Hi, A few thoughts on bandwidth........DO NOT underestimate the importance of this key term.
how much traffic they may expect >>> if your site offers something a bit different people will come from far and wide to browse your images. My new site is in its infancy at the moment but in its first few weeks of officially launching, the site recieved over 4000 hits on photographs, from over 300 unique visitors in 20+ countries. I never expected it to be found let alone surfed so heavily.
how much bandwidth and >>> i set my site up for archival purposes only @ first so thought i would only need a few mb of bandwidth a month. The site is a hobby but thought I may as well offer the images for purchase if they are going on the web. Fortunately the webhost i went with UKhost4U offers 25,000Mb of webspace @ no extra cost...boy am i glad i did not go for a company who offers 500mb of bandwidth (many UK hosts do only offer this much). I estimate needing 2-4Gb of bandwidth (data transfer per month) for the 1st year, rising to 5-10Gb if the site continues to grow at its current rate. (this figure is based on images of no more than 90kb in size. If you are using high res images, double this allocation.
webspace they may need >>> i currently display over 700 images on my site, yet only consume 100Mb of webspace, optimse your images well and you wont need much space here. My SQL database space allocation is 100Mb yet i only use 1.25Mb.
Other info:
Using a database driven gallery will make dealing with large volumes of images much easier and more efficient.
Make sure your host offers SQL databases, PHP and SSI. Many only offer these at additional cost, I currently use 4 SQL databases but have unlimited available. (@ no extra cost)
Sign up to Photographysites.com, i get a consistent number of hits from visitors to their site every week.
Hope this is of some use.
Regards
Dave
http://www.daveimaging.co.uk
Last edited on Mon Feb 21st, 2005 12:15 pm by DaveImaging
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