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  1. #1

    * How much bandwidth needed?

    I am a total novice trying to determine hosting needs for a state Christmas tree growers association. A web designer is preparing our site for publishing. I don't know for sure how much memory will be needed, but it is a simple site. It is a zoomla site with about 20 pages. There are a few photos on each page and a page for searching for farms in your area using a clickable map.

    I do not know how much bandwidth I should be looking for. Does it relate to the size of the site, the quickness of the site's loading, or how many people are trying to access it at one time?

    On our busiest day last year (on our old site), there were 5,555 pages sent and 1,374 requests handled.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    I would recommend you to go for a 1GB RAM VPS. Also, you can choose a 100GB bandwidth. Also, nowadays providers provide unmetered bandwidth.

  3. #3
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    I think 512 or 768MB should be enough. How large were the pages? Bandwidth depends on the page size.
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  4. #4
    How large the pages WERE might not be what matters so much, because the site is being redesigned. However, here is the file size report from our old site:
    File size # of requests % of bytes
    0 57,414 0.00%
    2. 1b- 10b 0 0.00%
    3. 11b- 100b 25,248 0.01%
    4. 101b- 1kb 257,457 0.88%
    5. 1kb- 10kb 500,155 9.69%
    6. 10kb-100kb 336,321 47.47%
    7. 100kb- 1Mb 4,529 8.44%
    8. 1Mb- 10Mb 1,351 33.51%

    So, more bandwidth is needed for larger pages? Does it have anything to do with how many people are trying to access the site at one time?

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    I am a total novice trying to determine hosting needs for a state Christmas tree growers association. A web designer is preparing our site for publishing. I don't know for sure how much memory will be needed, but it is a simple site. It is a zoomla site with about 20 pages. There are a few photos on each page and a page for searching for farms in your area using a clickable map.

    I do not know how much bandwidth I should be looking for. Does it relate to the size of the site, the quickness of the site's loading, or how many people are trying to access it at one time?

    On our busiest day last year (on our old site), there were 5,555 pages sent and 1,374 requests handled.

    Thanks!
    Not to get off topic ...

    You might even consider just a shared hosting plan? I'm assuming a VPS might be overkill for 90% of the year. You could save on costs that way as well.

    I am only going to assume because you mentioned you don't know much about bandwidth or hosting needs, perhaps you would even need a virtual machine with a control panel installed as well (Like cPanel or Kloxo). If thats the case, your costs will rise as well.
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  6. #6
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    You're going to want 800 GB - 1,000GB of bandwidth. You'll probably use (based on those numbers) 600 - 700GB of bandwidth a month.
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  7. #7
    hello,

    if you still have access to the old site's stats, you should be able to make some decent guess about future traffic needs. The numbers you gave, however, sound as if you could actually go with a run of the mill shared hosting account. These often have "unlimited" bandwidth (fair use), and will only cost you a couple of bucks to host including email accounts, databases, etc. Usually, these shared hosting accounts will be on a 100 or 1000mbps uplink, which should be more than enough (provided it is not oversold too much) to serve your customers in a satisfying manner, i.e. the page loading fast enough, etc. The larger your site's images/pages and the more people accessing it, the more bandwidth/traffic you will need.

    Nevertheless, IMHO, I believe a VPS would be overdoing it - if it is only a single simple site (and from your numbers it is really not that big), then there shouldnt be a need for your own server, virtual or dedicated. An unmanaged VPS will typically require at least some sort of knowhow of server technology at your end, and if you dont have that or dont want to buy it, then if your site doesnt need a server of its own, you shouldnt get it - rather enjoy the support of a shared hosting environment which usually comes free of charge for everyday's needs.

    cheers -
    oz.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    On our busiest day last year (on our old site), there were 5,555 pages sent and 1,374 requests handled.
    I don't think you'll need a lot of memory to do that. I would recommend a 512 mb VPS for the job.

  9. #9
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    I recommend you get something called "shared hosting". Basically shared is hosting is what is says, you are sharing a box with very many other customers. IMO it seems to work very well with medium to small sites. Shared Hosting is also very underrated IMO. Most peoples site on your box for shared hosting don't even get over 1000 impressions per month so they use almost no resources. The large sites who suck up all the resources have moved elsewhere leaving you with a small portion of resources which works great for medium and small sites such as my own. If you like, I can show you the stats for my site and we have no lag at all! Its only 3.50$ per month.


    I used this much transfer last month (KB) 5263060

    This many pages 87566

    This many hits 917642

    This many files 841107

    In 1 month for just $3.50? Seems great for me



    But if you do need more resources feel free to contact me as my friend owns a large vps that he doesn't use all the resources on.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by EndServer View Post
    You're going to want 800 GB - 1,000GB of bandwidth. You'll probably use (based on those numbers) 600 - 700GB of bandwidth a month.
    Uhm, what?
    What did you expect was going to happen?
    6sync is where I've made my home ): // @tenkay

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by dyna! View Post
    Uhm, what?
    Woops, you're right. 50 - 60 GB should be more than enough to sustain your site. Not sure how I hit 600 - 700 GB. O.o
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  12. #12
    Thanks for clarifying some of these things for me! We would definitely need something managed and would need CPanel or something similar.

    Here is my #1 biggest concern. Our site CANNOT crash. Our farms have about 5 big selling days where we earn all of our income for the year. 90+% of our customers find us through this website.

    #2 concern is load time. We are running a facebook ad campaign and trying to draw in potential customers who hadn't previously considered visiting a Christmas tree farm. If they click that Facebook ad, and the site doesn't load rapidly, they'll be gone.

    For both of those reasons, I am afraid of shared hosting. Are my fears unfounded?

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Thanks for clarifying some of these things for me! We would definitely need something managed and would need CPanel or something similar.

    Here is my #1 biggest concern. Our site CANNOT crash. Our farms have about 5 big selling days where we earn all of our income for the year. 90+% of our customers find us through this website.

    #2 concern is load time. We are running a facebook ad campaign and trying to draw in potential customers who hadn't previously considered visiting a Christmas tree farm. If they click that Facebook ad, and the site doesn't load rapidly, they'll be gone.

    For both of those reasons, I am afraid of shared hosting. Are my fears unfounded?
    Check out this website www.nickthelim.com/Forum ( its a pretty active forum I host with shared hosting )


    If you think that loads fine then it should work for you!


    EDIT: If a captcha comes up, it's to force my players to vote for the server, just fill it in and then reopen the page sorry!
    Last edited by NickLim; 08-29-2011 at 02:43 PM.

  14. #14
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    From the OP's description, I feel the site doesn't warrant heavy specs at all. He isn't hosting anything heavy like videos or graphics intensive. 512MB or 1GB of RAM will do depending on the budget.

    Space shouldn't be an issue but for a whole state of visitors, bandwidth will. 100GB of BW to start looks plausible here.
    My Site : Chi Chi's Floral [Under Construction - Link Coming Soon!]

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  15. #15
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    I would suggest you need a FULLY managed VPS server from one of the bigger players with servers close to the majority of your clients with the ability to upgrade and downgrade on demand and make sure your on their highest package during the peak time.

    6sync and knownhost spring to mind. or you could even go with one of the wiredtree semi dedicated packages.
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  16. #16
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    If you want good managed web hosting then use wiredtree. They are amazing.

  17. #17
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    Simple, a 512 mb Managed VPS will take care of your Christmas Tree Association page.Check the "VPS Hosting Offers" forum here on Web Hosting Talk, do some research first.
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  18. #18

    Download speeds?

    Thanks for the Hosting Offers recommendation. I ran into a question right away when I started looking over there.

    I was looking at the KnownHost offer and they had a test file to download. I downloaded from their Dallas center as I am in Texas. It took 29 seconds to download a 10 mb file. I did a speedtest on my broadband connection and it was 1556 kbps. 29 seconds seems way too long. Will the providers typically offer a speedtest like this? What's a reasonable length of time for a 10 mb file to download?

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Thanks for the Hosting Offers recommendation. I ran into a question right away when I started looking over there.

    I was looking at the KnownHost offer and they had a test file to download. I downloaded from their Dallas center as I am in Texas. It took 29 seconds to download a 10 mb file. I did a speedtest on my broadband connection and it was 1556 kbps. 29 seconds seems way too long. Will the providers typically offer a speedtest like this? What's a reasonable length of time for a 10 mb file to download?
    How fast is your actual internet connection? And 10MB in 29 seconds is fast for me o.O

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Thanks for the Hosting Offers recommendation. I ran into a question right away when I started looking over there.

    I was looking at the KnownHost offer and they had a test file to download. I downloaded from their Dallas center as I am in Texas. It took 29 seconds to download a 10 mb file. I did a speedtest on my broadband connection and it was 1556 kbps. 29 seconds seems way too long. Will the providers typically offer a speedtest like this? What's a reasonable length of time for a 10 mb file to download?
    It will all vary on so many factors. How fast is your connection where you are located? What else is going on within your LAN? Where is the test file originating from?

    Speedtest files are not the greatest way to test the "speed" of anything mostly because they are a "point in time" metric and is very vulnerable to so many different variables - which are out of your control.

    The same goes for "Ping Tests" - granted, you're not measuring speed with a ping test but rather latency...which is also another horrible way to test latency as ICMP packets are often dropped quickly.

    For a static Christmas tree site, speed isn't a really factor there. Latency or distance from your core group of customers would be. I would choose something close to Dallas or at least Texas as you said this is a state-wide website.

    Hope that helps!
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  21. #21
    Today, my connection tested at 1556 kbps.

    WiredTree was even worse. It took 47 seconds. Is 10 mb larger than a typical home page would be?

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Today, my connection tested at 1556 kbps.

    WiredTree was even worse. It took 47 seconds. Is 10 mb larger than a typical home page would be?
    Much larger. When you're talking about home pages - you're looking at less than 1mb - generally.


    Edit: the actual "Home Page" or index.php/index.html is often very small but it also pulls in other elements as the page loads - flash, pictures, streaming content, other elements as well so the total download time of the home page will vary.

    Do you have plan on having videos for download on this site?
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  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Today, my connection tested at 1556 kbps.

    WiredTree was even worse. It took 47 seconds. Is 10 mb larger than a typical home page would be?
    Unless you have a ton of images, 10 MB is quite large. Most web pages will be < 1 MB

    Can you tell me the results of this speed test: http://speedtest.dal01.softlayer.com...ads/test10.zip
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  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by timely View Post
    Today, my connection tested at 1556 kbps.

    WiredTree was even worse. It took 47 seconds. Is 10 mb larger than a typical home page would be?
    That speed is based on your internet speed not there servers, as that file is prob on a 100mbit or 1gbit port ( much faster then your home connection )

    Basically if your vps says 100mbit port then you will know its fast enough for your small site

  25. #25
    When you're talking about home pages - you're looking at less than 1mb - generally.
    Oh. Well, that's a relief.

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