Hi I'm a n00b when it comes to hosting a web site. I've been searching WHT for 2 days now and still really haven't decided on a good host. Hopefully someone can lead me into the right direction. I plan on building a personal site to showcase my work. It will be consisting of pictures and video of my animations. My main concerns are monthly bandwidth, reliability and the speed of the site itself. I've seen plenty of host that offer a ton of space but are a little lean on transfer bandwidth. Other than that I don't know what else I would need in a web host. Does it matter that it's on a windows or linux server? Price is also a concideration but thats last on my list. I do know of someone elses site that is hosted by interland and it loads very quickly and downloads from that site are fast also. Other than that I don't know of any other hosts. So if anyone could lend me a hand I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you
jfig

Hi jfig,
Welcome to the forums. I will add my suggestions here and hope it can point you in a right direction.
Sometimes too much info can be as bad as "not enough" and you will find yourself overwhelmed quickly!
If you are able to compile a list with a few choices for hosting, I would fire off an email to those potential hosts and ask some questions about their services.
The "average" site isnt going to need an excessive amount of bandwidth transfer and I certaily think if you chose a plan with around 5GB bandwidth transfer per month you would be fine.
Again, ask the host. We've been in business since 99 and have very FEW sites that exceed 5GB transfer monthly. :)

Thanks for the replies guys. I guess I'm just really concered about going over my limit. If "average" don't generally go over 5GB then that would help my search knowing that. I've seen many recomened host talked about on this board. So I'll talk to them first before deciding. Thank you again for you input.
jfig

Never forget , that support is really important , go and check their support...if they answer quickly it is good . afterwards check what they offer and if they can show u demo of the control panel...as this will be the main thing after you sign up , to actually set up and run your web site , emails , ftp's etc.... choosing prices is not that important than those things , as cheap is not good as it seems but expensive is sometimes too expensive for what it offers , just make sure you select something that sounds realistic and that offers things you need...if they have support they have someone who is always there to make sure your site works , otherwise you pay and they activate the account ,what happens next you never know...

..well if you go over your limit , choose a host that will give you extra BW or space for a fixed rate , for example an extra GIG for 2-3 $ or something like this , make sure , they have this option !