How much space does a gallery need?

[tweatherred]

I am thinking about setting up a personal webpage that among other things would be a place for family and friends to see my pictures. I would also like to be able to hotlink to pictures from here, as I usually post in this forum from work and my pictures are at home. Does anyone out there have any idea how much space that would require? I am sure I would eventually have several hundred pictures on there, most in high enough resolution for people to make decent 5x7 prints. How much storage space should I look for? How much data transfer should I expect to need? It seems like web hosting is competitive enough these days that space can be had pretty cheaply, so I am willing to err on the side of too much. I am also planning to spend more to go with an established, reliable hosting company. Any thoughts and advice are appreciated.

[SoaringUSAEagle]

I go through GoDaddy and I know not everyone likes them, as with everything but I have been with them for quite some time through various domains and I really like their service.



Take a look at that and decide. Start out with the economy plan (I use this one). And once stuff gets going, upgrade.

[jbkalla]

I really like using HostExcellence! They're great. I used to have GoDaddy, but the interface was too messy for me. It looked like the old hotmail page! :-)

BTW, HostExcellence is at http://www.hostexcellence.com/

[tweatherred]

Thanks for your answers. I'll take any advice offered, since I have no dea what I am doing (again)

[JustXtreme]

i 2nd godaddy.

[jbkalla]

tweatherred, if you're using just JPEGs for your 5x7 pics (at 300dpi) they'll be about 1MB each (at least!). For PSDs and Tiffs, they'll probably be between 5-30MB each. In any case, 5GB of storage should last you for awhile...

[Mathiau]

i use network solutions last 5 years, no problems

for hosting i started out with phpwebhosting.com - $9.99 a month

then i signed up for and now have Hostrocket.com - excellent web hosting


the size all depends on how many pictures you plan to upload and what quality.

[tweatherred]

Thanks for the additional input; I am leaning towards GoDaddy but that is far from decided. I like that they are large and can register domains as well as host. For those who use their website to link images that are viewed here, does that involve a large bandwidth hit?

[Mathiau]

depends on how big the image is and how many people view the image - most of the time the image will be cached for most people pending on their browser settings.

i do beleive Godaddy has surpassed all over registers for registrations recently, as well they have some of the lowest prices.

[srwafu]

I have dozens of domains registered via godaddy - their service is stunning... as for size and hosting - just remember that an on-line gallery doesnt need to have your full quality image on it - a monitor wont be able to display the clarity of it properly anyway :)

[Mathiau]

Many Monitors can view the clarity of an image if properly calibrated.....

[tweatherred]

Once again, I am always pleased with the advice I get here. I just signed up with godaddy after seeing that they host The Radiant Vista; one of my favorite photo websites and run in part by someone I did a workshop with last year. It is truly amazing how cheap hosting has become; I signed up for the deluxe package for less than $7.00/month and have more features/space/data transfer than I can use, although I do plan to offer my relatives email/email forwarding from the prestigious .weatherred domain, so the many email accounts are good. Right now I am still learning how to code a website and am looking at some of the gallery software others here have been happy with, so things are moving along nicely, if a bit slowly. Once again, thanks for the input.

[Mathiau]

It is great, with bandwidth becoming so high and fast these days and harddrives costing less then $0.50 a gig US and even cheaper for hosting companies cause they buy bulk! things are only going to get cheaper, faster and better!