlimited/science" service, into your particular variant of "unlimited/marketing".

I was at an "all you can eat" dinner one time. I'm going to tell you a story: I was invited there, and I paid my $15 (or whatever it was), and ate, and drank beer from the bar (you have to pay for that, obviously), and there was a sign that said "we reserve the right to charge extra for excessive consumption" or something to that effect. Okay, you're with me?

So one of the other people invited to this function didn't pay for dinner, instead he simply said "I'm just going to have drinks". He too ate as much as he wanted from the all-you-can-eat food, going back several times.

I call that stealing myself, but whatever.

Obviously their business model is sustainable even when people come in and abuse them like that.

Get over it.
 
Some people in this thread are very confused and are linking overselling directly to unlimited hosting. Many hosts oversell its not unethical. I think the process of unlimited hosting is in many cases.

I find it incredible that some people can think upgrading without constraints. If you don't have the money you will crash, if you don't have the expertise you will crash and it goes on...
 
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"Unbelieveable"

PCHosting said:
Ok lets change from from unlimited hosting to the fact that if you sit down and truly think about the following sites and ask your self why and how can they provide the services that they provide with out running out of space and bandwidth and closing down.

  • myspace
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • person.com
These are only some of the sites out there that require an unbelievable amount of space to run. But how?

How do they add what they need to keep there sites going, They don't go that is it we are out of space time to close down. It's called upgrading. When I first started to study IT I told this "When you buy a any thing that is IT related the next day it becomes out of date. There is always some think new in the IT industry the next day that makes it out of date." I was told this by my tutor. And it is true, and although you can't upgrade every day, you can upgrade at any point to make your system/server to suit the needs of the owner.
Click to expand...

Actually, I think this is a much better version of the discussion. First, semantically "unbelievable" is that key step down from "unlimited", and sidesteps a lot of that clash that sparked my post. All you have to do is "surpass what someone believes is possible", which I am quite happy to have happen.

But the other side is the "Angel Investor" side. On a broad scale, this is exactly what Internet 1.0 was all about - offer "unbelievable" services *on loan* and gamble that the client count climbs to break even. The few companies that did it did it brilliantly. (Amazon.) The hordes that missed... crashed.

Modern investing can run anything at a loss for about two years. If it fails, people shrug because at the speed topics move now, "the fire of the discussion" only lasts about 3 months. By the time the service fails, people have moved on.
 
PN-Matt said:
Are most of these companies ready to add a new hard-drive for a $5 a month client?
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Uhhh odds are they already have a bunch of harddrives sitting around unused (I know I do) and want to keep their customers so they will add it...

Some companies will do a lot to get and keep their customers. Look at the xbox... the first one wasn't profitable, but Microsoft wanted console customers. Now the 360 isn't profitable largely because of the failure rate and the fact that they are fixing or replacing them for free because they want to keep their customers.

If no one is doing anything illegal, there's only going to be a few that actually use a very large amount of resources, so hosts offering unlimited plans CAN make a profit. As long as they upgrade when needed, there's nothing unethical about it imo. If someone chooses to pay for unlimited, it's their choice not to actually use it... think about ISPs, would you say it's unethical that you pay for "unlimited" service (unlimited time of course, as speed is limited) if you are not downloading and uploading at full speed constantly? Would you be ABLE to download and upload nothing but legal content at full speed constantly? Would most of them be able to handle the load if everyone suddenly started downloading and uploading at full speed constantly?
 
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