Can someone help me figure out my monthly bandwidth usage in Gb. My total ongoing average usage is 2 Mega Bits per second. Let me know if you need more info. I think the answer should be around 400-600 Gb a month. Thank you, rob
5132 - 5256 GB per Month 2 MB sec. x 60 = 120 MB min. x 60 = 7200 MB hour x 24 = 172800 MB day x 365 = 63072000 MB year / 12 = 5256000 MB Month If 1000 MB = 1 GB 5256 GB Month or 1024 MB = 1 GB 5132.8125 GB Month
Hey Rob, that should also be easily answered by your hosting provider. They can tell you exactly how much bandwidth you're using. Taking 2MB/second as an average and using that is very inaccurate since it's probably not exactly 2.0 MB, and any slight deviation is a big difference since you're multiplying by 60x60x24x30! Also, you have web stats at the bottom of each page. Click on it and log on using your hosting password. It should have a month-by-month summary for you.
huh? how is your provider billing you? they actually bill you by volume of bits shipped? that's inane. they should be billing you by some percentage of your peak bandwidth utilization. so if your steady state with 50 users online is 1 Mbps utilization and you peak to 5 Mbps (these are BIG numbers) providers usually will charge you at a rate of x% of your peak. so, say 80% or 90% so 4 Mbps or 4.5 Mbps. an actual count of bits transferred (Y GB) is meaningless - they don't pay by the bit - they pay by bps - ie: how "full" is the pipe and when it gets too full it triggers a cost step as they have to add a new pipe to deal with peaks. if your traffic is insanely even your costs are lower. if everybody and their brother logs in at once you get a bit more hosed. that's why the % of max is important - and that's the number you should work to negotiate down. we had a sweet deal at one point where we were in a facility with a monster pipe directly to MAE East. we negotiated a billing rate at 50% of our peak, and it worked out stellarly for us. this was late 90s - no clue what these guys are charging these days. my tuppence. doody.
I got my number using this calculator: http://www.valkaryn.net/bwcalc/ If you're looking for a new host, I use servermatrix.com and am quite happy with them.
I think your number is right. Last time I checked 6 months ago it was 350 Gb, so I think 650 is correct. I think the host basically has an unlimited pipe for me to use. I don't think it ever fills up. Just another way for them to make money and to me I think total usage sounds more fair than peak usage. There are times it spikes to 20 Megabits a second, like when we run the remote server backup.
billing by bit count makes no sense, rob. the only thing of value are these pipes that everybody rents from the telcos. everything else is largely inconsequential (or at least it's fixed cost). billing on MAX bandwidth utilization would be nasty - nobody with a brain would agree to that. get the data and do the analysis - you're probably way overpaying. the more even your user base access is, the cheaper your service should get (to a certain floor). doody.
Maybe I don't understand, but it's not being billed on Max utilization. It's being billed like cell phone minutes. I have a bucket I can use and if I go over then I can decide how big of bucket I want to add or just pay the overage. Logically I can't understand any other way you would want to be billed by borrowing someone else's pipe.
Actually many providers today - for large DS3, Fractional T's, etc. would bill you say (for easy math) 1,000 per month... With this you will get a certain Bandwidth allocation - say 2mb pipe (again just for easy math). You will only pay that 1K per month as long as you do not peak above that (usually a percentage - say 95% within your limit) - as you peak above the 2mb (in this example) - you will pay more.. and as you trend up you would elect to (like your cell phone) opt for 2.5 mb and so on... Some providers (like the old days with ISDN or T's will pay for data transmitted - kindof like long distance. This is not the way to go... Negotiate Xmb pipe for Y$ would be how I would do it. In my Hosting Service Company (Fortune 100) - we have about 16,000 clients - which we provide full service - Our apps, servers, customer support, routers on our site and to theirs, and the comm lines - we have a fixed rate - for T1's up to DS3's - these are fixed costs - no matter what the usage/data transmitted... Much more cost effective to our clients... Now ours is more point to point - but the same does apply to your hosting provider to the internet. I would say they have a very good thing going on - profit wise charging you like this... Now you also may be small enough - that you will not have the negoitating power with them - since this seems like how they operate... But I would ask.
Well, it's not like I have my own T1 or DS3, I forgot how big, but they have a HUGE pipe that many share. That's why I've been hitting usages of 20 Megabits a second. I would be in much worse shape with just a T1 or maybe even a DS3. As long as it's not already full, which they obviously have allocated much more capacity than needed. This really is a top notch hosting company. With many fly by night places, I like this one as they've been around awhile and are 100% debt free, so little risk of them closing the doors.
Rob I had issues with clients at places that kept folding, I usually only recommend XO, or MediaTemple. I personally am at USC, so unless the University of Southern California goes belly up, I am safe for another millenia or so I have a figure roughly what Wax has as well. The majority of your B/W is from images. Since you opted to store them as opposed to allowing hotlinks you will be eating it up all the time.
I was going to comment, but it looke like everything has been said. (BTW to Doody you should listen.)
Doody learns from me from mbworld, comment even when you don't know jack! Rob, have you thought about switching to another forum backend (software? I don't know the right word) to lower a LOT of the server usage and such? IPB is actually quite quicker then vBulliten in most occasions. Not sure if it applies here or not though. I'd love to run a few tests if you need, I have a server I can attempt to install both bulliten boards to show ya.
We did a pretty lengthy analysis and vB far and above is the clear industry leader. There are some new ones popping up as it's a growing space, but vB is more professional, stable, and has a larger customization community. As much of our users hate change, I doubt we'll even consider anything else for quite a while. vB is meeting all of our needs for now. The old software was limiting performance, functionality, and unstable as it wasn't Db driven. I don't think some of you understand the point of my post, it wasn't that I was complaining about bandwidth charges or performance. Both are very good, I will always buy bigger, better, and faster. I just wanted to know how to calculate the usage for future planning. Thanks.
Well alright then... Take 5133 GB / 8 conversion to give you byte/bits usage. I just thought you wanted us to elaborate a little on the scheme of hosting, physics, teleportation, etc Man all you guys are just geeks ;-) I of course am not - regardless of the pocket protector and tape on my glasses - lol
You using Apache 2.3.x Worm Hole edition too? I understand ya know, I think I just understood (okay, I didn't even read the first post) the question now. Like others stated your host should tell you how much bandwidth you're using. If you're running your smtp server on the same line as the forum check this out.. http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=61303 "vBouncer will reduce your server load, bandwidth, and your forum admin in-box, by unsubscribing members who keep bouncing their emails back to your forum admin email, which may bomb your mail box if you have a busy forum with many members who subscribe to many threads, but their emails are either invalid, inbox full, or have ISP problems." I've suggested this to a few sites but I'm not sure if they've implemented it yet or not, I have to actually bug them starting now..
