I was wondering how much bandwidth I would need for a few websites... Most will have minimal traffic, but one should have a pretty decent amount of traffic. The websites will be asp pages.

Also, is something like PC Anywhere going to eat up a lot of bandwidth?

I've read some posts on the 95% metering method. It sounds like all they do is measure traffic, charge you based on the mbps you use at 95%... So, if you only have traffic 10hrs a day, you order 100 GB, you can't get anything near 100 GB... Assuming approx 300 GB for a full month of completely maxed 1 mbps connection, 100 GB would let you max out at .333 mbps (+ unlimited overage 5% of the time)? Just like hosting on a dsl line?

What's a reasonable amt (in mbps) to buy (for hosting websites)?

Thanks!

95% percentile bandwidth monitoring is NOT a scam

95% billing is an industry standard when it comes to buying bandwidth in bulk...

If you are doing less than 150gb of xfer a month.. Then per/gb billing would be better for you.. Many shared and dedicated providers can offer you per/gb billing or 95% billing for larger amounts of bandwidth...

ok, "scam" is a little harsh... I understand it is industry standard, but when it is measured, aren't they just measuring mbps? I guess the "scam" part I am referring to is the fact that 1 mbps is advertised as 300 GB... Maybe the word should be "misleading."

It's good if you have a relatively stable flow of traffic or your bursts are limited to 5% of your traffic... Any other traffic pattern and you are paying for unused/unusable bandwidth...

On the other hand, If you purchase 1 mbps, is it usually capped at 1 mbps, or could you take on more traffic and pay overage fees?

Usually if you buy 1mbps of traffic not billed at 95% then its capped at 1mbps.. And you really won't see 300gb xfer on it.. More like 280gb because of saturation on the line.. With 95% you can burst up more if you need too as the cap is higher than what your billed at...

95% isn't a scam, but it is to the disadvantage of most people who use dedicated servers, IMO.

I used to push ~100 GB a month actual transfer; 95% I'd be charged for about 175-200 GB.

There are, of course, cases where 95% is to your advantage.

95% makes sense from the ISP end because they buy lines that transfer a max speed (not a set number of gigs).

Um. It's not a scam - it lets you use more traffic than you're actually paying for.

Order 1mbps, but use 100mbps for 35 hours, you still only pay for 1mbps. I don't get the scam part...

Originally posted by The Prohacker
Usually if you buy 1mbps of traffic not billed at 95% then its capped at 1mbps.. And you really won't see 300gb xfer on it.. More like 280gb because of saturation on the line.. With 95% you can burst up more if you need too as the cap is higher than what your billed at...

Yep and in my experience I'm seeing more like 220G per mbit. 16 servers pushed 2200G in Dec using 9.8mbit on 95% so I kinda use that as my rule of thumb as 2200/10 = 220 per mbit.

Yeah, you would be very hard pushed to get 320gb of bandwidth through a 1meg capped pipe... however you could get a lot more than 320gb through a 1meg burstable pipe (burst up to 100mbps).

If you're only going to be using 200gb bandwidth per month it makes a lot more sense to go for per-gb billing.

IMHO :)

95% percentile is a big disadvantage for those who do not have a constant use of bandwidth. With this I mean at the usage is very low during some hours of day (say night) and it shoots high during other part (say day)

In such cases the 95% bandwidth may calculate twice the actual usage.

This method is best if the usage is more or less constant and the top 5% are considered to be spikes.

Lot of information is available on google on this. This is an industry standard and a very known part of statistics.

Hello.

For those of you who are not quite clear what the 95% percentile is see: http://www.seanadams.com/95/
It gives a good "What is the 95th percentile"

Regards,
Thomas Currie

95% is great, ecspecially when you can burst to 100mbit.

Are those that need to burst 10,000% over normal (5% of the time) mainly gamers? If you had a website that became popular (i.e. Kobe Bryant website), it'd have to die out quickly or you'd still have to overages for the month...

Gaming I doubt... most gaming is very consistant bandwidth (I have a gameserver) it has 32 players and averages 1.2-1.5mbit/s 24/7

File transfering, backing up off-site, DDoS attacks, many many things can milk more than 300 gb out of 1mbit/s giving they are indeed bursts, and not a constant, otherwise your 5% won't do much good at all.

oh. Got it.

This makes sense... So, it makes my pc anywhere question moot.

Well, lets go with this example:

I push 1024kb/s (or 128KB/s if you'd like) everyday but the last 15 hours of the day before billing. I push 100mbit/s (or 12800kb/s or 12.5MB/s) and that's not going to cost me anything because it'll no doubt be in my 5%.

This means, I'm going to push the full saturation of ~ 324 GB as normal, but can easily grab 100+ gb more from the burst, which ironically, doesn't cost me anything ....