Finding a Webhost: Disk Space and Bandwidth Questions

Since I want to run a private blog as well as a picture sharing site, I've been looking at finding a web/site host other than SmugMug and Zenfolio. I'm just starting out and I don't foresee my sites to have any sort of heavy traffic anytime soon.

Since I'm completely new to this, I am wondering what disk space/bandwidth requirements I should be looking at. Will 5gb worth of disk space be enough? 10gb? 15gb? The difference between 5gb and 10gb isn't a whole lot. Then again, if disk space and bandwidth will become an issue because of my photo sharing needs then I might just as well choose the cheapest package and go with SmugMug and Zenfolio for my image sharing needs. Any suggestions?

I primarily use go daddy for hosting and domains but there are many others. There economy hosting is maybe $5 a month and will be more then you need. You may want to look into wordpress for a website as its entirely customizable. A little more work than Zenfolio or smugmug but you get the results you want and you don't have to work around their format and look.

Thanks. I don't plan to go with godaddy, but looking at their economy package, it appears that they give you 10gb of disk space. So you think 10gb would be a good starting point and 5gb would be too little?

BigBadWolfie wrote in post #14503191
Thanks. I don't plan to go with godaddy, but looking at their economy package, it appears that they give you 10gb of disk space. So you think 10gb would be a good starting point and 5gb would be too little?

It all depends on how you plan to use it!

My photo host (PBase) offers plenty of storage, I'm not even sure if there's a limit -- you pay, and you pay a bit more frequently as your storage goes up.

But, I don't store Large, High Quality jpegs on there -- I upload images that are "sized for the Web", meaning sized for the POTN limit of 1024 pixels at the longest dimension, and my jpeg Quality setting is is not at the maximum. Plus, after some time, I'll delete a lot of my "originals", which saves disk space.

So, I have more than 8,000 images on PBase and they are only taking up a bit more than 1.5GB of space!

However, if you plan on using the site to store larger, high quality jpegs, then if I were you I'd be looking at the "economy" 10GB approach, at least to start with!

DreamHost is an excellent company to work with. Unlimited bandwidth, storage, emails, etc. And they support many great server features that other hosts don't. Check'em out, I think their monthly price is around $8 for their shared hosting package, but you can get it for less if you find a coupon code. And if you start getting more traffic or if you need more resources, their VPS and dedicated servers are quite reasonable.

I used Lunarpages for the last 6 yrs. Mainly for our racetrack safety crew site.

webfaction is very solid and fast.

I'm with a shared-hosting site. $4.95/mo (unlimited b/w, unlimited diskspace, cPanel etc.) been with them since 2003

BigBadWolfie wrote in post #14503191
Thanks. I don't plan to go with godaddy, but looking at their economy package, it appears that they give you 10gb of disk space. So you think 10gb would be a good starting point and 5gb would be too little?

What do you have against go daddy? Just curious...

Also as Tony said if you re-size for web, say 1000PX, 5GB will last forever.

tonylong wrote in post #14504071
However, if you plan on using the site to store larger, high quality jpegs, then if I were you I'd be looking at the "economy" 10GB approach, at least to start with!

Thanks for the advice. One thing I would like to do is to set up private folders and upload high res photos into them for overseas family members to download. But I don't anticipate too much of a space problem there since I can always delete those folders.

Still, do you think something like SmugMug or Zenfolio would be better options for this purpose?

Kronie wrote in post #14505187
What do you have against go daddy? Just curious...

Also as Tony said if you re-size for web, say 1000PX, 5GB will last forever.

I just came across too many bad reviews to have confidence in it. It's strictly personal. So you think 5gb is plenty as well even for a moderately-sized photo sharing site?

BigBadWolfie wrote in post #14505353
Thanks for the advice. One thing I would like to do is to set up private folders and upload high res photos into them for overseas family members to download. But I don't anticipate too much of a space problem there since I can always delete those folders.

Still, do you think something like SmugMug or Zenfolio would be better options for this purpose?

I just came across too many bad reviews to have confidence in it. It's strictly personal. So you think 5gb is plenty as well even for a moderately-sized photo sharing site?

They have wonderful customer support. One of the best you will find. Dare I say, better than Apple? Start out with 5GB and see where it takes you. You can always upgrade if you need it.

Kronie wrote in post #14505527
Start out with 5GB and see where it takes you. You can always upgrade if you need it.

Ya I think that's what I'm going to start with and if I need more, I'll look into SmugMug or Zenfolio for my photo sharing needs.