Unlimited hosting plans are really unlimited? Know my experience

We all hear and see on may web hosting companies advert their product with Unlimited hosting plans, with many other benefits and pros and cons. But my questions to you is – Did you know what is unlimited hosting plans? You want the truth about unlimited web hosting? Here it is i experience with Hostgator team. I contacted the Hostgator of web hosting via their chat services, and here’s what I found. The chats are nearly in their original state.

Unlimited Hosting Plans & Providers

Let’s go through this chat experience with hostgator executive in regards of unlimited hosting plans and services.

Chat with Hostgator About Unlimited Hosting Plans:

Question: WordPress Unlimited Hosting Plans? (Chat ID:14747897):

Estimated Wait Time: 39 min.

[System] Customer has entered chat and is waiting for an agent.

[AKWANZAA B] Welcome to HostGator Live Chat. My name is AKWANZAA B be glad to assist you with any questions you may have about unlimited hosting plans today.

[Mitul] Hi. I see you have unlimited bandwidth.

[AKWANZAA B] Yes Mitul, that is correct, our shared hosting share the CPU, Memory, Disk Space and Bandwidth. There is no limitations set on each shared account for the Disk Space and Bandwidth.

[Mitul] What does that mean exactly?

[AKWANZAA B] What that means is you are on a shared hosting environment, which has a priority system to the shared CPU and Memory. If you were to use all of your allotted resources, you would need to upgrade.

You would run out of allotted resource before you used up, so much bandwidth that it effects other sites on the shared servers.

[Mitul] So what is limited then?

[Mitul] CPU?

[Mitul] Memory?

[Mitul] how are those limits set?

[AKWANZAA B] Those limits are set on a priority based system to the shared CPU, and as far as memory you have burstiAkwanzaa Be up to 512 MB.

[Mitul] So you have a way to measure CPU usage but can’t really explain it in numbers or words?

[AKWANZAA B] Because there is no hard number to provide you, could you please let me know what you plan to do, and I can advise you on the best environment for your project.

[AKWANZAA B] Correct, most shared hosting environments do not have a way to provide that accurately.

[Mitul] Oh. Hm. What if I get 1,000 unique visitors each day on a WordPress website

[AKWANZAA B] That would be fine if your site is primarily static in nature. If your site were fairly dynamic ( streaming multimedia, high e-commerce) you might be leaning towards VPS.

[AKWANZAA B] So because the project you are describing is literally in the gray area between the VPS and Shared solutions.

[Mitul] Hm. OK.

[AKWANZAA B] To a single WordPress site, I typically do not recommend being on shared if you are getting more than 500 unique visitors. That being said, when we are in this “gray area” I recommend starting on Power or Pro, and if you use all of your resources, upgrading to the VPS.

[Mitul ] Hm. OK. Another question. If I have a terabyte of pictures, I want to upload (family pictures for a family website) is that OK? Because you have unlimited storage space with unlimited hosting plans right?

[AKWANZAA B] Unfortunately, you would not be aAkwanzaa – Be to have that many files stored. We do not allow our servers for file storage. If you had a low volume site with 1TB of storage, that would be considered file sharing which is against our terms of service.

[Mitul] oh, so it’s not unlimited storage then?

[Mitul] it wouldn’t be for file storage. I already have them backed up on my home computer three times. It would be for my family website

[AKWANZAA B] Mitul, you can’t put 1TB of storage on a shared server, anywhere in the world. For perspective, a 1TB server with us is over $200.00 per month. Besides the fact that a family website with 1TB of storage would be considered file storage, the amount of inodes created by 1TB of storage, is enough in itself to use too many resources.

[Mitul] I see. So the “unlimited storage space” is a marketing play.

[Mitul] OK last question

[AKWANZAA B] Absolutely Mitul ! What is it?

[Mitul] why does your VPS-8000 have 240GB of storage for 159$ and and 3TB of bandwidth and your $3.96 shared plan have “unlimited” storage and “unlimited” bandwidth? Doesn’t make sense.

[Mitul] Sorry to be a pain. Just trying to figure this all out before I decide what to do.

[AKWANZAA B] The VPS provides dedicated resources (CPU and MEMORY) that would be required for a website that is 200GB large.

[AKWANZAA B] Basically, if you are over the 50GB range, and do not have enough traffic to be over your resource limits, you would probaAkwanzaa By be asked to move up or shut down due to file storage.

[AKWANZAA B] Unlimited is based on the fact that there is a hard drive or series of hard drive ranging greatly in the number of TB on the drives.

[Mitul] I see. Interesting stuff. Thank you for the education. Much appreciated.

[AKWANZAA B] For example. Lets say we have a shared server with 100GB on it. We could put 100 customers on it with “unlimited storage” when statistics say that 80 percent of them would be using less than 1GB.

[AKWANZAA B] Does that make sense?

[Mitul] Right. I get it now.

[Mitul] But honestly, it’s false marketing. That unlimited hosting plans bugs me a little but all the hosts use the same tactics.

[AKWANZAA B] I understand and I do apologize about that. It is common practice in the industry and I think our marketing team is trying to keep pace with the competitions’ strategies.

[Mitul] Unless you jump up to an expensive managed host and then they honestly list all their limitations right up front.

[Mitul] yes, I understand what you’re up against.

[Mitul] with the “keeping up” part.

[Mitul] thanks for the honesty.

[AKWANZAA B] Absolutely Mitul , I wish our website was as straight forward for you!

[Mitul] OK. Thanks again.

Know more about Web hosting Services,

So, Wingers – this is entire conversation about web hosting in terms of unlimited hosting plans and their limits on different factors. Hope you people really get some idea about unlimited hosting plans out of this chat with web hosting provider.