	Unlimited Disk Space? What's the catch?

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Unlimited Disk Space? What's the catch?

Question:

Unlimited Disk Space? What's the catch?

I have a couple of sites hosted with total choice hosting, and have always been very happy with them. But one of the sites is growing and growing in size (lots of video and audio). I just had to upgrade to the "Platinum" plan which give 6000 MB storage space (was at about 4100 MB).

But I'm hearing about other hosting companies offering "unlimited" storage for the same (or even less) monthly fee.

This sounds too good to be true. Can it really be unlimited? What's the catch?

Answer: Unlimited Disk Space? What's the catch?

Web Hosts providers seems to be claiming that they will give (sort of) unlimited space, as long as it's legit.

The catch is it will never happen. Think about this, what is the biggest drive you've seen? At the moment that is likely a 1.5TB drive. It has a finite capacity, not unlimited. Sure they can continue adding drives to the server or the SAN array. But how long do you think they will keep doing that? Space is at a premium in data centers.

The servers themselves typically only have room for 6 drive tops if they are 2U or larger. But there again to save space many are likely 1U servers or blades that have maybe 2-3 drives in them. If they are not using a SAN for data then they likely have identical sized drives in each bay for RAID 1 or 5. If they use a SAN then they still only have a limited number of drive bays available. Typically around 80 per rack if 3.5" drives are used. You can probably double that number if 2.5" drives are used.

Try dumping 500GB on one of those "unlimited" hosts and see how quickly they bitch or dump you altogether. Yes, I'm sure if you are really willing to pay for it they will let you put that much data on there but for the typical ~$20 a month the "unlimited" guys charge there is no way.

Read the AUP on your Web Host, Generally you will find a definition about the unlimited disk space:

EX:
"All space must be for YOUR site."
"Your total account usage, can not be greater then 1%."
"Backups, are not allowed to be kept on the server."

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