Limited and unlimited transfer. Which one should I choose? How does it work?
Hosting companies that sell or lease servers always specify in their offer the transfer parameters.
In this article, we will try to explain what a transfer is, what it is used for and how its parameters affect the quality and performance of our websites.
Server providers more and more often present server offers with unlimited transfer. We will investigate and explain if this transfer is unlimited and suggest which one wil lbe better for you.
Limited transfer
The transfer limit presented in the server hosting offer is precisely defined and, depending on the plan, can be increased accordingly. Most companies specify the transfer limit, which usually is sufficient for an average user. In the most basic offers, it’s about 1 TB or 10 TB per month.
When choosing an offer, one should be paying attention to the procedures and rules applied ina case of limit overrun, or if the customer wants to increase it. It is good to know the regulations applied whenever the limit is overrun.
Some service providers will send warnings and notifications whenever the server is close its limits or has already exceeded them. Some companies, however, not only do not warn their users but disable or even block the services.
Many service providers claim that the limited transfer is beneficial for their users for example for shared hosting. Due to limits, the purchased and contracted transfer speed is guaranteed and unaffected by the actions of other server users.
The limitations protect from an excessive load of the connection or network infrastructure by the individual users, which could harm the others. Some server providers even have penalty rates for exceeding the declared transfer limit, usually described in the terms of use.
Unlimited transfer
The unlimited transfer is becoming more and more popular in the hosting market and, as a result, several server providers started to offer servers without a transfer limit. How does it work in practice?
The unlimited transfer is the amount of data sent or received in an unrestricted way.
There may be some confusion going on: while it is dependent on the Internet connection, the transfer itself is the data that the page sends and receive; meanwhile, its speed is determined by how fast the broadband is. We could compare it to people traveling in a train: the passengers are the transfer, and while they do not determine the train’s speed, it defines how fast they will travel.
When you're deciding on an offer with the unlimited transfer that is provided by a hosting company you should pay special attention to the speed and bandwidth of links.
They will determine the actual amount of content that we will be able to send. It is also worth remembering that high connection speed cannot be guaranteed: the fact that the company provides, for example, a 100 Mbps Internet connection does not mean we could use that much.
It is because on the way between the server and the client there are routers, switches, and network hubs, that can slow down the data transfer speed. In our passenger-train analogy, they would be stations, switches, and depots. So, the actual transfer of a 100 Mbps connectionwill oscillate between 80 and 100 Mbps.
It is also important to read the terms and conditions, and, above all, to pay an attention to the asterisks in their offers. It is not uncommon that a company claims to offer unlimited transfer with a speed of 100 Mbps. However, once a certain amount of data has been sent, the connection gets slowed down to 10 Mbps. In other words, it means that you will be only able to transfer 5 TB of data with the fast 100 Mbps connection. After using 5 TB, the connection will be slowed down to 10 Mbps.
Let's use a train analogy; the train has carried 5,000 passengers for x amount of time while traveling 250 kilometers per hour. However, when passenger number 5,001 and each subsequent passenger tries to ride it, the train will only travel at 25 kilometers per hour. Of course, there are also offers without stars that offer unlimited transfer regardless of the connection speed like in Mevspace.
It also should be noted that even if the transfer is unlimited, the amount of data a server can send and receive depends on the technology available.
With a connection of 80 – 100 Mbps fast, at most 26 – 30.89 TB of data can be transferred in a single month. This volume changes accordingly as the speed of the link increases. In the case of an 800 - 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps) link, between 260 and 300 TB of data can be sent per month.
Which one should I choose?
Like with your server’s other specifications, it all depends on your needs and traffic to your website. With today’s technology, even the plans with limited transfer have decent parametersand most of the time is sufficient for individual users.
However, the very fact that it is limited means you must remember about it, calculate, and estimate the amount of used data so you don’t exceed it, and endanger yourself with a possible penalty.
Unlimited transfer in Mevspace
Mevspace offers unlimited transfer in all dedicated server plans. Our offer is clear, transparent, and straightforward: our transfer is unlimited, and we will never slow you down, no matter how much data your server will send and receive.
It is worth remembering, that even unlimited bandwidth has its limitations if it is shared among other users. The maximum speed, depending on the traffic, may not always be achievable.