Hi,

I want to know the difference with these two services, both of them offer space and bandwidth to their customers. But rapidshare offer it for free; you got the option to upgrade for €6.99.

How can rapidshare offer their service for free while the web host can't offer it for free? ANd how can rapidshare operate cheaply?

Hello,
If you're talking about www.rapidshare.com - they are for hosting files only.

Hosting services are centered around WEB services and hosting web sites.

They're to separate offerings.

Are you looking for file hosting or web hosting?

hi,

I'm just trying to know the difference of having a file hosting company and web hosting company. Both of them require hardware space and bandwidth, but rapidshare offer their service for free.

Hello,

File hosting allows you to offer downloads of a specific file. Rapidshare does not offer domain hosting. This service would be good if you were wanting to send someone a PDF or video.

Web hosting allows you to host an entire web site (many files) and works with a domain name (domain.com) This server would be good if you would like to have alcatraz678.com and host your resume and pictures of family.

Hope that clears it up :)

hi,

I'm just trying to know the difference of having a file hosting company and web hosting company. Both of them require hardware space and bandwidth, but rapidshare offer their service for free.

Not true, they might offer it "free", but it's very tied down and limited.

As for file hosting, it's 100x more saturated then web hosting, honestly becoming a filehost costs thousands and thousands in advertising, server storage, and a multitude of other things.

RapidShare is the biggest and best because they have been there for a long time.

How can rapidshare offer their service for free while the web host can't offer it for free? ANd how can rapidshare operate cheaply?

Try to download a file and bang you head at how long you have to wait for one file and the amount of ads that are spammed at you, after trying to download two it says hay upgrade and you get faster downloads and no ads.
So they make money via the ads and people who upgrade their packages.

Rapidshare are a file hosting service that will use large servers designed with only the operation of hosting files so massive hard drives.
Hosting company's do websites so they will be looking for more CPU power with things like PHP and MySQL running on the servers as well.

It may seem counterintuitive, but serving large files uses less CPU power and disk IOPS than standard web hosting. File hosting services can take a cheap server with an appropriate chassis and populate it with large desktop-grade SATA drives. The bandwidth is also bought cheap in high volume.

As far as revenue, that comes from ads and paid upgrades. The operators need to have some skill to make a profit, but that's the way it is in any business.

I don't recall Rapidshare serving ads however it seems that their free model is constantly changing pointing in the direction they can't seem to find something that works.

I've utilized rapidshare for probably a year or so and I can't count the number of times the free process has changed.

Alot of companies do offer virtually free webhosting, some with a little ad or domain-package deals.