Number of files allowed.

[confusimo]

Before I consider signing uo.

I am happy with current host. But 1 think I don't like. I have 5gb space. And enough bandwidth. And reasonable proce too. But I have too many files. They said for shared hosting I have 5gb space. But I'm olny allowed 50,000 files per hosting account. That's how shared is. And for me dedicated or virtaul cost too much.

What about you guys. A lot of my ifriends recomend HG. It says on your site 100gb space and 1000gb bandwidth.

Does that mean I can upload any numbers of files as long as I stay within 100gb. Or do you have a limit also.

Thanks,
Confusimo

[ldearing]

i am not aware of any file count limit as long as you are in your quota on space... thats really a good question for the on-line support chat. when i was doing my pre-sales research i found them very helpful

[confusimo]

Please wait for a HostGator operator to respond.
Welcome to HostGator Live Chat! You are now chatting with 'Michael P'
Michael P: Welcome to HostGator Live Chat, how may I assist you?
****: On your site it says 100gb space and 1000gb bandwidth. But is there a limit to the number of files I'm allowed also.
Michael P: No, there is not a limit on the number of files, just the total size of them.
****: Cuz my current host gives 5gb space but says I'm only allowed 50,000 files per account. So as long as I stay within 100gb I can use any ammount of files I need?
Michael P: Yes, that's correct.
****: Good to know thanks.

Thanks,
Confusimo

[chaloupe]

Just want to share a thing with you guys,

I have a customer who had a folder with about 6000 pdf files in it and when he was log in via FTP, he could only see the first 2000 in that folder. This is a settings that you can change in the FTP settings ( under root only ) so that users can see all their files at once.

I think this is setup this way so it does not get a high load on the server when you request that much files at once. You could check this also with hostgator if they have set a limit on the number of files you can see at once via ftp.

Best Regards,

NOTE ADDED: We could see all files on the Internet without any problem but not in FTP and this was on a Hostgator server.

[confusimo]

It's not at once or I can see. I have a limit of 50,000 files. Once I've uploaded 50,000 I can't upload anymore. That is bad. I mean if they allow 5gb then why should it matter how many files I have. 5gb is 5gb. But I couldn't upload anyomreo. I only had 13% of 5gb used but reached the 50,000 file limit. So seems kinda silly. I could see everything I was just not allowed more than 50,000 files.

So I was wondering about HG. But he says there's no limit.

Thanks,
Confusimo

[Serra]

There is a limit of the number of files you can have. 50,000 is a lot of files. I know after about 20k files, some of the functions will no longer work. However, as far as I know, HG does not put an external limit on the number of files you can have. In fact, I'm not even sure how anyone would do that, there would be no reason to limit the number of files you could have.

[confusimo]

Somebody on the Startlogic Forums called it a "soft file limit".

But anyway 50,000 might be good for a small site. But if I wanted to be really popular. Like (but not exactly or copy) myspace or something like that. Then 50,000 would not be enough.

Or would that then be dedicated and shared wouldn't suffice anymore.

I'll probably never make anything that popular. I was just wondering.

Thanks,
ivnj

[Serra]

Well, let me add, HG doesn't have a soft limit. However, I was talking about 20K file in one folder. If you build a directory tree and spread the files out in some logical manor, then you will not have any problems.

You will get problems if you have more than about 5-10K files in the same directory, because of the amount of memory it takes to catalog the files for directory listings and stuff.

Other than that, you will not have any problem getting 50k+ files here. However!!!! Let me point out that if you have some large number of files, that is fine, but if you get a large number of USERS, then you are screwed. A site like YouTube will bring in a large number of visitors, if you get more than about 1000 at one time, your site is heading for suspention for processor/mysql usage.

There is a limit of 25 mySQL connections at any one time. That limits you to around 700 - 1000 uses accessing a mySQL driven site at one time. (Like a forum or blog)

Same thing goes for the PDF customer, if the files are spread across several directories, it works much better.

[confusimo]

Then how do sites like youtube and mypsace function. Do they pay for dedicated hsoting. Do they spend 1-5000 a month on server costs.

Or I have a forum. So if I get like 3-5 thousand posts a year or have maybe only 50 users or less I'm OK.

Or I can just upgrade later if I become popular.

Thanks,
Confusimo

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by confusimo

Then how do sites like youtube and mypsace function. Do they pay for dedicated hsoting. Do they spend 1-5000 a month on server costs.

These sites have racks upon racks of servers that they manage themselves (infact they hire teams of people to do the administration). Youtube goes through terabytes upon terabytes of bandwidth each day. I've read estimates that they spend $1 million per month on those costs.

[confusimo]

But youtube is mostly videos and stuff. I can see videos using a lot of bandwidth. But myspace is mostly text and pictures. No videos or motion. Or not youtube amount anyway. So myspace bandwidth is a lot less isn't it.

And even if it is. If I keep say only a tenth of that or have a small site with only 50 or 100 users then it shouldn't be too bad right.

