Hi there,

I have an ecommerce website built in .NET. We sell alot of records, music etc., so having fast loading mp3 samples is important.

Our shop is based in Australia and most of our customers will be based in Australia.

My questions is:

Will it make a difference whether we host in Australia or the U.S.?

Will hosting in the U.S. slow us down (in terms of website loading and mp3 samples loading)?

I am not sure how large the website is, but it has SQL databases and it currently has about 1.5 gig of mp3 samples uploaded to it. I am predicting we will need around 3 gig of disc space to start off with and then an increase of around 1/2 gig per month.

How do you think the website downloading speed and data transfer speed of mp3 samples on our website will be affected if we host in the offshore (in the U.S. for example)?

Please be honest with your answers,

Yours sincerely,

Australian Girl

I am an Aussie myself so I have first hand experience. It doesn't matter if you buy from the US or from Aus, the only difference is the price difference. You will get the same speed from US servers as from Aus servers, that is from my own experience. So go with US hosting as it will be a lot cheaper for you :).

Hello Mgirl and welcome to WHT!

Sounds like some good advice from iXenNet and I just want to add that the data center you use, carriers, networks, etc. will make a difference in either location so do your research and go w/ a known quality provider for apps and eCommerce like this.

Good luck w/ your search and best wishes.

I've just been emailing with Easy CGI, they are based in New York and seem reputable from what i can gather.

The only problems is the customer service officer said this:

"Please note we do not offer storage space as part of this hosting package. If your files are not in use by your website, you would be better using a VPS server, for use as an FTP server, or for file backup and storage."

I'm not really sure what this means, but i will need to upload mp3 files to the server so that they are accessible on the website. They are initially recorded and stored on my PC at home though.

The process is this: user clicks on website, previews mp3 samples by clicking on the icon. I need the fastest and most reliable form of data transfer for this.

But, i've also realised, that i would need a back-up system on the server because to upload all the mp3 samples again, if the server crashes, would take days and result in lost business.

The problems is the website is programmed in .NET. If it was programmed in PHP or something else (i am not a guru on programming, so please don't argue with me!), it would be a lot cheaper to host in Australia.

Do not be hesitant to find a host in the US. In this day an age with fiber optics being ran around the world there really isn't much latency. There may be a few hops in the traceroutes that could slow it down, but these kinds of small issues are being improved everyday. I think you'll be fine since most music mp3's are usually between 2-6MB each.

As for a host, you should maybe think about getting a VPS or a Dedicated Server so you can have a fast website for your customers since there will be a lot of downloads. Good luck finding your host!

No you will get much faster speeds if you host within Australia. Just check the pings from an Aussie host (about 10 m/s) with a USA host (about 250 m/s). Also hosting in Aus gives you an Australian IP which will help your local SEO (ie when people search for AUS sites only). If you are doing good business it would be irresponsible to host outside your market location.

One thing to note though is that bandwidth is much more expensive in Australia. You can get deals where you only pay for uploads though so any downloads by your clients would be free.

Checkout http://www.webhostingtalk.com.au

for Aussie service providers and deals.

Good luck with your research.

Well I'm glad UltimaHost chimed in.

I was wondering how the laws of physics had been magically changed. :)

Yeah... i would host in the U.S. if it wasn't so important to sell products on my website, or have files downloaded quickly... but, given all the evidence, i am urring on the side of hosting here.

U.S. products are great, but i need fast, accessible and reliable support, 24/7, incase the site goes down.

Hi Mgirl,

You might get more responses to this if it were in the main forum (it's really not a Windows hosting question). You could ask the mods to move it if you like.

As for speed, all other things being equal, hosting in Australia will certainly be faster for visitors in Australia because of the difference in latency (ping time) as UltimaHost said. And in case you missed the meaning of plumsauce's reference to the laws of physics, latency is dictated mainly by distance and the speed of light.

This means it takes longer to make a connection to a US host, but doesn't necessarily affect the speed of transferring data once the connection's made, so you're most likely to notice the difference when loading a web page with lots of small images. With a larger file download (eg. an mp3) the latency is usually insignificant compared to the total download time, so here the download speed is all-important.

Generally download speeds are also faster within Australia, but not always - no rules of physics to break here, it just depends on the slowest network between your server and your visitor's computer. It's not unusual though to get speeds below 100KB/s to the US, and on a good Australian network you should do better than that.

So it's not a big difference, probably only noticeable to people with fast broadband connections, but Australian should be faster. However the cost of bandwidth here is so much higher that you'll pay a lot for the extra speed, so if you're expecting to use a lot of transfer (and I guess you might) then the cost could be prohibitive.

If you go US look for something on the West coast (180-190ms ping) with good bandwidth providers (eg. Mzima).

Above all don't go cheap (on either side) - an overloaded server or one on a bad connection will always be slower, no matter where it is!

HTH

No you will get much faster speeds if you host within Australia. Just check the pings from an Aussie host (about 10 m/s) with a USA host (about 250 m/s). Also hosting in Aus gives you an Australian IP which will help your local SEO (ie when people search for AUS sites only). If you are doing good business it would be irresponsible to host outside your market location.

One thing to note though is that bandwidth is much more expensive in Australia. You can get deals where you only pay for uploads though so any downloads by your clients would be free.

Checkout http://www.webhostingtalk.com.au

for Aussie service providers and deals.

Good luck with your research.

You will still get as good download speeds as you would with an Australian server. Ping only means how long it took for the information takes to get to its location, it doesn't measure how much could be send to the location.

With an Australian host you also get local 24x7 English support which is something to factor in. Also will help if your host has a physical address which increases the probability that they will be around next year.