When you start looking for a web hosting plan for your website, you need to select the type of hosting you want like Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, VPS Hosting, etc., pick a reliable provider, and determine the disk space and bandwidth needed by your site.
While many providers offering web hosting in India claim to offer unlimited bandwidth, there is usually a catch. In the dearth of enough bandwidth, your site’s performance can get impacted. In recent years, many site owners have started opting for Virtual Private Servers for their sites. If you are looking for VPS Hosting in India, then in this article, we will help you understand how to calculate the bandwidth requirements of your site.
When you buy VPS Server Hosting, your site resides on a virtual server. The web host uses server virtualization techniques to create several virtual servers from a single physical web server. This allows the host to allocate dedicated resources to each VPS and grant the user full root access. It also helps them ensure that every virtual server is isolated from the others. The architecture of a VPS Hosting service makes it a powerful hosting option.
What is hosting bandwidth?
Bandwidth is the speed with which you can transfer data from your server. A higher bandwidth implies faster loading websites and better connectivity. While on the topic of bandwidth, you also need to understand the concept of data transfer limits. Every hosting plan allows the site owner to transfer a certain amount of data every month. So, if the average size of your webpages is around 100kb and the host offers a 100MB data transfer limit, then you will be able to transfer data for 1000 pages in a month. However, how fast the transfer will take place will depend upon the bandwidth offered by the host.
Evaluating hosting bandwidth for your VPS Server
Bandwidth can be costly. Hence, instead of opting for a plan that offers the highest bandwidth, it is prudent to assess your site’s requirements and look for plans accordingly. Also, find VPS providers that offer scalability to increase bandwidth as your site grows. Here is how you can calculate how much bandwidth your site needs:
- Analyze your website and determine the average size of a webpage
- If your site is live, find the average number of site visitors per day. If you are launching your site, then try to determine the average visitors received by your competitors.
- Do the same to find the average number of pages viewed per site visitor
You can calculate the required bandwidth by using the following formula:
Required Bandwidth = Average page Size x Average Page Views per month x Average Daily Visitors
While this will give you an idea of the bandwidth requirements of your site, before buying a hosting plan, you must also factor in traffic spikes and growth. While every business is different, usually, site owners add 50 per cent to the required bandwidth figure. This gives them enough space to cover for an unexpected increase in site traffic.
Evaluating bandwidth with redundancy but without user downloads
Here is the formula to calculate hosting bandwidth to include redundancy without user downloads:
Required Bandwidth = (Average number of Page Views per Visitor) x (Average size of a webpage on your site) x (Average number of site visitors per day) x (Redundancy Factor between 1.3 and 1.8) x Number of days in a month (30)
Evaluating bandwidth with redundancy and user downloads
Here is the formula to calculate hosting bandwidth to include redundancy and user downloads:
Required Bandwidth = {[(Average number of Page Views per Visitor) x (Average size of a webpage on your site) x (Average number of site visitors per day)] + [(Average downloads per day) x (Average size of a downloaded file)]} x (Redundancy Factor) x Number of days in a month (30)
You can also check out the following video to understand your website bandwidth requirements:
Summing Up
If you find it too technical, then employ the assistance of a professional to calculate the required bandwidth. Remember, even if you choose the best VPS Hosting plan, having adequate bandwidth allows you to ensure uninterrupted site services to your customers.