Do the various terms hosting providers use confuse you?
You are not alone!
Many people find themselves confused and frustrated when trying to figure out what a host is actually offering them and whether or not they really need it. If HostA is offering 1,000 MB of bandwidth, HostB is offering 1 GB of bandwidth, and you are wondering which host is offering you more bandwidth, then this article is for you.
First let’s look at the facts.
+8 bits are equal to 1 byte.
+1,024 bytes are equal to 1 kilobyte (KB).
+1,024 kilobytes (KB) are equal to 1 megabyte (MB or Meg)
+1,024 megabytes are equal to 1 gigabyte (GB or Gig)
+1,024 gigabytes are equal to 1 terabyte. (We do not need to go higher than this, as it is not likely any host will offer you a terabyte of space or bandwidth)
NOTE: Depending on who is doing the math: many people will replace the 1,024 nuMBers with an even 1,000. You will need to ask your host how they calculate it
You may have seen these equations elsewhere but still not be sure what it really means. How many pages will fit into a byte? A single character usually utilizes the entire storage space of a byte. No web pages will fit into this amount of space. Luckily hosts offer quite a bit more space then this. The average web page on HostHelp utilizes around 10 kilobytes (10KB) of space, some less, some a little more. This means that we could fit about 100 of the HostHelp pages into a single megabyte of space. If you were to purchase 20 megabytes of space from a host then you could fit the equivalent of two thousand HostHelp pages into your web site!
“So if that many pages will fit into 20 megabytes of space, why do so many people and hosts make it sound like I need more space?” Many sites do not need more then 10 or 20 megabytes of space. A web site like HostHelp certainly does not need that much space at all, yet some web sites will require more and here is why.
If you carefully look at the HostHelp web pages you will notice that we only use two graphic images on this entire site. The rest is text only (this is great for our visitors, since the pages will load more quickly and the content can be viewed without distractions). When you view other web sites, you are sure to notice, many of them use more graphics and have other dynamic content on their sites.
The average graphic utilizes between 5KB and 20KB of space alone. If a web site has many different graphics then it will need more space. You may have also noticed web sites that contain message forums. These forums generate web pages much faster and obviously require more space. Another reason you may need more web space is if you are offering software or other various products for your visitors to download. You would need to store these products within your web space and again, these items utilize more space.
Figuring out how much web space you need, for an existing web site, is easy. You can simply check the space you are currently using and then evaluate how much you think the site will grow from there. If you have not begun building your web site yet, and do not have much experience in the area, it may be more difficult to decide how much space you will need. In this case, it is recommended that you start with around 10 to 30 megabytes of web space. This should give you more then enough room to begin developing your web site without costing you much at all.
If your web site does in fact run out of space then you should be able to easily purchase more space from your current host. This is why it is important, when searching for a host, to make sure you find one that makes it easy to upgrade and does not charge extra fees for doing so, outside of the cost of the upgraded package of course.
From HostHelp
on Jan 31st, 2010 at 5:34 pm
as a writer I am only interested in text and I’m still confused. In an 8-1/2X11″ with 1″ margins all around, how many lines of solid text would fill a page. Also, how many kilobyteswould would that be. Knowing that, I would be able to calculate how many pages would occupy a 1GB of membory. and how big a gB card or thumb drive would I need for a novel.
Thank you.
on Jan 31st, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Don’t worried about it for text. It is big enough for your book.