Unlimited Disk space gimmick in Shared Hosting?

have anyone subscribed to shared hosting promising Unlimited Shared hosting, moreover claiming it is SSD storage and used over say 300+ GB without receiving complaints from the hosting provider after almost a year ??...

Am asking because from all my previous experiences with shared hosting providers, some promise say 200 GB+ Shared Hosting, but as soon as you come even near that amount storing your files they will contact you asking you to delete your files immediately, another webhost promised unlimited disk space, but if you use too much they will do the same or even worse, claiming that disk space cant be used to save files NOT RELATED to your hosted website, and backups etc... and NOT allowed, however we still see a lot of those hosting providers still do the same claim UNLIMITED DISK SPACE and what's really sad that a lot of clients take their word for granted, IMHO NO 4$/mo webhosting can allow you to use 1 TB+ Disk space and maintain those files every month, because they haven't invited a technology so far to with unlimited disk space or nearly infinite, i want to hear what do you guys think ??...

Hello,

Reputable companies providing unlimited hosting, will often provide 'unlimited' hosting, as they have the risk of been sued for damages if they sell something and poorly provide it. Your usually fine to use unlimited storage as long as your site isn't a file host, archive site, video/audio host, selling/giving away disk space without a reseller package or receiving excessive traffic. If you take part in any of these and your caught, your hosting account could be wiped without notice.

The reason unlimited hosting is so cheap is because there's a lot of restrictions and you can't get 24/7 support or good technical support at all in some cases. Servers are also often overloaded and purchased from OVH/SoYouStart and other low end server providers, and cost's are cut on every corner.

Recently Unlimited Hosting UK was merged into Heart Internet (or purchased as many believe) and support was completely obliterated, responses went from taking 30 minutes to 2 days. The team seemed to be half the size, but covering twice the amount of tickets. They went from a 9.8/10 down to a 8.0/10 on TrustPilot within days of the merger and they haven't recovered since. They also doubled the monthly prices and refused to grandfather in old customers as they wanted more money for themselves, they even started charging for backups and removed the master reseller hosting package. The whole merger was caused by them undercutting the market and selling to cheap, then a money hordering company bought them out and destroyed their reputation and didn't even apolgise to their customers.

That's my stance on the unlimited hosting gimmick, it's a great idea, but it must be planned and executed perfectly.

If you like my response and I answered your question please like or 'Thanks' my post. If I didn't, please send me a message letting me know of any issues, and if you want to ask me any additional questions don't forgot to quote me. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Kieran Cairns

Of course they'll let you use as much disk space as you need, and "unlimited" can actually be unlimited provided they keep adding new drives to accommodate you.
I say this whilst thinking of reputables companies, of course. Not to say you won't be hounded to upgrade though!

It is unlimited, as long as you adhear to all the limits they put in the TOS.....

Some web hosting providers say unlimited because their clients just don't know how much space they need. This way they don't have to think about it and is the way it was originally supposed to work. BUT, then there are those who will use massive amounts of space and will get the usual notice of using too much...They are trying to target a different customer that's just not that sure or knowledgable on MB's and GB's etc. But yeah, it's a bit of a gimmick...

Well, to be honest shared web hosting mean a hosting plan for those who have low budget, Physical server some time has countless web hosting accounts. Its always a difficult task for a web hosting company to provide customer up to 200GB plus space in shared hosting. TO be realistic web amuse you are a web hosting company pay for your data center 300GB dedicated server with cost of 200$ per month how would you manage to provide your customer a shred web hosting plan up to 200GB disk space with cost of even 5$ a month.

It's all nonsense and a business strategy to cut everyone else out. Out of all our accounts the average disk usage is about 80MB but it does not stop people buying unlimited when in reality a 5GB plan can hold most sites and anything with more storage requirements than that with the traffic to match is ready to think about a VPS anyway.

I try to ignore the whole unlimited thing and make my plans limited with smaller than average storage but still ample for 90% of customers needs.

Can't win the unlimited war so quality > quantity is how I run things.

This marketing tactic has had a huge impact on the minds of hosting customers who seem to expect 500GB for 2.99 a month and the big providers are the only ones who can offer which is an excellent strategy to control the market and starve out rivals. Many people shop on price and how much do I get for that price regardless of what is being sold.

The UNLIMITED jargon in shared hosting is just to test human limits.
But with more professionals in the field than amateurs, this has often been questionable.

With most hosts, once you cross the 20GB "lifeline" that which they can sustain, you start receiving warnings such as Nodes limit, CPU, RAM etc, and they will never tell you, it is because you are using up all of their unlimited-space.

The idea behind the UNLIMITED jargon is that it gives the client the impression there is enough space for them to float in, and not that they are to use it up.

Nobody can buy a disk called UNLIMITED GB ???
Their limits wrote at TOS.

HyperVMart said:

have anyone subscribed to shared hosting promising Unlimited Shared hosting, moreover claiming it is SSD storage and used over say 300+ GB without receiving complaints from the hosting provider after almost a year ??...

Am asking because from all my previous experiences with shared hosting providers, some promise say 200 GB+ Shared Hosting, but as soon as you come even near that amount storing your files they will contact you asking you to delete your files immediately, another webhost promised unlimited disk space, but if you use too much they will do the same or even worse, claiming that disk space cant be used to save files NOT RELATED to your hosted website, and backups etc... and NOT allowed, however we still see a lot of those hosting providers still do the same claim UNLIMITED DISK SPACE and what's really sad that a lot of clients take their word for granted, IMHO NO 4$/mo webhosting can allow you to use 1 TB+ Disk space and maintain those files every month, because they haven't invited a technology so far to with unlimited disk space or nearly infinite, i want to hear what do you guys think ??...

Click to expand...

"Unlimited" web hosts limit you by Inodes.

This is how big companies such as HostGator get away with it.

While they offer "unlimited" space, they "limit" your account to 100,000 Inodes (soft) and 250,000 Inodes (hard). Meaning once you reach these limits your account will no longer be able to function.

Unlimited disk, is just a marketing gimmick. There is always a limit .

"Unlimited" web hosts limit you by Inodes. Meaning once you reach these limits your account will no longer be able to function.

Click to expand...

Nobody can buy a disk called UNLIMITED GB ???

Click to expand...

unlimited hosting.....is a gimmick

Click to expand...

I selected these statements from different posts because they represent some of the most-often repeated erroneous characterizations of unlimited hosting. Moreover, some are downright ignorant. Allow me to straighten out these myths

First, limited hosts also use inode limits. For example there is a host in this very thread that imposes a 250,000 inode limit on all limited plans. Does that make all those plans gimmicks too? Second, "Unlimited" refers to the hosting plan. Inodes are not part of a hosting plan, thus unlimited plans do not include unlimited inodes. Similarly with CPU, RAM, etc. Third, unlimited refers to the quota of a resource, not the resource itself. Thus unlimited disk space does not refer to the physical drive, it refers to the amount of space allocated to a user. Forth, unlimited hosts also operate in a shared hosting context and must also maintain the stability of the shared hosting environment -- Unlimited & Limited hosts use the same TOS/AUP for the same purposes --- a customer with a 3GB limited plan that uses too much inodes, cpu or ram will be terminated just as fast if customer was on an unlimited plan. Does that make a 3 GB plan a gimmick?

To illustrate how unlimited plans work, compare an Unlimited Plan with a "limited" plan. Suppose a host has a 3 GB, 5 GB and 10 GB plan. You sign up for a 3 GB hosting plan. Now let's suppose your site size grows to 3.5 GB. What happens? The limited plan host will either:

1. Suspend your site when you hit the 3GB limit
   [*]Charge you a premium for going over the 3GB limit
2. Ask you to pay for the more expensive 5 GB plan, with a new bigger limit
3. All the above

What happens when you have an Unlimited Plans? Nothing! Your site goes from 3.0 GB to 3.5 GB without penalty, threats of suspension, or additional charges. That is what unlimited hosting is all about!

In conclusion: "Unlimited" refers to those items in a hosting plan marked as unlimited. That does not include inodes, cpu, ram, etc. If a web site is not suitable for a shared hosting environment, then there is no shared plan that will work -- limited or unlimited. Unlimited plans simply remove the telescoping quotas between multi-tiered shared hosting plans

The real issue is the average consumer has no idea how much disk space they need, so when they see 10GB vs Unlimited, they automatically assume they need unlimited, when in reality as already mentioned they need 50 - 200 MB.

We offered Unlimited plans for awhile and still have some clients on them. The main issue is, while you are attracting the client that has no idea about disk space, you are also are attacking the abuser, spammers, warez, etc clients. The clients that no one wants. This is why TOS limits have to be put into place. Otherwise before you know it, your server becomes a free for all and is storing encrypted rar files of warez and grandma's complete photo album which is bad for everyone.

