Paysite 1st Month Bandwidth Usage

it all depends on the amount of content been served etc alot of different things no one can give you a specific amount.

true....let's say i have about 200gigs of content in the member's area. Excluding fhg traffic....how much bw would 200-250 members probably use?

You should be able to ask any decent host rep and they should have a pretty good idea

There are many variables that would need to be factored in here so it'd be difficult for anyone to give you a reliable answer unless they have lots of information about your sites, but I do understand your need to know so I will throw in my probably useless opinion. I doubt this'll be worth 2 cents though, but maybe 1 cent. I'll send you a bill for that later.

My sites have about that much content. I find that for every 100 members I move about 400 gigs of data per month. That's just me though. I would estimate that your usage will possibly be higher as I have lots of different content areas at my sites and I find people generally stick to certain areas rather than exploring everything available. That comes out at about 4 gigs per member. A friend of mine moves about 12 gigs a month per member on average yet he has tons of FHGs which he says accounts for a large percentage of that. I actually have very few FHG or affiliates either, so most of my bandwidth if actual members usage.

Thx for the great feedback!!! Well worth more then 1 cent

As you have a few members join, there is a way to control your bandwidth usage. You'll likely notice that just a few members use most of your bandwidth, downloading everything you have before cancelling their membership. Throttlebox (http://bettercgi.com/throttlebox) can help control these members so they can't get away with such behavior, wasting resources, etc.

food for thought, you might want to consider getting two servers...one for your paysite and one for you galleries. this way you can throttle the gallery server so you don't get killed on bandwidth overages if you push the galleries hard.

when i first started i had everything on a server that wasn't throttled. the first time one of my galleries got on "the hun" almost killed me! i had $1,800 in overage charges!

the second server was reasonable and that issue never happened again.

Wow thanks for the heads up

Great thread bump!

Yes, getting a second server for galleries is a great idea. Yet, if the expense is an issue, just start with one and move the galleries once bandwidth gets high. This is important not only to save money, but more importantly for keeping your membership sites loading fast as galleries will really slow things down.

What scripts do you use for multiple IP logins and other security features?

There are a ton of them on the market, pennywize, strongbox, etc. Many cms systems even have protection built in now sparta/carma etc.

As far as bandwidth, I find that most normal members are only hitting the server for 7-15 minutes on average.. Just long enough to get their member taken care of. Women on the other hand, stick around for about 20 minutes on average. I'm not sure if they are looking for the right content, or if they are just watching longer.

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10 mbps with that much content and that many members??? The question here is rather "how much water can you pump though a 1/8" pipe if someone sells you unlimited water?

I wouldn't be too concerned with a 10 mbps server about bandwith anyway. Mathematically you can't burn more than 3.200 GB if you hit the 10 mbps all the time. You cannot go past 1.1mbyte/s. In reality you probably can't use more than 1.600 GB/mo., also the system needs some juice too.

http://www.webair.com/hosting/bw.html

Let's not forget to add Password Sentry to that list. One time payment and you're done.

It's also important to watch your logs frequently. I check mine almost daily if not several times a day.

For "other security features" I hire a 3rd party security management team. Most months I think I'm wasting my money, but it just takes one problem to realize just how important they are. They monitor my server 24/7 and make adjustments to the server as needed. More importantly, if I have a stupid question or even need help installing a script, they are there day or night to handle it almost immediately. I also consult with them before I make any big changes to see how my plan might effect security.

I'm kind of curious though, you plan to have 200-250 members in the first month. That requires some know-how. I would think you'd know the answers to these questions if you have the know-how to get 200-250 members during your very first month.

Yet, I'm not a traffic person. I know about everything else, but that's the area I lack. People always talk about their ability to get tons of members instantly, but that's never been to case for me. My new sites start out at 0 members, then 1 joins after a day or so, maybe another the next day, yet another the next, etc. Almost always very slow growth. That's always been fine with me as growing even at just 1 member a day is some serious money over time. Yes, many cancel after the first month, but enough stay that within a year the sites making more than I would at many jobs. Add that income together with all the other sites I have and it works out ok.

Maybe we need to talk more privately. If you have the ability to get up to 250 members in one month, and I seem to know the answers to some simple questions, maybe we can help each other out.

That's probably how it is with everybody. Others aren't magicians either, even though many tell you stories about fairy tale conversion rates, etc. The only way I see to get 250 members/mo. is either

-to have some new kick-ass niche content and know where to advertise
-to buy tons of traffic
-to get tons of affiliates sign up.

But then, buying traffic costs money. With affiliates you stilll get stuck with all the costs and give them 40%-60% of the turnover, plus bandwith for hosted galleries, so what is better, 100 self acquired members or 250 through affiliates or bought traffic? I'd say in the end I'd go for 100 self acquired members.

Straight up truth I am hoping to get all those members thru gallery traffic = ). Sorry I can't tell you how exactly .

Thanks Jenny for the number! Good to hear 10mbps to start is more then enough

Actually, that was not my point. I was trying to tell you that bandwith with a 10mbps connection is naturally limited by the slow connection speed, so you don't have to be too concerened about overages. You can't use more transfer volume than what the connection allows.

If you really have 400 gigs of movie content with 250 members in one month a 10mbps connection may not cut it, because the server may get slow if 5 people suck down movies at the same time. I have 100 mbps connections and I don't have 400 gigs of content.

I also depends on the servers. When it comes to viewing loads of movies it is a big difference if you have a Celeron 2,6 with 512 MB or a Pentium4 3.0 with 2048 MB memory.

Thses are actually the little, dirty secrets of the server industry. You'll see that many pages of server providers are being wishy-washy about their hardware, and silent about connection speeds, because that's where you make or lose the money.
You can easily sell someone unlimited bandwith with a 10 mbps connection for 500 bucks, but yeah, sell me unlimited bandwith on a 100 mbps connection for that price, that would be a deal!

Gotcha

great thread bump = )