When you make a website, you encounter different technical problems. One important thing to think about is disk space. Every action you do on a computer, like building a website, uses up a certain amount of storage.
If you take a look at different web hosts, you’ll find that some offer a limited amount of disk space while others offer unlimited disk space. Some web hosts offer different hosting plans where the amount of diskspace varies depending on which plan you use.
In this article, I’m going to help you determine the amount of disk space you actually need for your website and how to choose a web host that fulfills your requirements.
What is Disk Space?
Every hard drive has a certain amount of disk space, which determines how much you can store on that disk. Your personal computer has a certain amount of diskspace, and so does your web hosting company.
For most hosting arrangements, the web host supplies the server and related equipment, so you don’t have to store anything on your own computer. Websites vary a great deal when it comes to how much storage space they require. To use an extreme example, a huge site like Amazon.com requires a huge amount of disk space. This is obvious as Amazon has millions of high quality photos and hundreds of thousands of pages and a gigantic amount of other contents.
At the other extreme, a new blog with only a few pages requires hardly any noticeable storage… perhaps even 500MB is more than enough.
How much space does your website take up?
If you already have a website, you can find out how much disk space it currently uses up. You can very easily find this out in your web hosting control panel.
For example, if you are using cPanel, you can locate the diskspace usage in the right column under “Statistics”.
Of course, most people will find that their website is constantly growing. That’s why you have to think long term and make sure that your web host can meet your needs well into the future.
When you upload a large number of images or videos, this uses up more diskspace than pages containing mainly text. Still, it’s not likely that your site will exceed the limitations of most hosting plans. There can be exceptions, though.
If you are creating an online store and have lots of pictures of the merchandise, this can turn into a site that requires lots of disk space. The same is true for video sites where you upload new videos every day.
Evaluating Web Hosts for Disk Space
Before you sign up with a web hosting company, you can easily find out how much disk space they give you. This is something that is usually listed in the area where they describe their hosting plans.
Some hosting companies offer several different hosting plans. In this case, more expensive plans will usually offer more diskspace and bandwidth than cheaper ones. There are also some web hosts (which we will discuss below) that offer unlimited disk space.
Disk space vs Bandwidth
Disk space and bandwidth are listed separately because they are two different things. While disk space refers to the storage space your site takes up, bandwidth has to do with the amount of data that can be transferred from the server to the people accessing your site.
Bandwidth affects the speed your site loads, just like it does on your home computer. Cable companies that sell internet service will also tell you the bandwidth speed and charge you more for faster rates. Web hosts that offer unlimited diskspace generally offer unlimited bandwidth as well.
Web Hosts with Unlimited Disk Space
While the amount of disk storage offered by web hosts is usually enough for most users, you may be interested in finding a company that offers unlimited disk space. This eliminates any concern you might have, no matter how large your site eventually gets!
While unlimited disk space is an attractive feature, you should look at it as part of the whole package. Before choosing a web host, make sure it meets your needs in every way. The following web hosts not only offer unlimited diskspace, but have good overall reputations as well.
1 . Interserver
Unlike many of their competitors, InterServer only offers one shared hosting plan, called Standard Web Hosting. For 2.50/month. you get unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth. Its come with Direct Admin control panel , aslo they offer cPanel.
2 . InMotion Hosting
This is another highly rated web host that offers three Business Class hosting plans, all of which include unlimited diskspace and bandwidth. The more expensive plans have additional benefits, such as Pro support and dedicated IP’s. InMotion Hosting is especially renowned for hosting business websites. Thier Launch plan cost $6.99/mo (annual billing ).
3 . HostGator
HostGator is one of the largest web hosting companies in the world. They offer several shared hosting plans, Thier Business Plan offer unlimited diskspace and bandwidth. $17.95/month ( $8.25/month when you pay annualy ) .
All three of these companies have solid reputations, so they are worth checking out. The fact that they offer unlimited disk space is only one of the things that makes them good.
How to make sure you have Enough Disk storage
For the majority of us, running out of disk storage is not going to be a problem. As I mentioned, this could conceivably happen if you have an exceptionally large e-commerce site or one that has a huge number of images and/or videos on it.
If you want to be safe in this area, your best bet is to choose a web host that offers unlimited disk space. The ones we have discussed above are all very good and highly recommended, so you could begin your research there.
