Recently entering the hosting business, its come to my attention the average person isn't aware of common web hosting practices and what they mean. I figured I would type up a quick guide, and try to explain what Overselling is, and the deal with Unlimited Hosting.
Overselling, what it is and how it can affect you as a client
Wikipedia defines overselling as:
"In the web hosting industry, the term is used to describe a situation in which a company provides hosting plans that are unsustainable if every one of its customers uses the full extent of services advertised. The term is usually referred to the web space and bandwidth transfer allowance. A hosting company may offer unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth, however, they put other restrictions in place such as CPU usage or inode limit. They may have onerous restrictions and one-sided contracts that lets them cancel the hosting of anybody that puts a strain on their system or fully uses their claimed allotments."
So, when a host 'oversells' (as the vast majority do to earn more money) they put more clients on each server than it could realistically support. For example:
"HostA" doesn't oversell and has a 500gb HD in their server.
They could realistically sell 500, ONE-gig plans.
"HostB" does oversell, and also has a 500gb HD in their server. They know the average client uses on average around 200mb of space, so in turn they OVERSELL their resources knowing that their clients won't use what they're paying for.
Instead of making 500 1gb hosting plans like "HostA", they decide to make 1,500 1gb plans.
Ok, I understand. So whats the big deal?
Well, when HostA doesn't oversell and all 500 1gb accounts are sold, there is still a lot of free room on the server. This isn't poor planning on "HostA"s fault, but rather the benefit of not overselling. Instead of filling the server to its capacity, "HostA" only fills it ~60% or so, leaving room for their current clients to grow. With a set limit of users per server, it keeps the server load down, makes it faster, an all around better hosting experience. You're sharing resources with less people this way.
"HostB" on the otherhand has a pretty full server with over thousand clients on it, you're sharing all your resources with these clients. The server load is high, more stress and upgrades needed for the server resulting in excess downtime, and a lower quality of service. With such an overloaded server, backups may be restricted to only static content, stricter useage limits, etc.
Get it? From a business perspective, if making money is your main goal then overselling makes sense. More clients per server = more profit per server.
From the client perspective; More clients per server = Lower quality of service.
Unlimited Web Hosting, and why to avoid it
Ah yes, "Unlimited Web Hosting". If you've ever searched for web hosting, you'll see unlimited this, unlimited that in your face almost anywhere you look.
Did you know that there was recently a new space-age hard drive created ONLY for the web hosting industry? This new storage device is capable of storing anything and everything, there are no limits on what it can store!
Of course you didn't know that, because thats not true. There is no such thing as 'unlimited disk space', and there is always limits.
Here is a typical unlimited hosting scenario, this is not made up but rather a experience I have read on WHT.
Some guy has a popular wordpress blog, its using less than 1gb of actual diskspace but then his account is terminated, he can't get a backup of his site, all files lost and he is screwed. What happened? He had reached 15,000 inodes. If he had read his host's TOS closely, he would of known his limits. Every file, email, database entry, etc = 1 inode. Its not hard to reach these limits, they're usually set low so after you reach them a host can terminate your account and keep your money (You violated the TOS by reaching it, violation usually voids money back guarantees).
Webhosts who offer 'unlimited' hosting are the worse oversellers. They keep their prices low because they have a larger number of clients per server that are all sharing the same (limited) resources. There is ALWAYS limits which are defined in their TOS, these includes inode limits, CPU usage limits, memory limits, email limits, etc, etc. With more users per server, your share of these resources are much lower than using a host who doesn't offer unlimited host, or a host that just doesn't oversell at all.
15 Reasons to avoid unlimited web hosting
1.) There is no such thing as an unlimited hard drive
2.) Unlimited neighbors can spell disaster for your site
3.) You dont know what the actual limits are
4.) The number of files you can store is often severely restricted
5.) The TOS often restricts CPU, memory, etc… to limit your site
6.) Backups may be seldom done, done poorly, or not at all
7.) Restores can take days
8.) Hardware is often less reliable due to large storage requirements
9.) Server performance is often sacrificed for space
10.) FTP speeds are often capped
11.) TOS is very restrictive on the type of content you can store
12.) A drive filling up entirely is more likely – can spell disaster
13.) Unlimited accounts attract unsavory characters
14.) Borders on false advertising (is deceptive advertising at best)
15.) Unlimited hosting often means the host is focusing on specs and not service and support
Some more reading if you're intersted:
http://www.lexiconn.com/blog/2010/05...d-web-hosting/
Anyhow, just some food for thought. Check out the blog link I posted above to read about each of the 15 points above.
