Limiting the Unlimited – What Does Unlimited Hosting Means?

There are hundreds of Internet hosting service providers offering so called unlimited plans for around $3-$4 per month. In other words, this is the price you pay for unlimited disk space, bandwidth, data transfer capabilities – things that you need to run any number of websites you can run simultaneously. Sounds alluring, doesn’t it?

In fact, the term ‘unlimited’ in the context of hosting means a little different thing. Novice website owners and bloggers, as they face the ‘harsh’ reality, begin to feel disappointed, and some leave angry comments about getting scammed. In fact they are not. This post focuses on decent and reputable companies and does not refer to scammers, of which there is no shortage in the Internet: that’s a little different issue.

What “Unlimited” Means

Smearing these conscientious providers, who turn out to offer more limited plans, as scams, would be unfair. Imagine yourself running a mall and having to sell whatever goods there are (hair brushes or plasma TVs) for $5 a piece on a fixed-price basis. This looks attractive for customers, but not for you. You have electricity, water supply bills to pay, hire staff that won’t work for free, etc. In a situation like this, no company could afford to give things away for nothing.

Therefore, no matter how many freedoms a website owner wants to enjoy with a hosting provider, limits do exist. Hosting companies hire teams of employees and use expensive equipment, because they just don’t want breakdowns. Neither do website owners signing up with them!

Using the word “unlimited” is just part of a marketing strategy aimed at attracting audience. With decent hosting companies, the limit thing is a technical matter. As mentioned above, hosting services use equipment, which is quite expensive and has limited capacity. Unlimited plans offer options, which allow users to use a lot of disk space, bandwidth, CPU, etc. However, these resources are not unlimited. Yes, you can run many websites, use substantial disk space, bandwidth, etc., but NOT MORE than the equipment and the company’s budget can handle. This is where limits come to pass.

This is not bad at all. That how soon you are going to face the limit depends on the type of activity you have chosen and your site’s/blog’s structure. If you are running a simple blog and post an average number of vids and images on it, you will not exceed the company’s limits, and the plan will actually be unlimited for you.

As your online business grows and expands, so does the load on the hosting service’s equipment. In this case you are likely to face the following:

• A slowdown on your CPU. This may happen if your provider decides you are going beyond their capacity;
• Receive suspension warnings: some providers choose to suspend users exceeding their limits, for example, exceeding the use of inodes;
• You may face a slowdown or suspension if you upload more media (images, videos, etc.) than it is permitted by your provider.

It should be noted that it is not disk space or bandwidth that make a hosting service’s quality. The most important parameters are loading speed and up-time, as they define how many people want to visit and subscribe to your resource. There are resources, where you can get first-hand information on what makes a good web hosting company.

Himadri Subrah Saha

Himadri is an ICT Professional who writes for his technology tips & tricks related blog TechnTechie. Though it is hard to balance time in between professional life and blogging, he still manages time to work for his own blog and writes almost regularly. The dashboard of this WordPress is the only place where he does not feel tired! Read my other blogs @ PetCare and Teleinfo