Or any social site regardless of size is too much for shared hosting, even the 1000gb bandwidth allowed here.

Thanks,
Confsuimo

[bonehead]

I have a site with the old limits. 5GB space and 75GB bandwidth. I have on the average of 150-200 users active including guest at any given time. My average day is about 2-3K of visitors/members a day.

My site is doing just fine.

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by confusimo

But youtube is mostly videos and stuff. I can see videos using a lot of bandwidth. But myspace is mostly text and pictures. No videos or motion. Or not youtube amount anyway. So myspace bandwidth is a lot less isn't it.

And even if it is. If I keep say only a tenth of that or have a small site with only 50 or 100 users then it shouldn't be too bad right.

Or any social site regardless of size is too much for shared hosting, even the 1000gb bandwidth allowed here.

Myspace may have a lot less videos than youtube, but it has a lot more active users and a lot more pageviews. I don't have the numbers on myspace but i'd wager it's still in the hundreds of gigabytes each day if not low terabytes (this is likely in my opinion).

These sites don't operate on number of pages so much as database entries. You can have a social networking site with only a few php pages-- one for profile view, one for send message, one for edit profile, etc.. You don't need to replicate these files for every user. You just use php (or perl, or whatever...) to display the correct info.

[Serra]

Originally Posted by confusimo

Then how do sites like youtube and mypsace function. Do they pay for dedicated hsoting. Do they spend 1-5000 a month on server costs.

YouTube, $5000 a month of server costs? YouTube doesn't have a server or two they run off of, they have a BUILDING FULL OF SERVERS that they run off of.

[confusimo]

Then I can use something like this.

http://www.teenlounge.org/dolphin54/

or

http://demo.phpizabi.net/

Thanks,
ivnj

[tomowa]

Well you won't know till you are up and running, then find if you end up suspended.
But suffice to say, if you have to ask at all, if your site will be taxing on a shared server, you better be looking at a dedicated right off the bat.

[confusimo]

But I don't have the kinda money for a dedicated server so I have to ask.

Thanks,
Confusimo

[Serra]

Originally Posted by confusimo

But I don't have the kinda money for a dedicated server so I have to ask.

If you can't afford a dedicated server, then I suggest you not set your goals on having a site with 50000 video files in it. You are going down a path that leads to a dedicated server, no way around it.

Either figure out a way to pay for a dedicated server, via some kind of income from the site, or turn your attention to something that will not be so taxing on the servers. (That is just my opinion, do as you wish...)

[confusimo]

I was just using utube as an example. I don't want to do videos. Photos only. Something like myspace but on a much smaller scale. No videos or music. Photos only. Basically myspace lite sorta. Not that name. Just something basic. No bells and whistles. Just keep in touch with people but no video or anything too taxing.

Can do I do something simple with a shared account if leave out the videos and mp3s, etc?

Or simple is boaring and I'm...

Thanks,
Confusimo

[slapshotw]

This is now out of the realm of "how many files" and into "what can shared hosting support." You won't have a file limit problem if your site is dynamic.

As far as shared hosting, you'll be able to support about 400 users (Serra, I think this is the guideline you like to give) at one time with the MySQL connection limit. I doubt you'll hit the bandwidth limit.

-Matt

[Serra]

Originally Posted by slapshotw

As far as shared hosting, you'll be able to support about 400 users (Serra, I think this is the guideline you like to give) at one time with the MySQL connection limit.

I'd say 400 users at one time on a forum. Brent says its more like 700. More users are possible if it limits the mySQL calls.

[anjanesh]

I'd say 400 users at one time on a forum.

Like 400 times the same php script gets executed every second ?
I dont see how it can be more than 25 since only 25 mysql-connections are allowed at a time.

[Serra]

You are correct. You can't have more than 25 connections at an one time. So it would be correct to say that you can't have more than 25 users at the same time. The reason you can have more on a site is because those 25 connections only last a fraction of a second. So in one second, you could have between 250-1000 connections. Take into account that someone browsing/responding/reading a forum only changes page about 4 or 5 times a minute. So in any one minute you could have 3000 uses reading pages. Of course, that isn't exactly true becuase users often open more than one connection per page, so when all is said and done, it ends up being between 300-700 users per minute.

[anjanesh]

Thanks Serra for the details. This is when users are browsing.
But how do we control this if google-bot or any other bot crawls the site, pulling each and every page in a fraction of a second - in a multi-threaded fashion - wont this cause havoc to the server ?

How is this handled by HG ? Or do we need to specify some parameter in google sitemaps ?

[Illusion]

Originally Posted by confusimo

But anyway 50,000 might be good for a small site. But if I wanted to be really popular. Like (but not exactly or copy) myspace or something like that. Then 50,000 would not be enough.

Sorry to say but it would. MySpace. The only thing that would eat up the file space on MySpace are the video and music files, but they aren't kept on the same server. The template probably doesn't even take 100 files let along 50,000, so that won't be it.