Why is Hosted Disk Space So Expensive?

dhclab49 asks: "Recently, I wrote a data-driven web application for a customer, and when it came time for them to select a hosting company, what I found was that most hosting companies charge a LOT for disk space. Most of them have accounts for $10-$30 per month, a bit more if you add in a database account. However, they almost all limit you to around 250MB of disk space, with extra space costing like $1/month per additional MB of storage. The app I wrote manages the customer's workflow and is meant to allow them to generate PDF documents and store them online, so I really need a few gigs. In an era where hard disks cost about a buck a gig and are getting cheaper by the day, how can hosting companies charge $1000 per gigabyte per YEAR?! And are there any alternatives out there for hosting a data-driven website at a reliable datacenter with a few GB of space for under $500/mo?"

Comments

why?

[Tumbleweed]

Because they CAN, that's why.

Your solution: Co-Location! Mmm, co-looooo...the very word makes my tummy quiver. :)

Also note - if you're storing files that big, you're probably, oh, I don't know, transferring them, too - so watch out for those bandwidth fees - they're a killer!

Uhhh.....

[smoondog]

Contrary to popular belief, disk space can be expensive and fast, big disks are really expensive. While IDE family of hard drives are very, very cheap and quite large, they aren't very good for high volume server applications. Instead of going to pricewatch, go to dell.com and price out a big net appliance disk with a fast interconnect. Hmm, a quick check shows a dell 770N net attached storage box at $14K with only 800 Gigs (raw). Hosting (hosing?) many domains on a single computer is going to require really fast disk, not just a single 5400 rpm drive....

-Sean

Home storage vs enterprise storage.

[Zapman]

You're used to 'home storage' prices. Look at pricewatch, find a good brand of EIDE, and just get it.

They're looking at 'enterprise storage'. We have 11 tera of raw disk on an EMC. It cost $2 million. The useable storage out of it is around 3-4 tera, after counting mirroring, and third mirror break off for backups, etc, etc, etc.

These drives use MCA (iirc) interconnects to a disk backplane, and fiber channel interconnects between disk boards and the front end san switch. The computers are fiber connected into the san switch as well, and the JNI cards (client end of a SAN connection) for this are NOT cheep.

To Online storage companies, downtime costs serious money. They can't afford the downtime. That's why their storage costs real money. Then they pass it on to you.

If you need real amounts of data, you don't want a hosting service, you want a CoLo service (They give you rack space, and an internet connection. You provide the box). If you want, you can put a desktop with 2x140 gb drives, and you'll get what reliability you can out of it (most IDE drives are warrenteed for 1 year for a reason). If you want the thing to last, get a server class, rack mountable server from (dell|compaq|ibm|penguin computers). You'll be happy you did. Mirror the drives (preferably in hardware) so you can loose a disk without killing your service.

Re:cost of backup + admin?

[BrynM]

The most important thing to remember is uptime. It's the business of these companies to make your data available to you. This means redundancy, uninteruptable power supplies, dedicated bandwidth, monitoring, phone support.... You get the point. Hosting and data storage companies are a lot more than your buddy down the street throwing an extra drive on his DSL line. When looking at a host, remember what else they do and compare that. You can get quite a bang for the buck(s).