Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : How much Bandwidth is used to download X Amout ...

[hitboy]

How much Bandwidth is used to download X amount of hard drive space per file?

For example how could I figure out how much bandwidth is used to download a 1gb file. (im talking general averages)

Oh and sorry if this is in the wrong category just wasn't sure where to put it..

[Steve_Arm]

For 1GB file, 1GB bandwidth plus some bytes for the GET request.

[hitboy]

ah ok thanks!

[dotHostel]

Originally Posted by Steve_Arm

For 1GB file, 1GB bandwidth plus some bytes for the GET request.

Not really.

1GB file = 1024*1024*1024 bytes

payload = 1,073,741,824 bytes

adding protocol overhead (let's say 20%) = 1,288,490,188 bytes

1GB file ~ 1,3GB bandwidth usage

[hitboy]

great info thanks

[larwilliams]

People always forget about the TCP overhead for each connection. It is generally about 20% of the total you are trying to download. Mainly stuff such as acknowledges and requests for resending of packets.

[dotHostel]

People also forget overhead when talking about data transfer rate.

[Shaw Networks]

Originally Posted by dotHostel

People also forget overhead when talking about data transfer rate.

And unfortunately ISPs never inform their customers that they won't actually achieve data transfer rates that match the total maximum throughput of their Internet connection.