Results 1 to 9 of 9
  1. #1

    Help - Bandwidth Gone Crazy...

    Not sure if this is the right section so feel free to move it to correct place

    We host with Dataflame and up until yesterday had never used more than 900Mb/day in bandwidth normally using only around 600Mb. Yesterday I enquired with host about costs for increasing package should we go over the 20Gb monthly package this month. The price they quoted did not tally with what we had thought it would be and I told them I was unhappy with this and was intending to move before package ran out in June as we want to add forum etc to site and their packages only go up 5gb a time yet money nearly doubles each time so we really need a larger package without paying £100's and £100's for it.

    Anyway, SINCE that conversation yesterday our bandwidth has more than doubled (details below) - might be coincidence but it has me worried as we would need to increase package upto 60Gb minimum to cover increased usage and even that might not be enough at this rate. For past year 20Gb has been more than enough and we have never even been close to that limit until this month when up until Tuesday we had used total of 7.2Gb for 1st-11th December and looked like we might need a little more bandwidth this month, yet now in past day and a half we have used over 3Gb alone - can anyone give idea of how bandwidth can change like this overnight with only 2 extra visitors on site and time spent on site etc not showing drastic increases etc?

    Date - Visitors - Pages - Hits - Usage
    9 Dec - 796 - 7771 - 81099 - 685.50Mb
    10 Dec - 767 - 8283 - 77587 - 711.95Mb
    11 Dec - 916 - 8449 - 99820 - 886.36Mb
    12 Dec - 918 - 19530 - 237178 - 1.86 GB
    13 Dec - 523 - 13424 - 165110 - 1.44GB (so far and only 4.30pm)

    Any help would be appreciated as this is busiest time of year for sales and we cannot afford to have business closed or site down while we transfer to another host. If we have to increase package to a larger one then needs must but it is strange that bandwidth more than doubles overnight with no extra sales, time spent on site, referers etc

    Thanks,
    Nickki
    Last edited by Beeunique; 12-13-2006 at 12:38 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Posts
    771
    You have stopped trusting your host. This is pretty fatal for the future.

    Ask the questions of them to see if they can reestablish your trust.

    If not, get a new host. Don't tell your current host until the new account is up and running and the site is transferred. Any competent new host will be able to tell you the best way to do that. You may well be stuck paying a higher fee until your busy time of year is over.

  3. #3
    Well may sound stupid but a person i used to know once had a problem pretty simular although his site stats didnt add up. Found out his host was messing with his site making his bandwidth high causing him to pay for extra bandwidth. Crazy stuff but check all the stats on your website and just put them in excel document or somthing and just view it. Also check where the hits are coming from. Could be hotlinking etc.
    http://www.sinaihosting.com http://www.sinaidomains.com
    Cheap Webhosting. Buy now and dont pay straight away Save for christmas.
    Merry Christmas btw

  4. #4
    they kept closing chat window once I explained what the problem was. I finally got someone to talk to and they said it was our pictures causing bandwidth usage, yet only thing changed was we over-wrote about 20 photos yesterday on server and original pics were 18kb each and replacements that over-wrote them were 16-17kb each - nothing major. Our site has loads of pics on it but all been shrunk using resizer so all quite small and nothing major happened yeaterday so no reason for huge jump. Also today we did nothing on the site apart from receive some orders via customers as normal yet bandwidth looks like it will be over 1.86Gb today again. (should point out that the pics have been on the site for over a year so if it was them causing usage surely would not have been average of 600mb day up until yesterday)

    We lost faith in them a few months back as they were always going offline for server upgrades and aour site was often down for 10 mins, up for 2, down again for half hour up for 5mins etc and customers were complaining. Was not all the time but enough to lose us sales etc so we decided to move when contract up for renewal in June or just before that. Also increased packages are not much more bandwidth for extra monthly cost.

    Anyway they have now told me to contact them by email but they deny any hotlinking of account etc - I have had a look at our stats and cant see anything obvious standing out but is there a way I can check to see if bandwidth being stolen as it was before?

    We are really concerned as we have worked out our yearly payment to them was £40 which suited our needs but to cover extra usage we now need the £140 package at minimum! Also we update and replace pics with better ones several times a week and have done for the past 18 months, but all photos are better ones but smaller or same size as previous and always with same name so old ones are over-written.

    I should point out that although disappointed with them I have never got angry or been rude or anything - when they went on about pricing yesterday I said "thats the reason we are moving to a new host in June" - not the cleverest of things to say but not exactly rude etc.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Behind a linux box
    Posts
    687
    If you host images, get a cheaper account with another host and put some images there. You may be saving some money ...do your calculations
    Got Fused?

  6. #6
    hi, we have another package which is much larger but is also much slower

    Also we have had the same images for over a year so cannot see how that is causing over 1gb extra bandwidth a day if no extra visitors etc to site or extra time spent on site etc. We had some unwanted spiders visit the site that was using alot of bandwidth so we blocked them a few days ago so if anything usage should have gone down. if we had changed loads of things I could understand but nothing extra happened yeaterday or today and thats whats worrying. We had a look on here yesterday and have seen a couple of new hosts we like the sound of, but at this time of year we cannot afford for site to be down for transfers etc and would prefer to do that after xmas if possible. Also new package would be around £90-£140 a year so we're not quibbling about paying for good/decent hsoting, but if usage can jump 1GB in a day whats to say that in a months time we are not using 20Gb a day? - if you get what I mean lol (it makes sense in my head)

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    Quad Cities, Iowa
    Posts
    1,606
    If you can get your current host to cooperate, downtime can be very minimal.

    Setup your new hosting account.

    Change your NameServers.

    Ask your current host to change the A record in their local DNS to point to your new IP.

    I have moved several sites to other servers using this method, and usually within minutes all traffic is being routed to the new server.
    Need a new Web Host?
    Become a Host Refugee and receive TRUE 24/7 Support

    cPanel + Fantastico, PHP4 or PHP5
    HostRefugee.com - See our current promotions

  8. #8
    Ok some settings have now been changed and i think the problem has been sorted - apparently the host says someone was trying to 'boom our bandwidth' - Mart normally deals with all website and bandwidth stuff and he's not here just now so am I right in thinking this means someone was trying to force us over bandwidth limits deliberately? Apparently host says they have loads of error messages since settings were changed which is why they say it was deliberate attempt - can someone tell me more about this booming of bandwidth please?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Posts
    2,733
    I would be worried about the hosts crediablity if you were suspicious of them doing that, but if you are receiving good service with them otherwise then it is worth trying to work around it.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •