Your View On 'Unlimited' Hosting?

[Posilan]

You provided this as evidence that unlimited hosting itself is a fraud. It clearly states the otherwise.

I really didn't - if you read back through the thread, you will see I posted this in response to Sidular who said:

the host will in no way be held accountable for any loss of data or problems that the client may have experienced, as the host is providing the services advertised.

Are you going to report your neighbour Terry for being in conflict with that same ruling? He offers the unlimited email, unlimited domains, unlimited databases that the ruling emphatically deplores!

Northumberland is hardly in the same Neighbourhood as Manchester I cannot comment on Terry, but to answer your question, we too offer unlimited domain addons, databases, email etc on our reseller packages. All of these are still limited by the amount of bandwidth and space available to the reseller's master account though.

I doubt we will ever agree on this matter, but we chose to implement and display limits to be totally up front and clear about what we offer and what a customer is getting. This honest approach has always worked for us and we see no need to try to gain customers by offering something that (in our eyes) is not completely clear or truthful.

Steve

 

[Collabora]

Northumberland is hardly in the same Neighbourhood as Manchester

From Los Angeles your houses look really close together :smilie3:

 

[easyhostmedia]

Are you going to report your neighbor Terry for being in conflict with that same ruling? He offers the umlimited email, unlimited domains, unlimited databases that the ruling emphatically deplores! Why pick on the hosts that are operating legally in US and ignoring the ones that you claim are (allegedly) operating illegally in UK?

We have our TOS regularly checked by Trading Standards to make sure they comply with current legislation and for them to do this they also look over our site ( these are done at our request).
you will find 99.99% of hosts offer unlimited DBs, emails etc. yes we list these on our reseller plans, but when a reseller take a plan these are initially limited (which we explain in the welcome email they get with their login details), if a reseller wants a few extra emails etc. then they just submit a ticket and we add these to their account.

 

[easyhostmedia]

From Los Angeles your houses look really close together :smilie3:

well their approx. 440 miles (708 km) apart

 

[Collabora]

Collabora, you've taken the time to properly express what your 'unlimited' plan is capable of providing, and you've also stated how, although rare, you may enforce certain limitations if needed.
That kind of disclosure is what I would consider to be a 'legit' operation, one which does not, in any way, deserve the generalized hate from the industry professionals, as quite simply, you do not fit within their views on what an unlimited provider truly is.

Thanks for noticing

It doesn't need saying but those certain limitations are the same ones the limited hosts hide in their TOS. However, the more liberal anti-unlimited critics admit to tolerating unlimited hosts if they do mention the limitations next to the hosting plan. Hypocritically this isn't required from limited hosts

If a limited host with a 5gb plan kicks a user off after using only 3gb because they went over a "hidden" cpu limit its ok. But if an unlimited host does the same thing to the same site its a scam. This logic would insist that the 5gb host is also running a scam, but hypocrisy is the limited host's escape clause.

Objectively speaking, its the unlimited host that has the moral high ground here since he/she is not promising a specific disk space quota while the limited host is, and then refusing to deliver it.

 

[bunnykins]

If a limited host with a 5gb plan kicks a user off after using only 3gb because they went over a "hidden" cpu limit its ok. But if an unlimited host does the same thing to the same site its a scam. This logic would insist that the 5gb host is also running a scam, but hypocrisy is the limited host's escape clause.

That is not my logic. I look at cpu limits at totally different from space and bandwidth limit. Limited and unlimitted hosts that I have used have had cpu limits as well and I do not consider suspending a site for cpu usage a scam.
How ever if a limited host suspends my account for using to may inodes then I would consider it a scam as that is the same logic used for unlimited.

Why don't unlimited hosts just offer plans with set amount of inodes instead of a set amount of space? They could have different plans with different amount of inodes that could be used.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Why don't unlimited hosts just offer plans with set amount of inodes instead of a set amount of space? They could have different plans with different amount of inodes that could be used.

Because a lot dont know what an Inode is.

 

[Collabora]

Why don't unlimited hosts just offer plans with set amount of inodes instead of a set amount of space? They could have different plans with different amount of inodes that could be used.

Because inodes are not typically part of a hosting plan. I have seen limited hosts with inodes limits in their TOS. Its just not customary to include that in the Hosting Plan bullet point.

Inodes (for Windows the number of files and directories) affects i/o. Both limited hosts and unlimited hosts have to watch i/o and will suspend an account if i/o gets too high and affects server performance and the other sites on the server

While that sort of information is useful to server engineers, it probably would confuse customer to include it in a hosting plan instead of disk space quota.

What seems to be constantly forgotten is the "unlimited" does not refer to every resource, every nook and cranny of a server. It only refers to the resources in the Hosting Plan. Hence one should be able to offer Unlimited quota of those resources without having to offer unlimited cpu, unlimited ram, unlimited i/o, etc.

These other limits are not there to punish the customer, they are put there by both limited and unlimited hosts, to prevent server abuse and maintain the integrity and stability of the shared hosting environment. Together these limits are known as "fair usage." Just as the limited host can use a Fair Usage policy so can an unlimited host

 

[bunnykins]

I agree with the fair usage as that is a good thing. A lot if not all the unlimited hosts I have tried or used have actually had the server overloaded. A lot of times the fair usage is set much lower then none unlimited hosts. I will admit I am mainly comparing the hosts I have used but over the years I have used a lot of hosts. I do not think it is over 100 but well over 20. None of the limited ones I have used have had an inode limit in place, the space limit is used instead. Just like my host I can use the full 25gb of space my account has with out worrying about inodes. They still do limit cpu, ram, and the amount of connections. Actually the amount of connections actually became and issue recently, which some one here PM'ed me about. I have added incapsula to my site to cut down on the amount of connections as cloudflare does not work with my site's software.

 

[Collabora]

Although its tempting to demand that unlimited hosts display their inode limits in the hosting plan, one must first realize that there is no correlation between disk space and number of inodes

For example, you can have a 20GB database in a folder and that would be only 2 inodes. On the other hand you can have a 200MB Wordpress site with 20,000 inodes.

Typically (from my experience) unlimited hosts have inode limits of 250,000 to 500,000 inodes before a site is considered "abusive." This allows more than enough space for websites suitable for a shared hosting environment. These limits are to control abusers, not legit website owners.

A little side note: In the example sites/inodes above one will find that the unlimited host will host both of them, but most limited hosts will host only one of them (the wp site).

 

[bunnykins]

Are you saying my site is not legit? The inode limits you posted are much higher then what I have seen. I have seen 120,000 to 200,000. I have yet to see 500,000 which would actually work just fine for my site.
I am aware that inodes can be differences sizes. I have almost 14,000 games and each game is around 4 or 5 inodes depending on how many files it has. Some older games only have 3 as it is just the swf and 2 images.

I just had cloudweb check to see how many inodes my site actually uses. I am using 70266, which is less then what I was thinking but with each game being about 5 that would be about right. Although there are other files and folders on the site. I probably have a lot of older games that are only 3 files.

 

[Collabora]

Are you saying my site is not legit? .

haha no. I was speaking generally and pointing out the inode limits are not created to restrict legit sites

The inode limits you posted are much higher then what I have seen. I have seen 120,000 to 200,000. I have yet to see 500,000 which would actually work just fine for my site. .

Justhost: 300,00
Hostgator: 250,000
Godaddy: 500,000

Just to name a few

 

[bunnykins]

Godaddy went up since the last time I looked. They were one of the ones I had for a month. OMG they were slow, that about killed my site with the slow site loading. Slow page loads is something I have seen a lot of with unlimited hosts.

I was thinking arvixe.com had 120,000 but I can not seem to find it on their site. Most have been a different host. That is not one I have had. I looked into them shortly before joining this site because they are now the host for ocpotal instead of elief and I was wondering as to why. When I saw that arvixe had unlimited I looked for an inode limit. I swear I found one but I guess not. However just the fact they offer unlimited scared me away from them.

 

[Alex - A2 Hosting]

Godaddy went up since the last time I looked. They were one of the ones I had for a month. OMG they were slow, that about killed my site with the slow site loading. Slow page loads is something I have seen a lot of with unlimited hosts.

I was thinking arvixe.com had 120,000 but I can not seem to find it on their site. Most have been a different host. That is not one I have had. I looked into them shortly before joining this site because they are now the host for ocpotal instead of elief and I was wondering as to why. When I saw that arvixe had unlimited I looked for an inode limit. I swear I found one but I guess not. However just the fact they offer unlimited scared me away from them.

I wanted to confirm we do not have an inode limit in place on our hosting packages. Sorry to see you was turned away, we actually are one of the few unlimited providers out there with a good reputation in the unlimited hosting game. Feel free to reach out to me if you ever consider us in the future.

Which hosting provider did you go with instead of us?

 

[bunnykins]

Cloudweb is who I use.

 

[xbroshost]

It is some kind of marketing strategy in early stages but now a days it mighty be not useful.But mostly clients need unlimited space hosting for there massive files so it is good till now.

 

[SenseiSteve]

It is some kind of marketing strategy in early stages but now a days it mighty be not useful.But mostly clients need unlimited space hosting for there massive files so it is good till now.

I think what you'll find with any host offering unlimited disk space is that they have restrictions on the number of inodes you're allowed. Most will place those limits between 120,000 and 500,000.

 

[Collabora]

I think what you'll find with any host offering unlimited disk space is that they have restrictions on the number of inodes you're allowed. Most will place those limits between 120,000 and 500,000.

You will also find that limited hosts offering 2 GB of disk space have limits on CPU. Big deal. There is nothing wrong with protecting the shared server from abuse. Those inode limits, like CPU limits don't restrict personal and small business websites -- optimized and/or suitable for a shared hosting environment -- from operating.

There is no correlation between disk space and number of inodes. For example, you can have a 20 GB database in a folder and that would be only 2 inodes. On the other hand you can have a 200 MB Wordpress site with 20,000 inodes.

 

[SenseiSteve]

You will also find that limited hosts offering 2 GB of disk space have limits on CPU. Big deal. There is nothing wrong with protecting the shared server from abuse. Those inode limits, like CPU limits don't restrict personal and small business websites -- optimized and/or suitable for a shared hosting environment -- from operating.

There is no correlation between disk space and number of inodes. For example, you can have a 20 GB database in a folder and that would be only 2 inodes. On the other hand you can have a 200 MB Wordpress site with 20,000 inodes.

What's with the Big Deal comment? I completely agree that there's nothing wrong with protecting a shared server from abuse.

There's a great explanation of inode blocks on softpanorama.org.

Inode block. Inode is a kernel structure that contains a pointer to the disk blocks that store data. This pointer points to information such as file type, permission type, owner and group information, file size, file modification time, and so on. Note that the inode does not contain the filename as part of the information. The filename is listed in a directory that contains a list of filenames and related inodes associated with the file. When a user attempts to access a given file by name, the name is looked up in the directory where the corresponding inode is found. Inode stores the following information about every file:

The type of the file
The owner
The group
The size of the file
The time and date of creation
The time and date of last modification
The time and date of last access
An array of 15 disk block addresses
Each inode has a unique number associated with it, called the inode number. The -li option of the ls command displays the inode number of a file:

# ls -li
When a user creates a file in the directory or modifies it, the following events occur:

The Inode of the file is stored in the Inode block of the file system.
The file contents are stored in the allocated data blocks referenced by the Inode.
The Inode number is stored in the directory.

 

[Collabora]

What's with the Big Deal comment? I completely agree that there's nothing wrong with protecting a shared server from abuse.

But you singled this one out. No one goes around qualifying limited hosts with qualifiers that would prevent someone from using all of the limited disk quota promised. But many (you just happened to do it here today - ) seem to put up this inode limit factor as if it is some sort of dire warning. I'm just saying its an irrelevant consideration for the typical web site. In other words: Big Deal

There's a great explanation of inode blocks on softpanorama.org.

Very nice for the Linux admin. Typical customer can care less. As a Windows admin myself, I find it interesting on a theoretical level (Windows doesn't use inodes).