If you're going to be dealing with video you'll be using a lot of bandwith if your site gets a good amount of visitors. I've had a few hosting companies in the last few years:

Serverbeach.com: The best low-priced dedicated hosting company on the web IMO. I currently have an Athlon64 dedicated server for my sites. They provide a very large amount of bandwith (2000 gigs a month). Currently this costs me $200 a month, but I have a lot of freedom now.

Bluehost.com: Very very good for the price. You'll get a fast server with a good amount of bandwith. The cons are disk space and processor cycles as they limit you on how much you can use. If your site gets large you'll find that bluehost doesn't allow you to use more than 15% of the CPU on the server (which makes sense since its shared hosting). We're talking less than $10 a month though.

1and1.com: slightly cheaper dedicated hosting, but very poor service. It took them 3 weeks to get a server up for me and the server was very unstable. I didn't even have my largest site moved to it before it started crashing regularly. I didn't install any software on it either and used what it came with (Fedora Core 2). Avoid them.

Interland.com: Excellent support, but they aren't cheap. We used them at one of my previous jobs and they were just fine. I'd avoid them if you don't have lots of money to put towards hosting though.

I haven't heard much good about godaddy. I've avoided them so far.

If you want lots of bandwidth for videos, I'd definitely check out Dreamhost. Doubt you'll run out of that very fast. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I'm actually hoping to switch over to there soon.

I have a dedicated box with domaingurus.com, excellent service, was setup in less than a day. 59$ month.

ive been extremely happy with them so far. check em out.

its

Use iPowerWeb for several site. Very affordable. Lots of built in goodies. Service is Ok.

Thanks for the hosting provider related answers, but is there anyone that can give some insight to my "bandwidth" and "hd storage" questions?

Thanks,

Trevor

Nobody can know that except you. The more visitors you have, the more bandwidth you'll need. The more videos you have on there, the more disk space you need. Do some calculating...Find out on average how much space your videos take and multiply that by how many you plan to keep online, then add some room for images and other files. As far as bandwidth goes, I imagine that will constantly be changing. As you start out you probably won't need a ton, but as your traffic gets higher you'll need more and more (especially if you're hosting videos...everytime somebody views it that's a lot out of your bandwidth).

Just a tip: be extremely hesitant about too good to be true offers when it comes to bandwidth - they often (9 times out of 10) are.

http://www.godsweb.co.uk

They have unlimited hd storage space and good deals on bandwidth - if you over-run on one category, you can just upgrade your bandwidth to the next deal up, no admin fees.

What do you think of dreamhost.com They have a special right now for $15 per month and you get 1.5 Terabytes of bandwidth per month, plus 60 gig storage. A guy I know uses them for his site and has been happy, so I may go with them.

I wouldn't feel comfortable dealing with anyone overseas. I know it's the "net" and maybe it doesn't really matter, but if they can be on the same continent, it's just easier to deal with them (usually). You know, timezones and long distance calls and whatever. If I could get an awesome hosting company local to me, I would, except all the ones here in Vancouver aren't that cheap.

Cheers,

Trevor

Have you checked Doteasy? They are based in Vancouver and are who I use for hosting. They have worked well, though I don't have to deal with high bandwidth.

Thanks for the link macfoto! That actually looks pretty good - they have a $20 per month plan that gives you 20 gigs storage and unlimited bandwidth. I'm going to inquire with a web friend and see if he's heard anything about them.

Cheers,

Trevor

And as one aspect of minding sunshine's tip, be careful to read the small print. A friend signed up for hosting with a very well known internet email provider, and didn't notice that the nice per-month fee would be increased about double after 6 months.

I root for dreamhost! /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

I have had my 3 websites hosted on them for a few months short of a year now... I have been very happy with their service.

Only downside is their support isn't always very fast.

Sorry about the UK link. It was a momentary black out of the fact this is a mainly American forum. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />