"Steve" <nomail@for.me> wrote in message
news:C3kGi.47045$jJ5.20067@newsfet03.ams...
>I have been shopping around for a new host for my 4 sites (with <2GB of
>files total). I came across www.ixwebhosting.com and saw that they offer
>"500 GB Web Space" for $6.95/month. That's dramatically more than the 5GB
>my current host gives. Not to mention the 3.5TB of monthly throughput. Oh
>boy. I began to get visions of storing hard drive backups, mapped Z drives
>on my PCs, etc, etc, to make use of that 500GB. I gave them a call. The
>rep on the phone tells me that the 500GB must be used for "web-accessible"
>files only, that are part of my websites, and that I cannot use the space
>for stored files. So then, I could use the 500GB for thousands of pages
>of pictures of my cat, but can't use the space to park backup files? That
>just ain't right. Is it reasonable to advertise "500GB web space" without
>adding that little disclaimer? Or should I just know better?

I think its quite common, and its probably there in their terms and
conditions. Basically by offering 500GB of web space they hope to be able to
grab your attention but they also expect most sites to be only a few MB.
After all, most sites are quite small its only once you get into file
sharing and backup that large data volumes typically are required as
standard - hence why they exclude you from that. In all probability they
couldn't support more than a few sites at 500GB.

Something else to be aware of is the 3.5TB monthly throughput. Some hosts
actually cap you on a daily basis, so they might actually cap you at 115GB
per day (which is still more than most of us would ever dream of using) and
they say 30x115GB/day=3.5TB/month. Of course it could also be that its
actually unmetered but the bandwidth is limited - although with these
numbers I think it works out at the equivalent of 10mbps upload - which
might if they are a small host be their total available bandwidth.

Its also worth looking at whether they have any "reasonable usage" clause.
It might be that you could fit inside all their other requirements but once
your site becomes busy they reserve the option to boot you down to
reasonable usage. This might for example be expressed in terms of cpu time.

BTW if you did fill up 500GB of space with pictures of your cat then you'd
probably find that:
1. You'd have to contact their support a few times because they ran out of
disk space before you reached the 500GB. (Been there!)
2. That it would take you an age - perhaps its me but it always seems to
take longer than an on-paper-calculation says it should to upload even 1GB
of files (say 1000 * 1MB files).
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian