How To Compare Hosting Space Between Shared And Private Hosting Plans

Two of the most popular web hosting options are shared hosting (where hundreds of sites are hosted on the same server) and, VPS hosting. "Virtual Private Server" by its name already shows one of its major advantages that the VPS has over shared hosting -- privacy. But then web hosting is a commodity and the major elements of any web hosting plan are disk space and bandwidth.

Disk space is the space a customer have been allotted on the web server to store their website. Bandwidth is an amount a customer has available to transfer web pages from the web server to the browsers of visitors to their site. It is web pages and graphics that consume bandwidth or capacity on the web. Both bandwidth and disk space cost money.

All network lines that carry data around the web be it fiber optic, cable, or even copper wire among others, have finite capacity. There is always a limit to the amount of data that can be transferred at any point in time. The same way the hard drive of a web server has a limited amount of space determined by the physical size of the hard drive.

Many hosting companies claim to offer "unlimited" plans for both disk space and bandwidth but customers should be aware that there are physical limitations to both disk space and bandwidth.

With shared hosting, the provider is able to offer what seems to be a great amount of space because they are aware most people will never really use that much space. Let us say that a shared hosting offers 150GB/account and puts about 500 user accounts on a server. This might appear that they will put 75,000GB of disk drive on their server but, in reality, the web hosting service provider knows that most people will not use more than 2GB or so. This is why they can simply do with a much smaller disk drive of maybe 1000GB instead of the 75,000GB. Most people get dazzled with the 150GB/user ad being touted by shared hosting and never realize what is actually meant by it.

With VPS hosting, the customer is offered a good balance between total control (Root Access privilege) and an affordable budget. A VPS account is like operating a dedicated server. If a VPS hosting service provider offers 150GB per user, they must actually put 150GB of disk drive on the server that the provider is renting to the customer. Should the customer find that there is only 5GB free disk space on the server they are renting, they can complain that they are not getting the space that they paid for. And if the VPS hosting provider signs up 500 users, they will have to make sure that they provide 75,000GB of storage space.

Normally, because it appears that shared hosting offers more space for the customer, there is actually a limited space available depending on how many users are sharing the server. It can be illustrated as people living in an ordinary apartment building where they share parking space, an elevator and maybe even a pool. If things turn bad though, they may even share a virus.
The VPS method of splitting a server is more private. The cost may be higher but, with more responsibility as it has controls over the operating systems, configuration and firewalls. And because there are possibilities of others sharing the same server with a customer, the strict limits by the owner of the server protects customers.