I am very worry about disk space and bandwidth , I hosted a Simple Machine Forum at Trap17 and I need help . If my forum the more topics and posts created by members the more disk space/bandwidth I lose , is that right ? Somebody please answer me , thank you very much

If you're not clear with the definition of Bandwidth in internet terms:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth

Disk space is determined by how much you have in your hosting account, bandwidth usage is determined by how many page views, downloads etc your visitors perform. The more visitors sees your page, the higher bandwidth usage you'll see.

You have SMF board but 5GB bandwidth per month is not enough? Wow, your forum must be very good then You can track of your actual bandwidth by using Bandwidth analyzer under cPanel.

All these questions and other basic information about your hosting are answered in Trap17 Readme. Please search before making a redundant topic post.

Thank you , BuffaloHELP , I understand bandwidth clearly now but still confuse at disk space , can you explain more about Disk Space ? The more file I upload to cPanel the more Disk Space I will lose or something ? Sorry , I checked at Trap17 Read Me but seems I can't find any info about Disk Space and Bandwidth.

You get around 150 MB in your default package. As you have mentioned that you are running a forum, it will usually take some space around 20 MB initially .

First up, you dont upload anything to your cpanel !!!! You upload files on to the server via the cpanels file manager .. Say, just like you burn files from your hard disk to your CD via a program like Nero ..
The cpanel is just like Nero here... It is a program which allows you to transfer files from your hard disk to the server where your site gets hosted. You can use your cpanel for lots of other functions as well ...

From then on, the disk space you use, gets on increasing whenever you upload a file via ftp or file manager . The posts your user posts does add up to the disk space as,whatever gets added is added on to your
disk space ... But as a matter of fact, the posts that users post does not affect your Disk space much .. In fact it would be very little and negligible if you are under the 150 MB plan.

So , unless you upload additional files say, your personal data, zip files, etc.,, your disk space available would probably be sufficient for you . And if you are keen on running a single forum alone, without any uploading of additional files on to your account space, i suggest you stop worrying about any of these issues .

Unless you upload miscellaneous files, your forum gets a lot of traffic, or there are many posts on your forum, the the second level package here (with 150 MB disk space and 5 GB bandwidth) should be enough. Each post is stored as plain text in the MySQL database which uses up not a ton of space; but installing lots of mods or having many other files will use up your space. Worst comes to worst, you could sign up for even one of the cheapest paid plans, which will provide you with sufficient storage.

I think buffalo took care of the question here. Thread closed.