I am thinking about starting a web site that is going to require what I believe will eventually be an enormous amount of bandwidth. I am not a networking guru.

What are the least expensive options available to me? Initially the site would be small, but I’ll need room to expand bandwidth quickly as the site grows.

Let’s say 500,000 hits per day. Each hit requires about 3-4k of info to get sent in response. What are my options and at what cost? I am totally new to the world of high-bandwidth hosting.

Essentially this is a site that would serve banners to other sites.

well you'd need about 57GB per month if you get 500.000 hits per day each @ 4kB.
I'd get something like 75GB of bandwidth per month if I were you... just to be save and it also give you room to grow.
costs vary: I'd say $100-$500/month
you either need a virtual private server, a reseller account, a dedicated server or a managed dedicated server.
I'm not sure what you'd need in the beginning. this really depends if you are already getting traffic or not.

HL

Thanks, that was the kind of info I was looking for. Anyone know of a high bandwidth hosting provider that does .Net and maybe mySQL or MSSql on the backend?

Whats your email addy jhlib?

Originally posted by jhilb
Thanks, that was the kind of info I was looking for. Anyone know of a high bandwidth hosting provider that does .Net and maybe mySQL or MSSql on the backend?

sure I can help you there.
pm or e-mail you all the details and I am sure I can find something decent for you.

HL

You might want to have a look at http://www.rackshack.com. Although their servers are unmanaged you can get them with CPanel or Plesk installed which automates a lot of the backend control.

They sell very cheap ($99/month) celeron servers, which probably won't be very good for database etc. but if you are serving a lot of static content, they are excellent value with 700GB of monthly transfer.

you mean www.rackshack.net ?

Of course, although Go Bananas Kayak might do some good Raq4 deals!

I would be very careful about going the dedicated server route unless you are pretty comforable using command line interface, and know at least some basic Linux/Unix administration. With your requested amounts of disk space and bandwidth, I am sure that there are hosts out there that could host you for half or less than what you would pay for a dedicated box.

Where is this guy?? I pmed him like 5 days ago..

Sorry guys. I can be reached at bright@jhilb.com.

Looking for highbandwidth ASP.Net hosting with either a MySql or MSSql backend. Doesn't have to be high bandwidth right from the get-go, but it definately would have to scale quickly if use increases.

Of note; definately need ASP.Net and database backend. Heavy database activity.

I suggest you look at lower bandwidth for now. You can always increase later. There is no need to pay for 57G of bandwidth if you are not going to use it immediately.

You should also check out the TOS/AUP of each company to make sure your site is compliant. The reason I mention this is that a couple of types of sites come to mind that can be expected to grow that rapidly: forums and adult-related. Your's may be neither type, of course, but just in case....If it is a forum, make sure your software is compliant, as some hosts will not support cgi-based forum scripts. If adult-related, your provider must agree to host it.

Take a look at http://resellerplus.com . I am not affiliated with ResellerPlus, but I do know the owner/senior server admin, Curt. He is a top notch server admin that knows how to treat his customers right.

Great, thanks. No this is strictly non-adult banner serving, but I need .Net to do it with what I have written.

Thanks

500,000 page views x 4kb(page size) x 30days = bandwidth per month.

I doubt seriously a website that has just been put up would get 1/2 million hits a day, unles of course you are giving away money

Most do not understand just How much is 1 gig of bandwidth.(its alot,I know there are those sites that use alot of gigs per month but MOST personal and Commercal sites use under 1.5 gigs per month)

theres more here
http://1ahosting.com/bandwidth.php

You can always find some host that will sell you a 75 gig BW plan,but your really just wasting your money if you only use 2gigs per month.Start with a 5 gig plan that can be upgraded and no shut off if you use 5.0001 gigs just will bill you later for overages.

Hi jhilb,

Grace5 is correct. The formula for calculating data transfer (not bandwidth! ) per month is:

(avg views/day) x (avg file size) x 30 = data transfer per month

It's even more accurate if you know the number of views you get per month:

(views/month) x (avg file size) = data transfer per month

Be careful not to overestimate the amount of transfer you need! If you really think it is going to be that popular, I would buy a plan offering 20 GB of transfer for one month, and then decide whether or not that's enough. No point in wasting money for 37 GB of extra transfer that you don't need.

THanks again!

If you are unsure of how much data transfer you might need, Hostrocket are currently doing a special offer plan of 1Gb space and 50Gb monthly transfer for $14.95 a month. I have been using them for over a year and a half and can vouch for them being a good host.
http://www.hostrocket.com

hmmmm.....
share me your idea for that 500k hits website

If you think your site have bandwidth high usage. You will need to get a huge reseller plan or virtual server for your need