Unlimited is a marketing ploy, just like in the cell phone industry. There will always be some type of catch behind the offering.

Well, it's not 100% true.

As others have stated, most companies will state in their TOS exactly how much space they'll offer per client and what they mean by "Unlimited."

Often times, it is not unlimited.

My advice would simply be to read each prospective web hosting provider's Terms of Service upfront, then ask lots of questions to clarify what they mean.

It's unlimited as long as you adhere to TOS. Most of the shared hosting company doesn't allow you streaming & file sharing.

As per my personal view disk-space can never be unlimited it is just used to get customer. Behind the scene there is always some limit on disk.

I will add my few points here

1) Physical Drive is never unlimited. There is no such hardware that will scale up as we need. So unlimited space is a fantasy ( with aup, fup, tos etc..)

2) Customers are never developers or system admins or tech know how users. So its obvious for them to assume that they need Gigabytes or storage to host their simple websites.

Majority of users will never use average disk space like 5 GB to 10GB for single website. People Seek unlimited space, because they think that they do not know space requirements, and unlimited space can cover anything.

3) If a customer hosts more than 4 websites on single shared hosting CPanel which is storing around say 20 GB space. The websites will start slowing down, because there will be limited CPU, RAM and Thread Processing capability. These are limits set per CPanel Account, so whenever someone starts hosting too many websites, that constantly need CPU and RAM even when idle. It Obviously start to slow down soon.

4) Shared hosting customers are those who count every cent. They want everything in low cost. Like they want CPanel, they want unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited everything. So the host have to oversell resources, its obvious that such hosting plans will never perform better. Even though technically limited hosting plans and unlimited hosting plans may have same level of AUP / FUP policy.

The major difference is, the end user knows the limits upfront in limited hosting upfront. Where as unlimited hosting those limits are hidden somewhere. They will write like, unlimited accounts are capped at 40 GB per account, this is hidden deep under in terms in small text. So this is not a transparent marketing.

On other hand, in limited hosting, you will see the limits upfront and there will be inode count in both cases. Suppose if your limited host allows 100,000 Inodes and you have 40 GB limited plan.

You clearly know that you can have maximum of 100,000 files in total that can be of 40 GB space (38.90 something exclusing file system). so its clear here.

Where as in unlimited hosting plan, the user still see inode limits ( if the hoster is honest) but most of the time, that unlimited peak limit is not know to end user or customer. Unless they see terms. So the problem is this unlimited customer keeps on adding files and someday his account gets suspended. Then he will come to know what is read physical drive limit of unlimited space.

I think, most you here understand the difference now. Limited hosting is like, you know how much of reserve gas is there in your car. So you drive keeping that in mind. Unlimited hosting is like, you assume that you gas tank is full and drive into forest, only to stop in a place where gas refulling is far away. Unlimited hosting is like driving blind folded.

5) Business wise, still majority of consumers prefer unlimited hosting, as they either do not care to listen to people who know how things work. Or still live in fallacy that unlimited hosting can exist in real world. It is like, if you drink coke or any softdrink, you know that is nothing but carbonated water with added cup of sugar. But still people prefer it over natural juice extracted from real fruits. So I think you now know, what works in the world.

Its marketing that works... people or customers are driven by marketing.. nobody really cares (majority) to get into details... at the end of the day.. What major people say, that wins...

Everyone know all 200 brands are owned by EIG, now go and tell someone using godaddy from say 5 years that bluehost / hostgator and godaddy are not good. And you will need to buy our server as we are not an EIG brand, do you think he / she cares to listen... never..

Lol... I think i typed too much.. but Hopefully it answers many of your questions here... Thanks.

To unlimited or not to unlimited I have heard about companies who stated unlimited plans and had hundreds of customers, while companies who provided limited resources had few clients. Which do you thinks is more beneficial limited clients or unlimited clients.

Unlimited disc space doesnt existing.

Everything has its limits.Its a marketing gimmick. The host is hoping the you will only use a small amount of disc space. It will even itself out as some people will use hardly anything and other will use more than they should or the host would hope. In the end it all sorts itself out but everything has its limits

There is not such thing as unlimited disk space. If you read the TOS if will say things like fair usage policy but they never tell you what that is so that if you use too much they can say your going against their fair usage policy. Another thing they like to do is put a file limit on the storage and once you hit the file limit your blocked from using more disk space.