Dedicated Hosting Bandwidth- There are some things you need to know about dedicated hosting bandwidth and Best Dedicated Web Host has written this article on dedicated hosting bandwidth to help you understand what is dedicated hosting bandwidth.

Along with choosing platform, memory, CPU type, management, and disk space, those seeking dedicated hosting must choose bandwidth. What are the concerns with dedicated hosting bandwidth? What are the dedicated hosting bandwidth options? Read on for more.

Unlike shared hosting—in which customers share a server and its resources, dedicated hosting puts one customer on a server, eliminating the issues of what the others are doing and ensuring the availability of all the resources. But some of these resources are more clearly set out than others. A 250 GB SATA2 hard drive is exactly what it says. So is 12 GB RAM or a Xeon Quad Core 2.53 GHz processor. But bandwidth can be measured in a variety of ways, and the amount of bandwidth offered with a dedicated hosting plan is a) often not listed along with the other basics on the front page of the dedicated server hosting product list and b) often not clearly explained (except, perhaps, in the fine print).

First, it's important to understand that bandwidth can refer to two different things, both of which are important to a dedicated hosting customer, but only one of which is frequently mentioned on hosting websites in an obvious way.

Bandwidth usage is the amount of data transferred over a period of time, usually a month. This is a non-scientific definition and the meaning of the bandwidth choices most prominently displayed on web hosting sites. Typical amounts range from 10 GB/month to 10000 GB/month, often listed simply as figures with no period of time indicated. Other popular bandwidth usage options are "unlimited" and "unmetered."

Bandwidth capacity is the scientific meaning of bandwidth. It refers to how much data can flow through the channel at t a given time. There are usually separate figures for bandwidth download and upload, with upload requirements being significantly less for many users.

Bandwidth capacity for data transfer is measured in megabits per second (Mb/sec or Mbps) or megabytes per second (MB/sec or MBps)

Slower bandwidth means pages will take longer to load and downloads and uploads will take longer to complete. So this is an important consideration when shopping for dedicated server hosting.

Hosting companies use vast amounts of bandwidth and may often draw on multiple providers to supply it. It is this type of backing that can allow guarantees of 100% uptime: there's enough redundancy to cover any failures.

On the other hand, there are some issues to be aware of. One is overselling, that is, selling more bandwidth than can actually be provided. This is done on the assumption that all users will not be using to maximum capacity all the time, and the demand will balance out. It also assumes that many customers will not use the full amount they have contracted for.

Another issue to be aware of is the variety of billing models used. When the total transfer method is used bandwidth usage is the measurement considered (GB/month), and the total traffic in, out, or both may be used as the measure. It's important to know which of these measurements applies, particularly if you run one or more websites with high traffic, in order to provide enough bandwidth and to avoid overage charges. In the unmetered method, a top data transfer speed (Mbps) is designated and no matter what the demand is, that is the data transfer rate that is allowed, so if there's high demand that exceeds that capacity, users' experience will drop off. There is, however, no overage charge in this system.

It is possible to test the bandwidth capacity of one's system, but free tests, such as those available at Speakeasy.net and Comcast.net, a) give different results depending on the location used do not give identical results and b) don't give matching results when testing at the same time with the same location, which leads to the conclusion that they are pretty unreliable.

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